Can Julia Lipnitskaia close the gap on Adelina Sotnikova?

sky_fly20 said:

that's what I think about Adelina , she is a late bloomer type like Maria B
she may have her peak by the time she is 26 which could be 10 years from now

Click to expand...

So because she didn't win a world medal at 16/17, she's destined not to win for 10 years.

I do have some fun facts for you though.

Arakawa finished 22nd at her first worlds.

Irina 7th.

Tara Lipinitski 15th. Tara I believe never even medaled at JR worlds, nor did Arakawa.

Michelle Kwan 8th.

Daisuke was 11th.

Now Meissner won her first worlds and Kim fell twice and was lucky to get her bronze. Do you think Meissner ended up with a better career than the ones I'm mentioning.

A skater has not failed because it takes them a little bit to get use to high level competition.

And the idea that Gold is somehow this example of instant success but Adelina the failure is mind boggling! And I have nothing against GRacie

bekalc said:

1. Gracie Gold is just as inconsistent if not more so than Adelina. Who was at the GPF this year not Gracie. And yes Adelina had an easy comp at Cup of China, but Gracie has had a couple of shaky shaky skates.

Click to expand...

I will agree that Gold has had more shaky skates- she's also only in her 2nd season of senior competition. Adelina was gifted by having weak competition in her 2 events neither of which she won that helped her get to the GPF; Adelina is in her 3rd season competing in senior competing outside of Russian/ 6th if you count the years she was only doing the Russian nationals) Gracie can attribute her shaky skates to new senior nerves.

bekalc said:

3. Yes Julia's had great success but for how long. Tukt won her first couple of GP events.

Click to expand...

Julia has improved from last year to this year though; Liza (IMO) you can look at her skates in 2011 (first international senior competitions) and her skates this year and there's not much if any improvement, to a point she has digressed into having mental blocks with skating a clean short program.

I'm not writing Liza off, she just turned 17 (like 2 weeks ago)- she has time; Carolina Kostner at 17 wasn't close to the skater she is today, she had mediocre results & she had the benefit of being the only really good Italian skater outside of maybe Silivia Fontana who was never really a threat for international medals- Liza is dealing with a steady influx of incredibly talented younger skaters that are coming in and are skating immediately (most of them) at a level that makes them a threat for medals (maybe not gold) & taking the spotlight.

sky_fly20, maybe we can find some common ground of discussion here.
What's been surprising me - and I believe some other people here - is that you admit you were a fan of Adelina Sotnikova; then she started to have some poor performances; and then you freely admitted it's normal for you to say she sucks. Yup, in so many words, that's what you've been saying over and over again about her.

Now, this is a thing I'm genuinely interested in: when I'm someone's fan, and they have a rough time, I'm rooting for them. Cheering them on, and wishing them the best.
I don't turn on them and insult them.
Imagine for a second Adelina knew you. She would know you're one of those who said "well done! awesome! the future is yours!". And just a few years later, she'd read that you had not only stopped cheering for her, but had started writing post after post after post of nasty remarks about her, how unimagineable it would be for anyone who's not corrupt to possibly rank her first at a National Championship she just won, even when a panel of jury and many people here feel differently.
Please tell me why you think so differently on this than I do. I genuinely would like to know.
On a personal note, I think your very opinions would go over better if you worded them more like "that was an awful performance of Sotnikova. I wonder what's wrong?" instead of "ha! see, I told you! she's the worst!"

Adelina has gone through the two phases of puberty: height and physical maturity. She has done so in front of the critical eyes of skating fans and former skating fans, who are now hard on her because she hasn't been as consistent as she was at 12 and 13, before the growth started. It does appear to me that Adelina has finally turned the corner and is on the way to developing her adult skating form, as Irina Slutskaya did after 20.

Now you have Julia, who has gotten taller, but still has a totally undeveloped body. She hasn't yet gone through the kinds of changes that Adelina has that have been so disruptive to her jumps. I can see sky_fly jumping all over Julia if she suddenly sprouts and becomes inconsistent and can't do all those complex 3/3s and even falls.

