2017-18 State of Russian Ladies skating

[Shayuki]

i'll say that kanysheva (2005) is a better skater at the moment.
and the best skater in a certain age group and the most promising skater are also two different things. this girl just looks like someone who grew up early, she's a well rounded skater but there is nothing really "wow" about her. while sasha trusova at 10 wasn't really great overall but she had this gigantic jumps, that looking at her you can immediately tell this girl will grow into a jumping machine.
and i have the same feeling about akatieva. she looks more promising to me than samodelkina, and not just because of her coach

Akatieva? Of course, she's the most promising jumper ever. She's the quad girl who will perhaps be jumping every quad in the future(Depending on how she develops). But are you actually looking at nothing but jumps? Jumps are cool, and Panenkova is a fine skater - But that's where you get with jumps alone and not much more. Having only jumps isn't enough to set one apart - Unless you can jump a quad and a 3A. Jumps aren't the reason I'm very high on Samodelkina. Her skating skills are far beyond her age. Perhaps not quite at the level of Tarakanova but she still has some very special abilities. Her musical interpretation is extremely high level for her age, how can you actually not see that as a significant strength? It's precisely the "wow" factor regarding her, the musical interpretation and gracefulness. These things at such an age just very rarely exist. For many skaters they never do.



Getting to the actual jumps. Samodelkina's jumps are in a FAR better and more consistent state than Trusova's were here, for example. Trusova didn't even have a 3Lz and Samodelkina's jumped 3Lz-3Lo, she also has performed actual 7 triple programs with a 3-3 combo. You say that Trusova had "gigantic jumps" but they have the same amount of airtime that Samodelkina's 3Lutz does. On the other hand: Samodelkina actually performs more difficult jumps(even has performed clean 3Lz-3Lo in competition now), has higher rotation speed than Trusova did at the time[In fact, it's roughly the same as the current(3 years older) Trusova's during her quad] and she has better technique especially on the Lutz.

And by the way, a misconception I'll correct here - Samodelkina has higher jumps and more air time than Akatieva. If you(apparently) judge jumps by height instead of rotation speed.

So I think this is your personal bias speaking, for one reason or another. I just don't understand how it's possible for you to possibly have that opinion regarding her. I hope you understand at what level exactly these skaters were when they were 10 years old. That's NOT a skater's peak.

Samodelkina late 2017
Trusova early 2015
Tarakanova early 2015
Shcherbakova early 2015

Watch and compare. And try to be objective.

 

[puremagic]

She’s actually noticeably better now IMO :yay:

There's a several points of view, dear Sam. But yeah, she's definitely better in maturity and femininity... She is becoming a young woman... And you already can see and can feel how mature and feminine is her skating. Her jumps are becoming better, and she's gaining consistency. I just wish she will gain speed in the next season, and get back her 3Lz+3Lo combo, not wasting her current consistency. Then she'll be on the top again for sure.

 

[tjb]

Akatieva? Of course, she's the most promising jumper ever. She's the quad girl who will perhaps be jumping every quad in the future(Depending on how she develops). But are you actually looking at nothing but jumps? Jumps are cool, and Panenkova is a fine skater - But that's where you get with jumps alone and not much more. Having only jumps isn't enough to set one apart - Unless you can jump a quad and a 3A. Jumps aren't the reason I'm very high on Samodelkina. Her skating skills are far beyond her age. Perhaps not quite at the level of Tarakanova but she still has some very special abilities. Her musical interpretation is extremely high level for her age, how can you actually not see that as a significant strength? It's precisely the "wow" factor regarding her, the musical interpretation and gracefulness. These things at such an age just very rarely exist. For many skaters they never do.



Getting to the actual jumps. Samodelkina's jumps are in a FAR better and more consistent state than Trusova's were here, for example. Trusova didn't even have a 3Lz and Samodelkina's jumped 3Lz-3Lo, she also has performed actual 7 triple programs with a 3-3 combo. You say that Trusova had "gigantic jumps" but they have the same amount of airtime that Samodelkina's 3Lutz does. On the other hand: Samodelkina actually performs more difficult jumps(even has performed clean 3Lz-3Lo in competition now), has higher rotation speed than Trusova did at the time[In fact, it's roughly the same as the current(3 years older) Trusova's during her quad] and she has better technique especially on the Lutz.

