Evgenia Medvedeva: 'You have only one life'

BillNeal said:

Reading some of the comments on here, probably best not to give her any ideas . She's a smart, focused, young lady and the only skating advice she should be listening to are from her coaching team .

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moriel said:

Please dont say about injuries, she was pretty well around the Olympics (if i recall correctly, she even said she performed at her best, which obviously means she was healed by then), and she was fine during the summer shows, including some triple jumps. Its not like she stayed a year without skating or something.

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tomc100 said:

I was half joking about it. After reading some of these comments, it's best to avoid these forums which can be overcritical and toxic at times. She should stay focused on her goals. I hope she has lots of friends to support her throughout this year. Anyways, I really liked her short program, but what do I know.

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Mrs. P said:

Saying that she preformed at her best doesn't necessarily mean that she was injury-free. It was obvious to me that she pushed through for Europeans and Olympics because she had worked so hard to reach her goal and she was willing to endure a lot to get there. She was amazing to do what she did, but I don't think she was pain free.

Arguably given her injuries, and at any other point, she probably should have not competed in the fall or taken the whole season off. She really wasn't given (or didn't give herself?) the luxury of doing that and you can't blame her -- it's an Olympic year Even though she sat out for several competitions, she ultimately still did a senior B, two GP, Europeans and Olympics.

I think for me as a person that is a fan of her and her skating, I see this as the second phase of her career. I will not think to hard about "what she did before," but rather "what she is doing now." The OSM is in the past. The world championships are in the past. As she said in the interview, she has new goals for herself. She needs to focus on those.

To me, the fact she went out there and competed even if she wasn't perfect or 100 percent form is kind of an important thing. I think she needed to know that, even if her physical form wasn't there, that deep down she's still a person who loves to compete and that, hey, it's not the end of the world not to win a competition. Serena Williams lost both of Grand Slam finals this year. Even amazing athletes lose to good people.

Or how about Novak Djokovic on the men's side? He was ABSOLUTELY dominant in 2015 but then has been plagued with injures in recent years and struggled to find consistency post-injury. Until Wimbledon this year he failed to make a Grand Slam final for nearly two years. This year he won 2 grand slam titles!

Let's see where she goes from here. Whatever happens, nobody can say she didn't try.

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moriel said:

I unfortunately cannot set aside what she was.
She was great, and I miss the old Zhenya. If she would be now some different type of great, or at least heading for some different greatness, i would be fine with that. But so far =(
Maybe I am spoiled with team Eteri always releasing some sort of "presentable" thing in the beginning of the season, not a very rough wip.

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vorravorra said:

This is ironic, how many people complained about Evgenia's bloated scores in the past, now she wants to replace them with something real, people are complaining again. Evgenia doesn't have the same RusFed support any more that made judges see perfection in her skating skills. She may need actual skating skills for a change, and an actual lutz, or at least something closer to it, and a better axel, etc. She already won a ton of things by killing herself on the ice and papering over weaknesses, the only thing she hasn't won is an OGM. Her main job is to at least last till the next Olympics, can she do it with the old methods and without a good foundation?

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hippomoomin said:

Aloo in Eteri's group, skaters do a lot of dance trainings. I wonder what kind of dance or artistic trainings Evgenia has now, considering both jazz and tango require specific movements.

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hippomoomin said:

I support her choice to explore different programs, but the questions is to what extent the programs with her new coaches were made for her, or they simply created the programs and then feed the programs to her? Evgenia said she didn't know the sp music and she does not like the sp music.

Aloo in Eteri's group, skaters do a lot of dance trainings. I wonder what kind of dance or artistic trainings Evgenia has now, considering both jazz and tango require specific movements.

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hippomoomin said:

I support her choice to explore different programs, but the questions is to what extent the programs with her new coaches were made for her, or they simply created the programs and then feed the programs to her? Evgenia said she didn't know the sp music and she does not like the sp music.

Aloo in Eteri's group, skaters do a lot of dance trainings. I wonder what kind of dance or artistic trainings Evgenia has now, considering both jazz and tango require specific movements.

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el henry said:

I have read nothing where Zhenya says that she does not like the SP music, and in fact, I seem to remember the opposite, that she liked the music once she was introduced to it, that she liked being able to have input into her program, and that she liked her SP. Can you point me to where she says otherwise?

