2018-19 Russian Ladies' figure skating

[Shayuki]

But they only needed 5 to win all three medals and still allowed more girls to get international experience.

Well, it depends on their goals. If only medals would be the plan, then they could just give 2 assignments to Shcherbakova, Trusova and Kostornaya and give even more skaters international experience. But I do feel like they'd like to have all 6 spots in the JGPF.

 

[atsumiri]

I heard Polina missed some time (2-3 weeks) of trying in camp this summer.
I hope she will be able to get in shape.

Is there anything new about Gubanova's shape?

 

[50 Words for Snow]

In this universe. (Nobody cares about post Olympic worlds)

Zagitova was sure crying awfully hard at the end of her disastrous FS for an event that no one cares about. Maybe you should ask her if she cares about post-Olympic Worlds. Maybe you claim to not care about it simply because she lost. Either way, your original statement was incorrect, and he was right in calling you out on it.

 

[Fluture]

Her NHK FS performance last season was a bit painful to watch as a viewer. Must have been very painful for her to skate with a broken foot. Glad that she made the decision in the best interest of possibly having a long-term skating career and is now training with Orser, a coach who has an excellent track record of leading senior skaters to long-term success.

Her NHK performance was really painful to watch, I agree. And commentators kept wondering whether she was worried because of how good Tsurskaya is and that‘s why she made so many mistakes. As if.

But honestly, it‘s not like Orser doesn‘t have skaters with injuries. Yuzuru even was injured in the Olympics season! I‘m also happy that she‘s with Orser now but it’s not like being with him is a guarantee to success. For some skaters, his approach works, for some it doesn‘t. Tursynbaeva was with him for a long time and it didn‘t exactly help her. Evgenia is used to constantly rivaling, constantly seeing other skaters perform difficult elements, trying to be better. It’s been like this in training all her life. With Orser... it‘s a completely different approach. It‘s yet to be seen how it works for her. Personally, I think she has the right work ethics, the discipline and the maturity to benefit from training like this. But we simply don‘t know yet.

About Zagitova: GPF, Europeans, Olympics. Worlds is the only thing she didn‘t win this season. Any other skater with a record like this, this season? No? Well, then it‘s pointless. In this universe she won the most this season. Not in an alternate one. But I guess it‘s true she didn‘t win everything. Worlds were awful and I‘m sure Alina did care about them. It wasn’t a good end to a great season. So....

About Tsurskaya: She never seemed to be one to benefit from Eteri‘s approach. Like with Orser, some skaters are suited for this type of training, others are not. Polina obviously wasn‘t. I‘m happy that she‘s in a place where she doesn‘t feel constant competition but is treated more like an individual. And all this while still seeing some of her biggest competition this season: Sotskova and maybe Radionova. She will want to take the third spot to get to Worlds with Evgenia and Alina (if their spots stay with them which I assume will happen), so what she needs to do is beat Sotskova, the current senior Russian #3. Of course there‘s also Tuktamysheva, Panenkova, Pogorilaya... but we don‘t know which state they‘re in, so it‘s probably best to focus on herself for now but keep an eye on Sotskova and Radionova. Hoping for a great season for her!

 

[silverfoxes]

A recent interview with Polina Tsurskaya (finally some news from her :agree . https://fs-gossips.com/polina-tsurskaya-i-realized-that-i-urgently-needed-to-change-something/

She also says that Buyanova was hesitant to take her at first, thus disproving the ludicrous "Buyanova poaches skaters" conspiracy theory yet again.

It's not surprising to me at all that the Sambo environment would wear down almost anyone after awhile. I'm glad she got out before she became too injured to continue.

 

[Fluture]

Medvedeva was INJURED! It's perfectly reasonable for an injured skater to skip an event.

I think he was talking about Adelina Sotnikova. :think:

 

[BillNeal]

Medvedeva was INJURED! It's perfectly reasonable for an injured skater to skip an event.

Wasn't talking about Med in this case. Predecessor as in the previous OG champion. Zagitova didn't win gold at Worlds so she didn't succeed Med.

 

[Fluture]

Wasn't talking about Med in this case. Predecessor as in the previous OG champion.