So I think this is your personal bias speaking, for one reason or another. I just don't understand how it's possible for you to possibly have that opinion regarding her.

yes, at this age i'm looking mostly at the jumps.
again, there is difference between "best jumps at the moment" and "the most promising"
sasha had many flaws in technique, she was slow on the rotation and had a "midori ito" wrapped leg thing, but that's the things that can easily be fixed. you still can see how incredibly athletic she is. she had more height on her jumps than samodelkina or akatieva (i'm totally not expecting akatieva to jump "every quad", and you can't compare 3Lz to 3T, 3Lz is the highest jump for almost every skater)
and i don't understand your obsession with rotation speed btw. usually skaters are not rotating at the maximim possible speed, they just do the rotation fast enough to fully rotate the jump (tuktamysheva for example has a 4.5 rps on her 2A, and 5.5 on the 3A) .
and most of the times you can see that skaters are showing the fastest rotation on their WEAKEST jump. medvedeva for example has the fastest rotation on her 3Lz

 

[Shayuki]

Gubanova is still very good. Best SS of RusNats 18 definitely. 6th in Nationals is certainly no joke, considering (1)she has Jr PCS (2)she is undergoing puberty (3)she was lowballed to make way for Ms Olysub. If she improves her toepicks and landings I still expect her to become one of the top ladies.

The problem's mainly her toe pick jumps. They're going to cause issues and they already have been. This season she's been more consistent but the problem goes beyond that - She can't even have difficult entries for those jumps because of how weak they are. That's always going to hurt in more ways than one, as long as she doesn't fix it. And no progress has been made in over 3 years at least. In fact, her Lutz now is worse than 3 years ago and she even had to lose her +3Lo combo which she already was doing when she was 12 years old.

Apart from that, musical inter's good but SS... she's pretty visibly slow this season IMO and it's not very effortless either.

 

[hanca]

When Gubanova was size of Samodelkina, her jumps were also very clean. There were no visible issues. So the whole argument is useless. We will see in a tew years time. You can print your posts and look at them in a few years time. You may feel a bit silly then.

 

[Shayuki]

yes, at this age i'm looking mostly at jumps.
again, there is difference between "best jumps at the moment" and "the most promising"
sasha had many flaws in technique, she was slow on the rotation and had a "midori ito" wrapped leg thing, but that's the things that can easily be fixed. you still can see how incredibly athletic she is. she had more height on her jumps than samodelkina or akatieva (i'm totally not expeting akatieva to jump "every quad", and you can't compare 3Lz to 3T, 3Lz is the highest jump for almost every skater)
and i don't understand your obsession with rotation speed btw. usally skaters are not rotating at maximim possible speed, they just do the rotation fast enough to fully rotate the jump (tuktamysheva for example has a 4.5 rps on her 2A, and 5.5 on the 3A) .
and most of the times you can see that skaters are showing the fastest rotation on their WEAKEST jump. medvedeva for example has the fastest rotation on her 3Lz

Of course, most skaters only show their rotation speed when they have to. Akatieva's a fresh exception because she seems to go all out every single time. But Trusova has been URing her quads in competition every single time and she was URing her quad last season(When she had 5.46 revolutions per second for the quad). She obviously wasn't "holding back" in that situation, and at that time she was over 2 years older than Samodelkina. Samodelkina would likely be around 5.8-5.9 revolutions per second using the material from her Elements from earlier today(I've been pretty accurate with my estimations). That was well rotated and not that close to UR at all, so could she have been holding back, even? Who knows. But what I do know is that that's some very high rotation speed.

On lutz, I'm going to disagree. It's the highest because it needs to as it's the most difficult jump to land and rotate - Not because it's the easiest to get high air time on. You can easily see this when you compare quads to it - Obviously, Sasha's 4T and 4S have longer air time than her 3Lz. Because she actually needs it. The easiest triple jump to rotate is still 3T and 3S is a close second. These tend to have low air time - Not because they are difficult to get high air time on, but because they don't require a whole lot of it in order to land it comfortably.

In general, landing jumps consistently is easier when they're only as high as is required. And this is the thing with my obsession about rotation speed - I think it's overall more important than jump height because it leads into significantly more consistent results. And with high rotation speed, skaters can potentially perform quads that essentially are at the height of triple jumps for "normal" skaters. These will naturally be more consistent to land than Kolyada-like skyrocket quads, and more likely to be at all possible, also. Of course, the best jumpers will want a combination of both a very high rotation speed and high jumps, but in my eyes a high jump with a low rotation speed is a bigger issue than a low jump with high rotation speed.


By the way, I overall disagree with -jumps- being the main thing to look at for skaters at this age. Unless we're dealing with quad prospects, it in the long run and for the end result really doesn't matter whether a skater is performing consistent triples by the age of 9 or by the age of 13. That's the situation where Zagitova comes in, and Anna Shcherbakova wasn't even doing triples at 10 and half years of age and was doing quads 2 and a half years later. I still maintain that it's the other things that have me excited about Samodelkina. She just also happens to be an excellent and very promising jumper.