It is hard on these young girls to become idols and then suddenly be jeered at because normal growth intrudes. It takes TIME to adjust. And we have seen that some never quite are able to make that adjustment (Korobeynikova, Agafonova, Shersak, Biryukova). Tuktamysheva may turn out to be another one---or not.

I agree. When skaters do well you should laud their efforts but when they do poorly we really should support them or at te very least not kick them while they're down. It's of no benefit to call skaters headcases or zambonis or other names because not only is it rude but it doesn't do anything positive for a skater. And if you offer criticism there is a tactful way to say what's on your mind. Moreover, if you are a jerk, expect people to call you out on it, and then maybe take a look at why people might have reacted that way.

This is an Olympic year... It's when we want the world to see how brilliant and exciting our sport is. Instead of getting the claws out we should be encouraging skaters when they have such amazing performances as Julia and Adelina had. We should be thrilled that Russia has two strong skaters to send for their home Olympics!

chuckm said:

Adelina has gone through the two phases of puberty: height and physical maturity.

Now you have Julia, who has gotten taller, but still has a totally undeveloped body. She hasn't yet gone through the kinds of changes that Adelina has that have been so disruptive to her jumps.

Click to expand...

Unless somebody has a picture of Julia's parents it's difficult to say how 'undeveloped' her body is; I have a friend who is in her mid-20's and she looks about like she's 13 years old, It's all genetics- some have less body change then others. And since she isn't a 'power' jumper I don't think even if she got bigger that she would necessarily lose her jumps a whole lot.

I will agree that Gold has had more shaky skates- she's also only in her 2nd season of senior competition. Adelina was gifted by having weak competition in her 2 events neither of which she won that helped her get to the GPF; Adelina is in her 3rd season competing in senior competing outside of Russian/ 6th if you count the years she was only doing the Russian nationals) Gracie can attribute her shaky skates to new senior nerves.

Click to expand...

Gracie is two years older than Adelina. The reason she didn't get her start when Adelina did is because Gracie one year didn't even make Nationals (while Adelina was winning hers)...

Adelina isn't that experienced in senior international competition.

After awhile its normal to view some as headcases see an Abbott or Sandhu.. But Sotnikova is still very new. She's skating better and better free skates.

Amei said:

Unless somebody has a picture of Julia's parents it's difficult to say how 'undeveloped' her body is; I have a friend who is in her mid-20's and she looks about like she's 13 years old, It's all genetics- some have less body change then others. And since she isn't a 'power' jumper I don't think even if she got bigger that she would necessarily lose her jumps a whole lot.

Click to expand...

Julia has NO boobs and NO hips. Sooner or later, she will have both. It's inevitable. Even tiny Sasha Cohen eventually got both, and when she did, her jumping got less consistent. Right now, Julia is taller than Sasha.

The reason jumps are impacted has nothing to do with power jumping. It has to do with the change in the center of gravity when a girl develops physically. That can wreak havoc with jump technique for a time. It's happened to Zijun Li since Worlds 2013.

Actually, power jumpers make it through puberty better/more often than "spinny" jumpers because they typically have better technique (they understand how to get in the air and then rotate their jumps) and don't muscle their jumps around (Lipnitskaia DOES muscle the back half of her combos which could be impacted with the filling out piece of growing up when that occurs even more so than other jumps).

Tuktamisheva's problems to beyond physical never in her whole life no matter what's going on physically she has bombed Sps more than succeeded. That's not physical. Her bombing Sps haven't gone from mental based with nerves to physical based. She can still do a pretty good fs that's way beyond her Sps. If only tuktamisheva's problem was growth related.

drivingmissdaisy said:

The only skater in the history of the universe who could remotely be disappointed with a 140 is Yuna Kim. So Julia thinks she is better than Yuna now? I like her even less.

Click to expand...

Where did it say that? We all know everyone was way overscored. Julia always wants to skate clean and she made that little mistake in the sp which was pretty much the difference between 1st and 2nd. The score isn't always what matters to the skater