But a lot of Olympic Champions skip post OG Worlds... Not just Sotnikova... I‘m really, really not a fan of hers but to call her out on this when a lot of skaters do it, seems like nitpicking to me. It was probably the smartest decision she could have made. Sotnikova wasn‘t like Medvedeva or even Zagitova in her consistency. At Worlds before the Olympics she was 9th. She didn’t really skate greatly before that’s why nobody had her on the radar. She truly had the performances of her lifetime at the OG. Had she gone to Worlds there would have been a high probability that she‘d ended up not being able to even make the top 5, let alone the podium. And with all those people being so mean to her after her win. Well, I understand the decision.

 

[Sugar Coated]

Only had 5 JGPF spots. 6 should be possible.

But they only needed 5 to win all three medals and still allowed more girls to get international experience.

Strategically, you have to be thinking ahead to the next junior season. At least 5 of these girls will move up to seniors next year (maybe more). So next year you could have 2 girls with multiple JGP competitions under their belt (and hope they both remain consistent and avoid injuries) or 4 girls with at least one experience. It’s not like they are lacking the talent.

 

[chopinskate]

Zagitova didn't win gold at Worlds so she didn't succeed Med.

She did succeed Med as the GPF winner and Russian National Champion, so it was still ambiguous.

 

[Fluture]

She did succeed Med as the GPF winner and Russian National Champion, so it was still ambiguous.

Zagitova didn‘t win Worlds in her first try, Medvedeva did. Med didn‘t win OGM in her first try, Zagi did. So, they‘re kind of in the same boat at the moment.

 

[Shayuki]

But they only needed 5 to win all three medals and still allowed more girls to get international experience.

Strategically, you have to be thinking ahead to the next junior season. At least 5 of these girls will move up to seniors next year (maybe more). So next year you could have 2 girls with multiple JGP competitions under their belt (and hope they both remain consistent and avoid injuries) or 4 girls with at least one experience. It’s not like they are lacking the talent.

I assure you, Russia won't run out of junior ladies for JGP anytime soon. And international experience won't be valued very much at all when assigning JGP spots, considering that everything's going to come down to performance during the next season's national competitions as well as the test skates.

Looking at next season, we have as top talents:

1. The second-year eligibles:
Alena Kanysheva
Ksenia Sinitsyna
(Chistyakova?)

2. Most notable newcomers:
Kamila Valieva
Daria Usacheva
Maia Khromyh
Anastasia Shabotova
Anna Frolova
(Medvedeva?)

3. An assortment of older skaters who didn't qualify for senior GP spots, newcomers that haven't been accounted for etc.


If I'm being honest, the newcomers for the next JGP season are quite strong in comparison to what currently is there. I don't think that the vast majority of these non-Eteri skaters will be very relevant for next season's JGP.

 

[Giver]

I assure you, Russia won't run out of junior ladies for JGP anytime soon. And international experience won't be valued very much at all when assigning JGP spots, considering that everything's going to come down to performance during the next season's national competitions as well as the test skates.

Looking at next season, we have as top talents:

1. The second-year eligibles:
Alena Kanysheva
Ksenia Sinitsyna
(Chistyakova?)

2. Most notable newcomers:
Kamila Valieva
Daria Usacheva
Maia Khromyh
Anastasia Shabotova
Anna Frolova
(Medvedeva?)

+Yasmina Kadyrova

 

[Spirals for Miles]

I assure you, Russia won't run out of junior ladies for JGP anytime soon. And international experience won't be valued very much at all when assigning JGP spots, considering that everything's going to come down to performance during the next season's national competitions as well as the test skates.

Looking at next season, we have as top talents:

1. The second-year eligibles:
Alena Kanysheva
Ksenia Sinitsyna
(Chistyakova?)

2. Most notable newcomers:
Kamila Valieva
Daria Usacheva
Maia Khromyh
Anastasia Shabotova
Anna Frolova
(Medvedeva?)

3. An assortment of older skaters who didn't qualify for senior GP spots, newcomers that haven't been accounted for etc.


If I'm being honest, the newcomers for the next JGP season are quite strong in comparison to what currently is there. I don't think that the vast majority of these non-Eteri skaters will be very relevant for next season's JGP.

If I had to rank next year's JGP skaters, I'd probably say something like this:

Kanysheva / Sinitsyna
Valieva / Usacheva / Kromyh
Shabotova / Kadyrova / Frolova / Ryabova

But of course, the new trio could really improve under Eteri. And so could Kadyrova.