The most important breakpoint for rotation speed is "is this enough for a quad?" And Samodelkina's is right up there. It's not as fast as Berestovskaya's or Akatieva's but it's good - Likely to be essentially tied with Trusova's current(5.88). With Trusova's jump height it'd of course be good enough for doing quads but I assume she's going to require a bit more. Anna Shcherbakova's 4T had 17/30 frames of air time and her 3Lutz at the time had 16/30 frames of air time. That's pretty much my "minimum" for air time requirements for a quad(With 6 revolutions per second rotation speed). And it's also proof you don't need to be a Trusova to jump quads if you rotate fast.

Trusova quad air time was around 19/30 frames when I checked and she struggles with rotating it fully(Something Shcherbakova didn't with 17/30 on all her recorded quads).

When Gubanova was size of Samodelkina, her jumps were also very clean. There were no visible issues. So the whole argument is useless. We will see in a tew years time. You can print your posts and look at them in a few years time. You may feel a bit silly then.

That's not true, she's had the ugly hammers and mule kicks since I can remember. And always stalked the Lutz - still does.

Just look at Samodelkina, both her flip and lutz are very beautiful. And she doesn't even seem to have edge issues on the flip(At least didn't in December).

she had more height on her jumps than samodelkina or akatieva (i'm totally not expeting akatieva to jump "every quad"

On this, see this clip I made a long time ago. Then look at how high above the ice skaters tend to be when they start their final revolution when performing an actual quad - it's quite low. If they start the final revolution at the time she stopped rotating, it tends to be a done deal.

Then realize that's a Flip, not some T or S. And then realize it's just a triple, not some planned quad with all the force going into it.

 

[lavoix]

no. she's going to lambiel shows. konstantinova is going to worlds

Very unhappy about this.

 

[atsumiri]

don't you think it's just a natural, every new generation is better than the previous one?
it's called progress. I love it! :luv17:

I can't even imagine what 2009-2011 year of births girls will be able to do.... :hap85:

 

[puremagic]

Interesting post:

Lvl 4 steps are really difficult to get as a whole, at least at this level(It feels like at the top level with politicked skaters they get lvl 4s almost handed to them). There was some graph about US nationals or something that I saw some months ago where it was something like 60% of the skaters got lvl 3 steps but only 0.5% or so got lvl 4.

This is off US singles handbook for this season so it should be in date:



Usually I only bother looking for the first one because that one's pretty easy to see. "Use of body movements for at least 1/3 of the pattern" I wouldn't even bother with, but obviously that can be a reason for a skater not getting lvl 4 steps. The rotations in either direction-thing is also pretty difficult to determine how much exactly is 1/3 but easier than "use of body movements". #4, The two combinations of 3 difficult turns on different feet with the first combination attempted on each foot counting, however, is something I should also start looking for in addition to #1. It's pretty easy to identify also.



So on #1 or the one I always look for:

"Must include at least 11 difficult turns and steps. None of the types of turns and
steps can be counted more than twice.
5 types of turns and steps must be executed in both directions."

This is the base requirement for lvl 4 steps.

And then of course all 3 other features need to be met. The body movement and rotation is pretty self-explanatory but pain to actually quantify.

The two combinations of 3 difficult turns on different feet:




I guess it theoretically is possible to determine whether the "body movements" and "rotations" were good enough but it's always tougher than looking at steps in slow-mo and seeing if they're performed correctly.

Take a look, it's a good read: https://www.usfigureskating.org/content/Technical Panel Handbook_Singles Skating.pdf
Explains many interesting things.

About this part:

Lvl 4 steps are really difficult to get as a whole, at least at this level(It feels like at the top level with politicked skaters they get lvl 4s almost handed to them).

Would you bother after/during Olympics make an analysis of the stsq's lvl 4? Because we all know (I don't wanna mention them here, because this thread is not about them) skaters with weak stsq's along with their weak skating skills, and at least four of them are Olympics medal contenders. After Olympics 2014, one user made a thread like, "Why Sotnikova's stsq lvl 4 is wrong", where he made an analysis of each element of her stsq. I wonder how many girls will get fake lvl 4 at their stsq's at the Olympics 2018.

 

[Shayuki]

^ I guess I can try to do what I can but it'd be limited to just the fulfilment of "complexity" aka analysis of every difficult turn and step(twizzle, bracket, loop, counter, rocker, choctaw).

On the topic of steps, take a look at Melkumova's choctaws in her FS at these three parts: 1 2 3

Just how pretty are they?

