2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

[flanker]

This is what the rest of the world has to deal with.

- Girls, is it hard to train figure skating?
- No.
- No.
- No.
- Does it hurt to fall?
- No.
- No.
- No.
- Not even a little bit?
- Only if you fall on your head.

Those girls are like hardened soldiers. You wouldn't want to meet them in the dark alley alone

 

[JazzUp]

The Minister of Sports of Russia Oleg Matytsin summed up the results of the team tournament of the Russian national figure skating team:

“I believe that this format contributes to the promotion of this sport, the creation of modern models and allows athletes and coaches to give joy - there were a lot of fans in the stands.

I believe that the FFKR is going in the absolutely right direction, proposing new forms of competition. It seems to me that both the coaches and the athletes enjoyed it. Someone was upset, we know, but this is a sport - there is always one winner.”

 

[JazzUp]

"Don't touch me - I won't stink".


...Gorshkov after the press-conference:

 

[Dawn825]

Anya Shcherbakova not only is a lovely child with grace and quads, but also has a perfect upbringing, a noble one, without a slightest trace of arrogance.

I'm confused. You're responding to a comment about not putting skaters on a pedestal. Unless you're Anna's parents, you have no idea whether she's had a "perfect upbringing", wtvr that is, or whether she's the only human being in the world without a trace of arrogance. Comments like these are so silly to me. Lots of these skaters are probably nice and humble, but you don't know them literally at all and no one has a perfect temperament.

 

[Dawn825]

Those girls are like hardened soldiers. You wouldn't want to meet them in the dark alley alone

I'm not diminishing their toughness but just an anecdote. I skated as a kid and obviously fell all the time and got right back up. Then I went skating as a 23 year old and fell once. I didn't break anything, but I full on cried in front of everyone, couldn't get up by myself, limped around for a week. and haven't been brave enough to get back on since. Falling as a kid does not hurt.

 

[Scott512]

seeding Anna and Sasha rather than Anna and Kamila after nationals played out the way it did was shady, and then Alina getting first pick for both singles disciplines which tend to have the most potential for large gaps in scoring. There were two less pairs so Evgenia’s chance to gain a similar an advantage in that discipline was mitigated.

It has all been pointed out in this thread and yes I do believe it was intentional. RusFed is all about the Eteri show and Alina is the face of Team Eteri. Anna and Kamila are their best two skaters.

I was surprised that Evgenia was surprised to be honest. I thought she had to be aware of all of this and was planning on just rolling with it for her check. It’s pretty obvious, only their hardcore fans don’t see what’s going on (or pretend not to).

seeding Anna and Sasha rather than Anna and Kamila after nationals played out the way it did was shady, and then Alina getting first pick for both singles disciplines which tend to have the most potential for large gaps in scoring. There were two less pairs so Evgenia’s chance to gain a similar an advantage in that discipline was mitigated.

It has all been pointed out in this thread and yes I do believe it was intentional. RusFed is all about the Eteri show and Alina is the face of Team Eteri. Anna and Kamila are their best two skaters.

I was surprised that Evgenia was surprised to be honest. I thought she had to be aware of all of this and was planning on just rolling with it for her check. It’s pretty obvious, only their hardcore fans don’t see what’s going on (or pretend not to).

I don't know Bluex. Sasha beat KV in the Russian cup series event they skated in together and Sasha has a much longer resume for obvious reasons she's 2 years older. In the end fair minded people can say that Kamila became one of the difference makers in the final outcome. But if she fell a couple times the outcome may very well as the different. That's sports and that's life.

As one of the few here who is an equally big fan of both captains this ended up being a very close competition. They should have been clear about the draw from the start so no one got caught by surprise.

I also think it's fair to say that Zbenya had the slightly better rosters in 3 of the 4 disciplines. Agree?

It was a great team competition I hope they tweak the process a little bit and have it again next year maybe the close out after the world championships. It would be a great way to end an Olympic season and it would be faster of like this one was it will be exciting like this 1 was and I hope it happens. I took this more as a celebration of figure skating and Russian figure skating in particular.

I will also say I don't like these 2 captains any less than I used to because of what took place at the team event. They are not perfect. Neither am I.

 

[Scott512]

And maybe this needs to be said - one girl is not a perfect 'angel' and the other is not a 'devil'. No one is perfect. Alina's made plenty of mistakes. And she gets called out on them. Remember when she was driving without a license with her dad in the car and posted it in her IG stories? Not only did that 'discussion' go on to the point of mental exhaustion on every fs related social media forum (in three languages), a police report was filed.

Alina's 18. She makes mistakes. She's going to make more of them. I just happen to believe this moment at the press conference was not a mistake on her part. This is my opinion. I could be wrong. It may prove to be a problem for her. I guess it remains to be seen how it all plays out in the end. I think she'll be fine no matter what.

