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- Apr 8, 2018
It's really sad that some of the great senior ladies probably won't go to nationalsShe could have qualified through the Russian Cup, hence her withdrawal from it means she can't be at nationals.
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It's really sad that some of the great senior ladies probably won't go to nationalsShe could have qualified through the Russian Cup, hence her withdrawal from it means she can't be at nationals.
It's really sad that some of the great senior ladies probably won't go to nationals
Evgenia will have an almost impossible challenge at nats, as will everyone else competing. The odds are literally stacked against them, 3 podium spots and too many extremely strong competitors. Getting on the podium will be difficult for all of them. That's why Russian Nationals are always a bloodbath, but particularly this year. The federation is the big winner, really, because no matter who gets on the podium, they will be sending 3 incredible skaters to junior and senior worlds.
It is indeed. It'll be even worse next year. As I said yesterday, even someone of Polina Tsurskaya's calibre is a question mark when it comes to next year's nationals.
I don't get what the hoopala over Russian ladies being a bloodbath is all about. Tsurkaya has been skating poorly this season. Same goes for Radianova and Pogorilaya, and the latter two have been subpar (not just by Russian standards) for several seasons.
People have been hyping up the narrative of Russian ladies bloodbath since 2014, but for the last quad, the placements to Worlds were all correct and everyone who didn't make it deserved to not make it (Sotnikova, Lipniskaia, Radianova, Pogorilaya, Tukt). It's not like potential Worlds medalists are being bumped off advancing due to the depth of the field.
So a Youth Olympic Champion shouldn't be even at her nationals after a weaker season? What about world medallists, Pogorilaya, Radionova, Leonova? And people complain about the longevity of Russian skaters...
Polina had a very disappointing skate at SA but she still scored almost 160 points, which would be a respectable result for any non-Russian, non-Japanese and maybe non-American skater.
They've all been skating poorly. Pogorilaya and Radianova are both hot messes. Leonova is way beyond her time. Tukt was struggling for the past 3 seasons. They would've easily lost to other skaters on the international stage. Given the way some of them were skating, they wouldn't have made it out of Japanese Nationals or maybe American nationals (depending on the year).
Oh no, what did TAT say about Daria Panenkova? Did I miss something?
I mean Anna had a quite serious back injury last year, we don't know how she would've skated this season bc she wasn't even at test skates. Elena, to be fair wasn't in good shape at test skates, and was performing poorly at russian cup (53 in short is kinda yikes). The first Idk why she is not in good shape, I suspect Buyanova habing so many ladies rn that there is not a lot of attention on her and the second I suspect was because of her back injury. Both are quite promising skaters but if you can't even go to nationals, your season ends so early, that I believe it's very hard to stay in competitive shape. I hope Elena switches coaches again Asap bc I feel like with a coach that pays a log of attention to her, and can rework her technique she would be a contendor(probably too late, since next season is gonna be crazy) and I hope the same for Anna and that her new coach is good.
Even when Pogorilaya was healthy, she was as big of a headcase as they come.

Pogorilaya has 3 GP victories, a GPF bronze, 3 Euros medals, and a World bronze (which should really be 2 World bronzes).
Not bad for a healthy headcase.![]()
So what? This doesn't disprove my point that she's a headcase. Medals don't have anything to do with it (e.g. Kostner). I didn't say Pogorilaya was a substandard skater, but she is a headcase on her best days, and has been skating poorly enough in the past seasons to have been shaky on making it out of other Nats too (Japan / US).
Y'all make it sound like Russia is nixing potential Worlds medallists out of the race when that's hardly the case.
I don't get this whole labelling skaters as headcases once they start competing past their prime. As if people will somehow magically forget about the (multiple) times those skaters actually stepped up and did slay the competition, and were anything but a headcase.
Pogorilaya was arguably in her prime when she was going hot and cold. I think of a headcase as someone who has all the goods to slay, but due to nerves can't hold it together at least 1/3 of the time.