2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating | Page 1109 | Golden Skate

2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

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Napoleon taking his gold medal
 
I would have loved her to win worlds with her Rusnats performance but congrats to Shcherbakova. We only talk about Tuktamysheva coming back on podium after harships but Shcherbakova too has her share if hardships.
After the injuries that delayed her intl debut she could have stagnated, not getting back quads and be left behind. But she fought. Despite never being the one expected to win she's now a three-time Russian champion and a worlds champion.
Whatever bothered her during that comp, i hope it will go away and she will have a chance to win an olympic spot.
 
Huh??? Why are some people talking like Anna has lost her quads???

Omg!!! Do we have to go back to being ridiculous again!?

She's probably not in great shape after pneumonia/illness, can't get her quads working in this setting. How does that lead to her suddenly being quadless!?

People are ridiculous. We literally saw practice videos of her this week landing beautiful 4Fs.

For whatever reason - such as being at the end of a successful but physically challenging season - she might be going through a phase where her quads are less consistent, making it a smart move to limit her FS to one quad attempt.

I'm confident she'll come back next season hitting her jumps with typical consistency, and hopefully, if we're lucky, with a 3A added to her arsenal. (Certainly training alongside Kami will be enough motivation to push for this.)
 
As for Sasha reducing her quads or not, my point was that
a) she is almost never clean, usually due to several quad falls. I remember the few skate of her that were clean, cause they are the minority. While with other skaters it's the other way around.
b) as for the mistake here in the SP, you can argue that it is cause she is a weak competitor in general, which is correct (hence me saying get her a sports psychologist). But you can also see that Lutz was in fact overrotated. Clearly cause of her drilling 5 quad programms everyday in practice. Which is btw also questionable tactics, wearing her out like that before the actual competition even starts.

And as for Anna adjusting her content according to Rika's splat fest - No, she said in the press conference that they had planned to go for 1 quad from the beginning, since "there were problems in preparation" aka she wasn't landing them at all in practice.
I'm not even sure she knew what happened with Rika before going on.
But Daniil and Eteri sure did and must have been thanking the lord :laugh:
 
Oh yeah. She was on it all right! 😍

A very hardy congratulations to Tuktamysheva! I got a lump in my throat and watery eyes at her reaction to her scores. (But the tears didn’t actually fall until about 7 minutes later.) She fought tooth and nail to get there and got absolutely no favors from her Fed. That was just hard work and determination.

I know some of y’all think she has no chances to make the Olympic team, but y’all thought the same about her making the World team too and look what happened. Sure, her chances are slim and the stars were definitely aligned in a certain way, but she still had to walk through the open door. She didn’t just walk through it, though. She kicked the damn thing open and strutted right on in!

Liza has said in interviews that she's going to focus this off-season on solidifying her 4T, which we know she can land. This would make her the only Russian senior girl besides Kami with trixels and quads. (Although we're of course hoping that Anya adds a 3A in the offseason, too. And Kseniia, of all girls, has hinted at this potential, as well!)

Liza should be taken seriously for the Olympics regardless, but especially if she comes into next season with a relatively stable 4T.

EDIT: Regarding skaters with trixels and quads, I should of course mention Sasha here, too. But it's been awhile now and we've yet to see her land a clean 3A in competition. I was hoping this Worlds would be it, but alas.
 
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Have a picture of the three fantastic skaters who came out on top of a rather messy Worlds, by their sheer athleticism, grit, and nerves of steel.

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Source.

Probably not the Worlds skates any of them were looking for, but they got the job done.

Sasha's absolute determination to go out there and jump all her quads may not lead to skates with much in the way of performance or choreography, but her sheer athletic ability cannot be denied. She is a powerhouse. I do hope, however, that she gets on top of whatever bothers her during competition, because she is a much better skater than we saw from her yesterday. I'm inclined to agree that three quads are the magic number for her, but Sasha is apparently going to Sasha, and she really wants that clean five quad skate, and who am I to tell her no? We all have to make our own paths, and Sasha has chosen hers, so may she have good fortune and succeed in achieving it.

I admit that when Liza teared up in the Kiss 'n Cry, I got a lump in my throat. She has worked very hard for this moment and this medal, and to have it all come together for her at last, in the pandemic Worlds, well, it's a great comeback story. I did yell out loud when she fell on the 3F, and I was so sure it would put her below Sasha, but it did not, and she made the podium. Just watching her journey over the last few years has been inspiring: she has steadily upgraded her technical components, stabilising her 3A, improving her layouts, adding in more choreography, working on her spins and her StSq, and it has paid off for her. Props to Liza for having the grit to fight back and to prove that it isn't just teenagers who can win international medals.

And Anna, what can I say? Her practices left her tearful. The 4F was not there for her yesterday. But when it came to crunch time, her poise did not desert her, and she delivered with a presence of mind that allowed her to recalculate her jumps on the fly, to get that combination done after missing it, and throughout it all, she remained graceful, sensitive, musical. (I am pretending that flying camel spin never happened, oh my goodness, what was that?) Her surprise at placing first made me laugh with joy while watching - she never expected it, and the way she rose in delighted confusion, with a hand on her heart, oh, she is such a wonderful young person. And even without an audience to lift her, she has demonstrated that she is cool and calm under pressure. Silk hiding steel, I think!
 
