ITA!! Gerboldt is the one to watch this upcoming season. She is a bit choppy despite those long legs but she skates clean. She's also very pretty. Check her out on Youtube. However, she will not be able to come close to the Asian gals not to mention the US gals.I really liked Alina Leonova at JW, but was less impressed with Doronina. I'm more inclined to see Leonova as having the better potential.
That said, I don't see either one challenging for the World podium in the forseeable future. My favorite Russian lady at the moment is Katarina Gerboldt, and not necessarily for her skating skills.
Things move so quickly. Just when we say Japan has all the best ladies, we look around and see the next generation from other countries nipping at their heels.I tend to think that things run in cycles. I think that the days of Russian dominance in skating...in any discipline...are really over right now. In regards to the ladies....I think that we are in the era of the japanese/korean (well just Yu-Na really) dominance.
I do think that Russian dominace of dance took only a brief breather and will be back in full force by 2010.
I don't know what weakest link you are talking about, exactly. The fact is that the Russian junior pairs field is in fact quite deep. They finished 1st, 2nd and 4th at JW worlds without a team that won a bronze medal at Skate America in its first senior event. And another teams beat Sheremetieva/Kuznetsov at Russian Junior nationals.
Whether any of these teams can make it onto the senior level is a tossup, but they are certainly doing well in Juniors, much like the American ladies (and the Japanese ladies before them...and who's dominating the ladies scene at the moment? )
One would have thought for instance that China would have by NOW had a more prominent crop of ladies skaters after Chen Lu's success.
Thanks for the excellent and informative post!Well, China had no skating tradition nor good coaches until very recently. Chen Lu and her coach Mingzhu Li were pioneers for ladies skating...