How important "dance" training is will vary from coach to coach and from program to program. Given that jazz is a freer form of artistic expression in the first instance, I'm not sure whether jazz dance training is important for a jazz-based skating program.

I'm not a fan of tango programs, so I really don't care if skaters do a "real" tango or what training they have. But I realize that is my bias against tango programs.....

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Fluture said:

I would like for you to provide the exact quote where Evgenia stated that she “doesn’t like the SP music“. Because I couldn’t find ANY comment of that sort.

I think people need to keep in mind that Evgenia arrived very late. They had less than 2 months to create two completely new programs for her without properly knowing her. They obviously were in a kind of hurry. I‘m sure next years programs will be better when they know her and her skills and have more time for preparation.

I‘m usually not the most patient person so it really surprises me how some people expect results NOW and only NOW. Some things in life take time. Evgenia had to change coaches because she‘s 18 now, not 16 and likely saw that Eteri‘s approach wouldn‘t work for her anymore. And she needed a change. You can support that or not but as much as you might want it, people don‘t stay the same forever. They grow. Physically and mentally. Just what Evgenia did here. It might take her some time to adjust to all these new things, yes. She might not be perfect already, yes. But she changed her path and she’s happy with it. Let’s wait and see what the future brings. Hopefully only good things. Patience.

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el henry said:

I have read nothing where Zhenya says that she does not like the SP music, and in fact, I seem to remember the opposite, that she liked the music once she was introduced to it, that she liked being able to have input into her program, and that she liked her SP. Can you point me to where she says otherwise?

How important "dance" training is will vary from coach to coach and from program to program. Given that jazz is a freer form of artistic expression in the first instance, I'm not sure whether jazz dance training is important for a jazz-based skating program.

I'm not a fan of tango programs, so I really don't care if skaters do a "real" tango or what training they have. But I realize that is my bias against tango programs.....

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tomc100 said:

I was half joking about it. After reading some of these comments, it's best to avoid these forums which can be overcritical and toxic at times. She should stay focused on her goals. I hope she has lots of friends to support her throughout this year. Anyways, I really liked her short program, but what do I know.

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Mrs. P said:

Or how about Novak Djokovic on the men's side? He was ABSOLUTELY dominant in 2015 but then has been plagued with injures in recent years and struggled to find consistency post-injury. Until Wimbledon this year he failed to make a Grand Slam final for nearly two years. This year he won 2 grand slam titles!

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hippomoomin said:

Some interesting answers.
She didn't know exactly why she wants to work with Brian;

She was really feeling "free" in the free program. Form her answers, it does not look like there will be some big changes in the LP, because she said the short program was more challenging in style. But I think the SP is on the right track in terms of choreography, the LP needs to be more tango.

She does like dramatic programs.

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[email protected] said:

Tennis is a completely different thing than modern ladies figure skating. No one talks about raising the age for seniors because juniors are too big a threat. Caro at 31 showed that no matter how good she is she cannot be as strong as Federer at 35.

I fully agree with Moriel that while Zhenya has the right to experiment, while she should trust her team, there is not much space for mistakes if the goal is next Olympics. The key thing is to get into the Russian team. This year she is still a clear #2. Next year she won't if things go as they do now: Zagitova and Trusova seem much stronger. Hence, she will compete with Scherbakova and Kostornaya for the third spot. And there could be surprises from Liza and Darya even this season. And we are talking just about 2019-20. There are still 2 more seasons to come. You lose momentum - you get into Leonova's path.

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chopinskate said:

I wonder what it's called.

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[email protected] said:

Tennis is a completely different thing than modern ladies figure skating. No one talks about raising the age for seniors because juniors are too big a threat. Caro at 31 showed that no matter how good she is she cannot be as strong as Federer at 35.

I fully agree with Moriel that while Zhenya has the right to experiment, while she should trust her team, there is not much space for mistakes if the goal is next Olympics. The key thing is to get into the Russian team. This year she is still a clear #2. Next year she won't if things go as they do now: Zagitova and Trusova seem much stronger. Hence, she will compete with Scherbakova and Kostornaya for the third spot. And there could be surprises from Liza and Darya even this season. And we are talking just about 2019-20. There are still 2 more seasons to come. You lose momentum - you get into Leonova's path.

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