 

[Shayuki]

+Yasmina Kadyrova

Okay, true. And Anfisa Ryabova etc. I'm sure I forgot many names.

 

[Shayuki]

If I had to rank next year's JGP skaters, I'd probably say something like this:

Kanysheva / Sinitsyna
Valieva / Usacheva / Kromyh
Shabotova / Kadyrova / Frolova / Ryabova

But of course, the new trio could really improve under Eteri. And so could Kadyrova.

Opinions and all ...

But I don't think your rating of Shabotova and Frolova is fair. After all, during Moscow's younger age(elder category) championships, Kanysheva won with 240 points, Shabotova was 3rd with 227 points and Frolova 4th with 225 points. In general, I don't think they're that much behind Sinitsyna/Kanysheva if we adjust for age(Especially Shabotova being a 2006 etc). Kamila Valieva, Daria Usacheva performed much worse. Now of course, the Eteri factor could make these skaters improve a lot, but I still don't think there's such a gap between these groups of Panova skaters.

Speaking of which, Panova has tons of skaters in these age groups. I wonder if Eteri's going to "borrow" one of them for next season, sort of like how it ended up being with Tarakanova.

 

[Spirals for Miles]

Whoa. I did not know that they were that close to Kanysheva, definitely improves their status overall, imo.
More like:
Kanysheva / Sinitsyna
Shabotova / Frolova
Ryabova

and we have no idea how Eteri's girls will do?

 

[andromache]

Has this interview with Tsurskaya been posted already? It's super interesting.

https://fs-gossips.com/polina-tsurskaya-i-realized-that-i-urgently-needed-to-change-something/

Sounds like training with Eteri made her pretty miserable - not necessarily because of anything Eteri-specific, but the constant focus on competing with the other girls in the group leads to overtraining and injury (wouldn't surprise me if that's a major reason that Evgenia left as well). Polina's parents wanted her to stay with Eteri but she was so unhappy that she insisted on leaving.

The poor girl has chronic back pain (which I think is very common for skaters, and it's sad).

I also because everyone here always gets mad whenever someone says "oh wait and see if she can do these quads when she's older" about the juniors, and that's what Polina herself has to say.

The key thing in your phrase is not that the jumps are quadruples, but that the girls are little. Who will grow up very quickly. Then we will look at the results.

She also added:

Now my growth hasn’t been changing. I also don’t have to starve to keep myself in shape.

 

[Fluture]

Has this interview with Tsurskaya been posted already? It's super interesting.

https://fs-gossips.com/polina-tsurskaya-i-realized-that-i-urgently-needed-to-change-something/

Sounds like training with Eteri made her pretty miserable - not necessarily because of anything Eteri-specific, but the constant focus on competing with the other girls in the group leads to overtraining and injury (wouldn't surprise me if that's a major reason that Evgenia left as well). Polina's parents wanted her to stay with Eteri but she was so unhappy that she insisted on leaving.

The poor girl has chronic back pain (which I think is very common for skaters, and it's sad).

I also because everyone here always gets mad whenever someone says "oh wait and see if she can do these quads when she's older" about the juniors, and that's what Polina herself has to say.


She also added:

But it‘s true, isn‘t it? We don‘t know whether they will be able to jump quads when they grow up. Puberty might be harsh to them but it also might not. Everyone declared Evgenia to be done for once puberty hit her and guess what? It didn‘t happen. Likewise, people declared Elena Radionova to become Olympic Champion in 2018 but puberty hit her hard with all this growing and resulted in her not even making the Olympics. Had Polina not been injured, she could have very well risen to the occasion and become Russian 3rd and gone to the Olympics, Worlds, Europeans... She could have had loads of medals. But that’s a whole lot of coulda shoulda woulda. In the end, we don‘t know anything. Trusova looks crazily determined to keep her quads and she might as well be able to. If she keeps working as dedicatedly as she does and if she‘s lucky. Evgenia wasn‘t lucky to be injured in the Olympic Season. Otherwise she could have won Gold. Again... Lots of coulda shoulda woulda. We‘ll see how all of these girls cope with puberty. I wish them luck. They‘re talented. They don‘t deserve injuries to hamper what otherwise could be a great career. But Tsurskaya is right. Wait and see what will happen to them.

 

[GINO]

It's already starts tomorrow. Good luck girls! https://pp.userapi.com/c841630/v841630206/28248/dLGLNPuE5xk.jpg