Ilinykh/Zhiganshin: Ruslan's retirement | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Ilinykh/Zhiganshin: Ruslan's retirement

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Russia is going to adopt all North American style eventually!

The Russian Federation needs to develop an actual ice dance program that trains talented ice dancers rather than working with singles and pairs rejects. They need to look towards a new crop of dancers, their current crop is good but not much else.

This too. The method for choosing dancers is not IJS compatible! The talent needs to be much greater than best looking.
 
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moriel

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
This too. The method for choosing dancers is not IJS compatible! The talent needs to be much greater than best looking.

This kind of depends on priorities. For instance, i can see them focusing on singles and pairs instead of developing a full scale dance program.
Because well, those seem to be more popular and such, and money is finite.
 

hanca

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
I doubt she knows already. Unless she was looking already and we didn't know about it (neither Ruslan).

I am pretty certain that she is looking already, if she really wants to continue. Saying that, she may or may not be successful with finding a decent partner; even Khokhlova struggled, and had to settle down for a non dancer, and that did not work out for her. To be fair, it is not that easy to find a partner at her level. She can either split up an existing couple, or settle down with a junior who is just about to move to seniors. But even though skating is very popular in Russia, it is not as if there were unattached male dancing partners of international level just hanging around waiting for Ilynikh to contact them. The last time two became available, one switched to skate for Spain and the other for Israel.
 

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Country
Australia
We are not many behind the curtains details. But many people act like they actually know what happened. This is sad. In fact, we don't really know what happened between them and why this happened, we only know the outcome.

I know. My point was that, using the recap laid out by that poster, in the scenario they described, I found the characterisation of Elena somehow being at fault for the partnership breakup because she broke up with a boyfriend, as if she should have just stayed with Morozov and everything would have been fine so it's her fault, evil witch, extremely, extremely, massively problematic. Morozov and Katsalapov's behaviour was far worse in the described scenario, yet Elena still got blame somehow?
 

bramweld

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2012
I know. My point was that, using the recap laid out by that poster, in the scenario they described, I found the characterisation of Elena somehow being at fault for the partnership breakup because she broke up with a boyfriend, as if she should have just stayed with Morozov and everything would have been fine so it's her fault, evil witch, extremely, extremely, massively problematic. Morozov and Katsalapov's behaviour was far worse in the described scenario, yet Elena still got blame somehow?

Misogyny, that's how some people sleep at night.
 

andromache

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 23, 2014
Coaches dating students, skaters dating coaches, partners dating each other - I feel like it's always going to be a huge risk. Obviously I have no idea what happened between those three, but all of them should have known better than to get involved with each other. (Especially Morozov, since he's the adult.)
 

Ice Dance

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
If Elena chooses to continue skating and cannot find a good match at this time, there would be nothing wrong with continuing to train and waiting until after the Olympics to select a partner. I think the number of splits & retirements is much higher then. Sometimes one athlete has fulfilled his/her Olympic dream and is ready to move on while another member of the team wishes to continue elite skating. I rather enjoyed someone else's comment about how, after the Olympics, teams rush to "Divorce Court."
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
This kind of depends on priorities. For instance, i can see them focusing on singles and pairs instead of developing a full scale dance program.
Because well, those seem to be more popular and such, and money is finite.

Very interesting! They always had really successful dancers but did they bring in the money?!
 

lavoix

Match Penalty
Joined
Sep 5, 2015
If Elena chooses to continue skating and cannot find a good match at this time, there would be nothing wrong with continuing to train and waiting until after the Olympics to select a partner. I think the number of splits & retirements is much higher then. Sometimes one athlete has fulfilled his/her Olympic dream and is ready to move on while another member of the team wishes to continue elite skating. I rather enjoyed someone else's comment about how, after the Olympics, teams rush to "Divorce Court."

There's no way Elena will be ready by the Olympics, so I say use this time to learn from mistakes, decide what she wants to do: look for a partner, start fresh, mentally...prepare for what is to come.
 

NicolettaL

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 13, 2015
Yeah ... it's definitely in the best interest of us - viewers & sport in general to have more than a couple of strong countries in each discipline, even if sometimes those skaters from other country can beat your favourites. As for material ... am I the only one who liked Sinitsina / Katsalapov Free Dance to Io Si Caro sung by Andrea Bocelli? I thought that how they presented it in Boston was admirable.

Nope I really loved that one too
That was the time when twizzles were a mess but they were presenting both as a couple on the ice. Sometimes Nikita is in his own bubble but not there.
 

moriel

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
There's no way Elena will be ready by the Olympics, so I say use this time to learn from mistakes, decide what she wants to do: look for a partner, start fresh, mentally...prepare for what is to come.

yep, btw that shows that Ruslan really had no other choice, for whatever reason... Would have made all sense to try Olympics still (after all, if B/S or S/B got injured, the Olympic spot would be a possibility).
 

Snow63

Pray one day we'll open our eyes.
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 26, 2014
There's one more thing, though. If Elena and Ruslan will split because of his injury she will probably still need a new partner if she will want to make some money in ice shows.
 

NanaPat

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Country
Canada
There's one more thing, though. If Elena and Ruslan will split because of his injury she will probably still need a new partner if she will want to make some money in ice shows.

When Bourne and Kraatz retired, he didn't want to do shows, while she did. She managed to reinvent herself as a singles skater. Here's a story about it
https://www.thestar.com/sports/skating/2008/01/17/bourne_and_kraatz_end_chill.html

The author, Rosie DiManno, is not a very respected journalist, to say the least, so I wouldn't put too much store in her interpretations, but she does have the basic facts: after they finished skating together competitively, she went on to do shows and he did not.
 

bramweld

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2012
They are sitting out the GP because of his health, not retiring.

Wow, where's the source of the info?

Did Simonenko and Flade really try to force them out of seclusion using fake news? I get the impression these guys have chosen to take it slow and get ready for the next quad. Got to say, I'm really curious to see how this all pans out in the future. Balsy move, if true.
 
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Marta25

Medalist
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Well, this story has been quiet a rollercoaster these last few weeks. I would be of course very, very happy if this is true. 24 is very young to retire, especially for an ice dancer and in the worst case scenario this could also mean Elena`s retirement. If we look at all the options Elena has right now, Ruslan is still the best partner she can get, so hopefully they take their time to make any decisions. Even if Ruslan`s health issues can`t be fixed, Elena can still try to find a new partner after the Olympics. The only real option I see for her right now would be Mozgov who behaved during his last partner change even worse than Katsalapov did.
 

Mattieu

Medalist
Joined
Dec 22, 2010
If we look at all the options Elena has right now, Ruslan is still the best partner she can get, so hopefully they take their time to make any decisions.

Ruslan's injury seems to be pretty bad if it would cause them to miss the GP season. Without GPs they will have no chance of Euros and Worlds again and worse still a poor ranking for the following season, so really not good. (I base my no chance of Euros and Worlds on the fact that the Russian Federation seems to base who they push at Nationals on the GP results) I think she'd do better to start again now with a new partner.
 
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