Perfectly stated.

A police report against AZ? They are tough in Russia when they want to be.

I think it was a fun team event. But its disappointing that some people's feelings got hurt over what transpired. The next 2 captains need to be Yulia and Adelina.

 

[FelineFairy]

This discussion of the press conference is really a bit strange, although the majority of contributions have a lot of truth and logic in them. But the topic of discussion, criticizing words said after an emotional competition, makes me wonder. Is it necessary to love an athlete as a person to enjoy his/her skating? Well, of course there are cases when the athlete commits a crime, but here nobody did. Personalities can differ, what is more there rarely are Renaissance-type people who combine athleticism and good education. The 17-y.o skaters who passed their exams with flying colours in summer are few and far between as we could see from the published scores. Gumennik, for instance, Boikova, not as excellent, but still good. And that's it. Chen a year ago, as an example from other countries. I hope Anna will also be one of the exceptions, but we still have to see. You can definitely conclude something about the athlete's education, upbringing and personality from his words and behaviour if you manage to watch several long full interviews, but not from a couple of words in a press conference, unless you just want to see if the person is well-spoken. All the rest might be a delusion. A person seeming humble may be just not too bright, a person seeming impertinent may just be overexcited. Besides, if you enjoy the skills of skater A, if his art makes you cry, will it change your attitude if you find out he is stingy, pushy, dumb and tactless? Or would you prefer watching pedestrian performances by skater B if you happen to know the athlete as a really good friend, straight A student and warm person?

 

[flanker]

I'm not diminishing their toughness but just an anecdote. I skated as a kid and obviously fell all the time and got right back up. Then I went skating as a 23 year old and fell once. I didn't break anything, but I full on cried in front of everyone, couldn't get up by myself, limped around for a week. and haven't been brave enough to get back on since. Falling as a kid does not hurt.

You do know what hyperbole means
C'mon, it was a joke.

 

[brakes]

This discussion of the press conference is really a bit strange, although the majority of contributions have a lot of truth and logic in them. But the topic of discussion, criticizing words said after an emotional competition, makes me wonder. Is it necessary to love an athlete as a person to enjoy his/her skating? Well, of course there are cases when the athlete commits a crime, but here nobody did. Personalities can differ, what is more there rarely are Renaissance-type people who combine athleticism and good education. The 17-y.o skaters who passed their exams with flying colours in summer are few and far between as we could see from the published scores. Gumennik, for instance, Boikova, not as excellent, but still good. And that's it. Chen a year ago, as an example from other countries. I hope Anna will also be one of the exceptions, but we still have to see. You can definitely conclude something about the athlete's education, upbringing and personality from his words and behaviour if you manage to watch several long full interviews, but not from a couple of words in a press conference, unless you just want to see if the person is well-spoken. All the rest might be a delusion. A person seeming humble may be just not too bright, a person seeming impertinent may just be overexcited. Besides, if you enjoy the skills of skater A, if his art makes you cry, will it change your attitude if you find out he is stingy, pushy, dumb and tactless? Or would you prefer watching pedestrian performances by skater B if you happen to know the athlete as a really good friend, straight A student and warm person?

For me, an athlete might be a total jerk/fool outside the sport and I'd still be able to worship his/her sporting excellence. It's obviously nicer to support a decent human, but I've had gushed over some athletes, whom I wouldn't like to spend time or even meet with.
Still, denying obvious defeat or expecting opponent to be kept out of competition are things from inside the sport. Things I can't support.

 

[FelineFairy]

For me, an athlete might be a total jerk/fool outside the sport and I'd still be able to worship his/her sporting excellence. It's obviously nicer to support a decent human, but I've had gushed over some athletes, whom I wouldn't like to spend time or even meet with.
Still, denying obvious defeat or expecting opponent to be kept out of competition are things from inside the sport. Things I can't support.

I don' t support bad sportsmanship either. I just ignore it. Good sportsmanship doesn't tell anything of personalities, either. Have you ever watched a tennis match? Or a press conference after it? If everyone discussed so ardently what tennis players do or say being frustrated, every single tennis player in the world would be hated. And tennis is not a contact sport, like soccer or even cross country skiing where they fight and cheat all the time. I just can't see how figure skating is different. They are very young people, very competitive, most of them hardly seeing anything apart from ice rink and Instagram, very few of them happen to be educated, and IMHO their personalities are not to be judged by sweet smiles or behaviour during award ceremony or angry words.

 

[TripleAxelQueens3]

I think it was a fun team event. But its disappointing that some people's feelings got hurt over what transpired. The next 2 captains need to be Yulia and Adelina.

I want Yulia and Elena Radionova but I doubt it.