After her slightly weaker SP step sequence I was sooo happy with her step sequence in the free skate. The best step sequence of the day by far(Even if it won't get lvl 3). Especially the part after choctaws #2 above with the deeeeep outside edge to edge change into the counter-bracket-rocker was sooo smooth here!

 

[puremagic]

She is really something. And we can notice, that she is with one coach (btw, he looks like her dad, but I'm not sure), I mean, other ladies from her school are with other coaches, like he's working only with her. I like that moment before every start, when he caress her head, it's so cute!

Also, seems like Anna Tsareva is working hard as other coaches. For now she has at least five promising skaters:

Maria Zakharova: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAmQ8UUvPKM
Daria Usacheva: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Z5tnYIkTY
Maya Khromykh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBwYhbyYN0Y
Alina Mikheyenkova https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebCspKx5jiw
Safina MUKALLYAPOVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaUWR13N09g

And I guess at least one of them will have a bright future. I really liked today's skate by Maria! That was very nice!
That moment after her program. Kiss from miss Tsareva.

 

[puremagic]

And also attention! Three future superstars of figure skating.

 

[starla16]

Article from NYTIMES about russian skaters

I don't think its bias, they acknowledge russia's depth in ladies and grueling competitive methods, some might get irked though by Tutberidze's comment.
no doping mention which is objective reporting to separate an article about figure skating, just ignore some of the ignorant comments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/sports/olympics/russia-womens-figure-skating.html

 

[lavenderblossom]

Article from NYTIMES about russian skaters

I don't think its bias, they acknowledge russia's depth in ladies and grueling competitive methods, some might get irked though by Tutberidze's comment.
no doping mention which is objective reporting to separate an article about figure skating, just ignore some of the ignorant comments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/sports/olympics/russia-womens-figure-skating.html

There is a thread about it https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?69564-Article-on-the-Injuries-of-Russian-Ladies

 

[Grin]

Article from NYTIMES about russian skaters

I don't think its bias, they acknowledge russia's depth in ladies and grueling competitive methods, some might get irked though by Tutberidze's comment.
no doping mention which is objective reporting to separate an article about figure skating, just ignore some of the ignorant comments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/sports/olympics/russia-womens-figure-skating.html

All US mainstream media are biased when they talk about Russia (no exceptions).
Medvedeva was so disappointed, she even closed her eyes and said 'thank you'. That's how terribly dissapoined she was.
Alina's photo ... no comments

P.S. It could be worse

 

[puremagic]

Time goes so fast... In 6 hours is going to start Team Event. Will we see Evgenia and Alina in K&C with Kolyada and Tarasova/Morozov? [emoji848]

 

[Shayuki]

She is really something. And we can notice, that she is with one coach (btw, he looks like her dad, but I'm not sure), I mean, other ladies from her school are with other coaches, like he's working only with her. I like that moment before every start, when he caress her head, it's so cute!

He seems to work with at least Alena Krivonosova and Maria Khabibulina. While neither is nearly as big a talent, both girls still share plenty of similarities with Melkumova, like being very good in PCS categories and having great skating skills but having absolutely dreadful jumps with low elevation. Khabibulina in fact approaches being downright comical in this regard. It also is the reason why I'm not entirely sure if Melkumova's jump elevation issues are a reason for concern due to being an innate attribute of hers or just caused by a different coaching focus.


On the Olympics, ugh the scheduling is truly brutal. It's going to be sooo early in the morning... It remains to be seen whether I'll be able to catch it. And I really want to, too!

 

[Grin]

Time goes so fast... In 6 hours is going to start Team Event. Will we see Evgenia and Alina in K&C with Kolyada and Tarasova/Morozov? [emoji848]

I wouldn't be surprised if we won't see them because they are training)

 

[puremagic]

He seems to work with at least Alena Krivonosova and Maria Khabibulina. While neither is nearly as big a talent, both girls still share plenty of similarities with Melkumova, like being very good in PCS categories and having great skating skills but having absolutely dreadful jumps with low elevation. Khabibulina in fact approaches being downright comical in this regard. It also is the reason why I'm not entirely sure if Melkumova's jump elevation issues are a reason for concern due to being an innate attribute of hers or just caused by a different coaching focus.

Probably she is on radars already, the youngest girl who made it in the top 24, with great skating skills. I hope in the next season she will move to Eteri.

Khabibulina in fact approaches being downright comical in this regard.

That was awesome combo! The second jump there is like a new kind of jump - the jumpspin! [emoji848]

I wouldn't be surprised if we won't see them because they are training)

 

[Mathman]

I just noticed that if Evgenia, Alina and Maria sweep the medals, it will be the first time in Olympic history that one country has gotten a clean sweep in ladies.

In men it happened twice: 1908 (Sweden) and 1956 (USA).