Anna Tsareva must not have enough political pull as a coach, or her student, who was brilliant today, would've scored higher. Poor girl just didn't understand why her score wasn't in the 70s, based on her reaction.
Zakharova? Have to disagree here, I guess. I never found anything too special about her skating and her jumps often seem very heavy to me. Muravieva, Zhilina and Petrosyan, who she skated against today, all stand out more in some way or another imo. So a difference between them is justifiable.
Some thoughts on the Russian ladies today:
Muravieva‘s skating was never really my cup of tea since she seemed too frantic for me. However, she‘s improved quite a bit on that since last year and I enjoy watching her more and more. Beautiful expressiveness. I hope she somehow manages to win Silver tomorrow because I‘ll be very sad to see her miss out on a second event and a chance to go to the JGPF… too much potential there.
Zhilina‘s as impressive a jumper as ever and she‘s improved on her presentation since test skates. Good to see her so confident as well, what a difference from last year! Great job overall, hope it continues in the FS. Still, her program is one that heavily relies on her being in character at all times (the horrendous music cuts and cheesy voice overs don‘t help) and for that, it‘s way too tentative. Thus, I felt her PCS were overscored compared to Muravieva and Petrosyan, both of which are naturally charismatic and energetic performers and also quite a bit more musical.
Adelia, my favorite Russian junior last year, has had a rough start to the season (the atrocious new FP doesn’t help, I‘m still desperately hoping she goes back to the old one tomorrow). Test skates was far below her abilities and Ted said she had a terrible practice here, too. So, I was pretty relieved when she managed to land all the jumps confidently today. The spins and step sequence levels suffered a bit as a result, however, and that‘s why she‘s only third. I do feel like her PCS should have been higher than Zhilina‘s, though. With a clean FS, she can move up but I‘m not too worried since she already has two JGPs scheduled and she‘s an Eteri skater as well. I doubt they‘ll take it away from her, unless she severely bombs the FS.
Cannot say much about Zakharova. She was solid, as she always seems to be, but there‘s nothing outstanding for me. Did she get two JGPs right of the bat? If so, I wonder why since I personally don‘t see as much inherent potential as in, say, Zhilina with her quads and 3A. Still, she can very well move up with the FS and I‘ll have to eat my words. Watch her win Gold now.
Anyway, I really enjoyed watching the girls today. I‘d look up which of them will perform in Linz but I don‘t want to get too excited since I‘m pretty sure the event will be without spectators.