 

[dante]

I'm confused. You're responding to a comment about not putting skaters on a pedestal. Unless you're Anna's parents, you have no idea whether she's had a "perfect upbringing", wtvr that is, or whether she's the only human being in the world without a trace of arrogance. Comments like these are so silly to me. Lots of these skaters are probably nice and humble, but you don't know them literally at all and no one has a perfect temperament.

Sorry, what do you mean, exactly? Do you think I implied that most people are arrogant?

 

[nussnacker]

This discussion of the press conference is really a bit strange, although the majority of contributions have a lot of truth and logic in them. But the topic of discussion, criticizing words said after an emotional competition, makes me wonder. Is it necessary to love an athlete as a person to enjoy his/her skating? Well, of course there are cases when the athlete commits a crime, but here nobody did. Personalities can differ, what is more there rarely are Renaissance-type people who combine athleticism and good education. The 17-y.o skaters who passed their exams with flying colours in summer are few and far between as we could see from the published scores. Gumennik, for instance, Boikova, not as excellent, but still good. And that's it. Chen a year ago, as an example from other countries. I hope Anna will also be one of the exceptions, but we still have to see. You can definitely conclude something about the athlete's education, upbringing and personality from his words and behaviour if you manage to watch several long full interviews, but not from a couple of words in a press conference, unless you just want to see if the person is well-spoken. All the rest might be a delusion. A person seeming humble may be just not too bright, a person seeming impertinent may just be overexcited. Besides, if you enjoy the skills of skater A, if his art makes you cry, will it change your attitude if you find out he is stingy, pushy, dumb and tactless? Or would you prefer watching pedestrian performances by skater B if you happen to know the athlete as a really good friend, straight A student and warm person?

Have you heard about death of the author? Your thinking is essentially something in line of what Roland Barthes wrote about: the author and their creation are unrelated.
I agree with that to a degree, and at times I don’t. Sometimes I can’t separate what the author has said publicly when reading their book, and it makes an impression on me, and likely I won’t be able to look at the book I read with the same eyes once I’ve heard what that author said.
One author, I used to love, has written some things on Twitter which disappointed me, and although I used to think my kids will read the books of said author, now I think it would be better if they didn’t.

Same happened with movies to me, and it is the same in sport. I think Djoko is a very talented player, but some things he said publicly last year have really changed my impression of him, and I just can’t watch him with the same eyes as before.

So to me, yes, the art/sport and the person sometimes are not separable.
It is a very good topic for debate, but ultimately, sometimes one cannot force themselves to ignore some things they’ve heard and look at the creation of that person without thinking about what that person has said or done. It depends, for each and everyone it is different, but it’s not a subject of where one can dictate the other how to perceive things, and whether separating the art from the person is something that is the right thing to do.

I don’t agree with the culture that demands famous people to be absolutely spotless and perfect, never make a mistake and live a picture perfect life, but I also cannot push myself to ignore some of the things they do sometimes, when watching/reading. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes it does.

 

[Finley]

I'm confused. You're responding to a comment about not putting skaters on a pedestal. Unless you're Anna's parents, you have no idea whether she's had a "perfect upbringing", wtvr that is, or whether she's the only human being in the world without a trace of arrogance. Comments like these are so silly to me. Lots of these skaters are probably nice and humble, but you don't know them literally at all and no one has a perfect temperament.

I don't think Dante meant to imply that any of the skater's are perfect. That's exactly the opposite of what Dante posted.

All we have to go on is what we see and the way Anna conducts herself in public. Based on what we've seen there is every reason to believe that Anna was very well brought up and has a very good temperament. She has never displayed anything like arrogance. She is very courteous and respectful. Even when she is tired or disappointed or not feeling well. My impression is that she is very even keeled and humble.

My only criticism of Anna is don't be so hard on yourself for mistakes. Then again, that's part of who she is as a skater.

Dante, forgive me if I have misinterpreted anything you wrote.

 

[lopsilceci]

Have you heard about death of the author? Your thinking is essentially something in line of what Roland Barthes wrote about: the author and their creation are unrelated.
I agree with that to a degree, and at times I don’t. Sometimes I can’t separate what the author has said publicly when reading their book, and it makes an impression on me, and likely I won’t be able to look at the book I read with the same eyes once I’ve heard what that author said.
One author, I used to love, has written some things on Twitter which disappointed me, and although I used to think my kids will read the books of said author, now I think it would be better if they didn’t.

Same happened with movies to me, and it is the same in sport. I think Djoko is a very talented player, but some things he said publicly last year have really changed my impression of him, and I just can’t watch him with the same eyes as before.

