Shelepen scored badly in senior competition because she made loads of mistakes and her jumps were messy and usually under-rotated. Had she skated like she had been last season I bet she would have scored well.
Pogorilaya is not that bad in terms of PCS. Her speed is actually quite good, she's one of the fastest across the ice compared to other junior ladies, using her long legs to good use. Her basics and edges are also strong. Sloppy? Okay I can agree there but that is just because she is in the middle of her growthspurt, her body is very much legs and arms so the presentation is always going to look ungainly until she grows into her body more. Her actual presentation is not sloppy, and I thought the choreo in her SP was quite good and that she is very expressive and confident in that program, as well as her gala programs. Nikol has already gone through her growth spurt and is a year and a half older than Anna - of course she will seem more mature, and her movements will look less awkward, but that really doesn't have much to do with the skating. Nikol is talented too and I like her presentation but I see why some say that in Russia, it might be hard for her to break through with her current content.
As for Anna, typically, junior skaters who are in the top echelon (which Pogorilaya is) score higher in PCS at senior competitions compared to junior competitions. At Russian Nationals, Anna scored 176 and that was not even skating her best, 5 points more than Nikol who did skate her best. At JGPF and JW Anna got component marks mostly in the 6s, usually, in juniors, you have to be quite a good skater to get component marks in the 6s and she did more than once, and that was even when she had a lot of messy landings at JW so obviously there is quality to her skating even if some people don't appreciate it. Plus Anna also grew considerably during the season, it's pretty obvious to see, and she skated better regardless of that, and started doing 3lz-3t in both programs, most of the time with success (she did it cleanly in SP+FS at JGPF, SP at Russian Nats, FS at Russian Junior Nats, and SP at JW).
It sort of boggles me how some people do not think she is talented, I mean, she is 14, had no international experience, only 13th at Russian Junior Nationals, then gets sent to a JGP, medals, gets sent to another one, wins in a formidable fashion, makes the JGPF where she upgrades her content, wins bronze at that event where everyone except Keiser skated phenomenally, and is less than a point from silver, competes at Russian senior Nationals and is 5th, just a couple points from 4th, qualifies for JW at Junior Nats where she had arguably the worst skates of her season but is still the 3rd highest placing age eligible lady, then wins bronze at JW with a comfortable 6 point margin over the 4th place finisher - who is 5 years older, and that was with a FS that was far from her best. And in the middle of all this she is going through puberty and has no past experience to rely on. So how does that qualify as bad and having no chance for the future? That is very impressive in my book. She medaled at every international she went to this season, and landed 7 triples in her FS in 3 out of 4 of them, and a clean 3-3 in the SP at all of them (3lz-3t in the last 2).
So, I know Radionova and Sotnikova were even more impressive in their first JGP seasons, and Tuktamysheva during her first GP season, but they were all prodigious talents since a young age, which is not the case with Anna, and none of them had grown yet when having such success and were just tiny little girls while Anna is very obviously in the middle of a major growthspurt and has already reached an adult height, and is still pulling out the 3lz-3t combos. We saw how things became harder for Adelina, Liza, and Julia once they started growing - no longer were they dominating everything in sight. So even though most of the medals were bronze not gold, I think this season overall was good for Anna. She may continue to fight through this transitional age and body changes for another season or two, but this season she already showed determination and ability to fight through it so I think there is hope for the future. Plus her jumps actually seem to be quite high and rotation has not been an issue thus far so that is also promising. The jumps may not be huge like Hicks or Sotnikova but guess what, those two rarely get credit for rotating their 3-3s anyways so it's not like the huge jumps are really helping that much anyways.