The choir of naysayers who are either living in the past or just unhappy about how the things go is still there. But it's getting smaller and smaller. At the same time, "E la nave va" as Fellini said - something like "and the ship goes".

Lipnitskaya would have won Sochi games with ease should she have skated in the main event same as she did in the team event. But she did not. Sotnikova's win proved to be much narrower. Still it was symbolic as the manifestation that "the Russian era" has started in the ladies' figure skating. Since 2014 every main event of the year was won by a Russian skater: Sotnikova-Tuktamysheva-Medvedeva-Medvedeva-Zagitova-Zagitova-Scherbakova - what a nice row of "-va"s :)

Yes, there were big events that skaters from other countries won, yes, sweeps were rare and not in the Olympics/worlds.

This year sweep is obvious for everyone but the most die-hard opponents. But next year, I think, they all will go. We have Valieva and Co. coming of age. Looking around at the current field I don't see anyone who can realistically challenge the Russian Olympic team whoever is going to be there. The only 2 candidates are Rika and Alysa. But I don't think so. Rika is going to be 20 - if she has not mastered quads by now, chances are low that she will in the Olympics ready format. Even in the cleanish SP she struggled with landings. Well, miracles do happen but, once again, I don't think so. Alysa...well, she is the prodigy with quads who lost them. We have not seen a single example of a junior skater who regained her quads after puberty as she had lost them. May be she will be the first one but hardly. Her landings were URed even back then.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we have entered the new era - the era of Russian ladies podium sweeps!...and we all know whom "to blame" for this.
 
Yes.

(1) I predicted both Trusova and Tuktamysheva on the podium.
(2) I predicted the expected number of quads landed by Schberbakova in competition to be zero.

Both predictions were confirmed.
Well, OK. I just have some comments to make ;)

Surely, you must know that "all models are wrong". So it's fine that you are engaging in debate and are trying to advance your own methodology, and I even agree with the reasons you have given ("not enough of a prior"). However, you must simply acknowledge, at least in my opinion, that sports can't just be based off a stream of data, nor is someone performing well after a bad practice/warmup "an anomaly". It's, in essence, social science data - and emergent variables exist. Such emergent variables do exist for Shcherbakova and Trusova bombing (and keep in mind that while it's true Social Scientists tend to be poor statisticians, it's still the case that the data they have cannot be dealt with the same rigour as data that might be available to a scientist). We still cannot construct proper models for these, but they do exist. So, I'd say the people were giving you reasonable rebuttals based off partial observations, which is after all what you were doing too.

I do agree some of it can be based off frequentist probability though, of course, like the part about physical conditioning that can lead to jumps being bombed in practice, which can carry over to competition. More probable, but certainly not just an anomaly to be the case otherwise.

One more thing. Even if you did predict that Trusova and Tuktamysheva on the podium... was it based off their jumps, and nothing else? Did you take the RusFed politics behind them into account? You haven't stated that assumption. Because I wouldn't say they deserved the 69 or 66 PCS they were given (and I wouldn't even have Trusova on the podium), nor did they exactly land all their jumps. It does look like confirmation bias to me :shrug: unless you want to say something else now (because I do see you just said your predictions came true, not how or what went on behind them).
 
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Anna was dead even with her in the free skate! A fall and no quad or 3A yet still scored pretty much dead even. And all it took was the old fashioned 7 triples 2 double axels and some beautifully performed in between elements to match the kitchen sink score wise. I guess the full package still counts for something :cool:
Anna the total package I like that.
 
It's crazy to think that Aliona scored higher in every single international competition she competed in last season.
Anna and Sasha also did better ;)

Crazy is taking one's best against other's worst/not best, it is not a good comparison. Most ladies here skated subpar and nowhere is written that Aliona would somehow skate better under the same conditions in this season as the medalists did even without her going down.
 
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A good learning experience for Anna is that she didn't panic after missing the combo, even though she only had 1 chance to put it in or else she'd Zayak. I think she thought the gold was gone when she fell on her 4F (given her reaction in the K&C), she looked the most relax I've seen her in the first half of the program which actually made in more beautiful like she was taking her time with everything. The second half was much better at nationals, though, because she had so much more attack there. I hope she can find a good mix of both in the future.

And now that the season is over, I really hope Anna gets some amazing choreography next season. The best part of her programs this season is the joy on her face before the steps in the FS. I loved her Perfume, but please no more dark programs. Her smile is so radiant and she comes alive with it. I really want something upbeat for the short and an intense tango or classical piece that builds a lot in the end. I'm over the generic lyrical pieces, she needs to show off her musicality.
Anna has a very high level of artistry musicality and feel and we feel her more on the ice now. Maybe not landing quads yesterday got us to focus on her other qualities.

This girl can actually be a top skater without quads. In fact I wish there were some events where ultra jumps were not allowed. In some ways no ultra jumps creates better skating in terms of artistry and interpretation

I hope Annz can get a little stronger for next season because that's going to be a big time grind.
 
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