So to me, yes, the art/sport and the person sometimes are not separable.
It is a very good topic for debate, but ultimately, sometimes one cannot force themselves to ignore some things they’ve heard and look at the creation of that person without thinking about what that person has said or done. It depends, for each and everyone it is different, but it’s not a subject of where one can dictate the other how to perceive things, and whether separating the art from the person is something that is the right thing to do.

I don’t agree with the culture that demands famous people to be absolutely spotless and perfect, never make a mistake and live a picture perfect life, but I also cannot push myself to ignore some of the things they do sometimes, when watching/reading. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes it does.

I agree with this, and also I think that it's one thing when someone does or says something wrong and impulsive in a stressful situation but when someone behaves in a particular way over and over and over, that's different and it does reveal something about their real character.

 

[Skatesocs]

I am not sure if what they are arguing is The Death of The Author. To my understanding, La mort de l'auteur argues against unwinding the interpretation of a work with the biographical context and/or intentions of the author in our mind in the first place - something that places a limit on the interpretation of the work.

Opinions on the authors as people letting us enjoy the work is separate from that, IMO. The Death of The Author would be more like "skater x said their program is about flowers blooming - but I instead viewed it as the sun rising".

 

[Scott512]

I want Yulia and Elena Radionova but I doubt it.

I would take that as well there are a lot of great options.

 

[lappo]

This discussion of the press conference is really a bit strange, although the majority of contributions have a lot of truth and logic in them. But the topic of discussion, criticizing words said after an emotional competition, makes me wonder. Is it necessary to love an athlete as a person to enjoy his/her skating? Well, of course there are cases when the athlete commits a crime, but here nobody did. Personalities can differ, what is more there rarely are Renaissance-type people who combine athleticism and good education. The 17-y.o skaters who passed their exams with flying colours in summer are few and far between as we could see from the published scores. Gumennik, for instance, Boikova, not as excellent, but still good. And that's it. Chen a year ago, as an example from other countries. I hope Anna will also be one of the exceptions, but we still have to see. You can definitely conclude something about the athlete's education, upbringing and personality from his words and behaviour if you manage to watch several long full interviews, but not from a couple of words in a press conference, unless you just want to see if the person is well-spoken. All the rest might be a delusion. A person seeming humble may be just not too bright, a person seeming impertinent may just be overexcited. Besides, if you enjoy the skills of skater A, if his art makes you cry, will it change your attitude if you find out he is stingy, pushy, dumb and tactless? Or would you prefer watching pedestrian performances by skater B if you happen to know the athlete as a really good friend, straight A student and warm person?

To be honest, unfortunately I'm one of those people who has to like the athlete (or, at least, not to be bothered too much by him/her) to enjoy their skating fully. In other cases, when for some reasons I didn't appreciate how they present themselves to the world (for example in their interactions with fans, other skaters or in their interviews), I find it difficult to enjoy their performances as athletes. One example: I don't like Ashley Wagner's whole persona, what for other is "sassy" comes across as unbearable to me so I don't particularly enjoy watching her performances. That's not to say that she is a bad person, she is probably as sweet and great as they come in real life and I'm probably missing a lot with my prejudices.
That said, I think you put too much emphasis in good education as something that makes a person good. From my experience (I work in academia) it is not necessarily so: my ex director of research was one of the highest ranked specialist of the world in his field, one of the most erudite and intelligent person I ever met yet he was also one of the most despicable human being I ever had the displeasure of knowing.

 

[FelineFairy]

Have you heard about death of the author? Your thinking is essentially something in line of what Roland Barthes wrote about: the author and their creation are unrelated.
I agree with that to a degree, and at times I don’t. Sometimes I can’t separate what the author has said publicly when reading their book, and it makes an impression on me, and likely I won’t be able to look at the book I read with the same eyes once I’ve heard what that author said.
One author, I used to love, has written some things on Twitter which disappointed me, and although I used to think my kids will read the books of said author, now I think it would be better if they didn’t.

Same happened with movies to me, and it is the same in sport. I think Djoko is a very talented player, but some things he said publicly last year have really changed my impression of him, and I just can’t watch him with the same eyes as before.

So to me, yes, the art/sport and the person sometimes are not separable.
It is a very good topic for debate, but ultimately, sometimes one cannot force themselves to ignore some things they’ve heard and look at the creation of that person without thinking about what that person has said or done. It depends, for each and everyone it is different, but it’s not a subject of where one can dictate the other how to perceive things, and whether separating the art from the person is something that is the right thing to do.

I don’t agree with the culture that demands famous people to be absolutely spotless and perfect, never make a mistake and live a picture perfect life, but I also cannot push myself to ignore some of the things they do sometimes, when watching/reading. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes it does.

Oh yes, I am thinking along these lines. My perception is exactly that - I don't give a *** what kind of person the writer is. Otherwise all the classic Russian (as an example only) literature would be impossible to read.