2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

[Sam-Skwantch]

Such situations can happen in other sports where this is used and also everywhere else, work, relations. There are mechanisms how to deal with it that can be contained in the agreement like terminating the agreement in the cases 1., 2. ... X. abusive behaviour etc. (it's also part of why I say "it would protect both sides, the skater and the coach"), it's nothing new, no need to reinvent the wheel.

I’ve seen firsthand when a student and coach cease to be compatible with each other. I’ve seen coaches refuse to work with a skater (actually often times it’s the parents they don’t want to work with) and I’ve seen skaters who no longer respond to coaches or lose faith in them. These are not situations I believe would create positive results for anyone involved and I’m not certain a contract would suddenly make these situations manageable or even safe let alone productive.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Once again, 16 years old can have a job. And they sign endorsement contracts, so why not contracts about their main activity (of course with the participation of legal representative).

But can’t most 16 yr olds quit their first job? I did

I’m not sure if going on a few photo shoots and endorsing a product at events and on social media is on the same level as that of a student to coach relationship. The dynamics are way different and hardly comparable when you get down and evaluate the day to day interaction between sponsors and athletes versus the much more vital interactions of coaches and athletes.

 

[flanker]

I’ve seen firsthand when a student and coach cease to be compatible with each other. I’ve seen coaches refuse to work with a skater (actually often times it’s the parents they don’t want to work with) and I’ve seen skaters who no longer respond to coaches or lose faith in them. These are not situations I believe would create positive results for anyone involved and I’m not certain a contract would suddenly make these situations manageable or even safe let alone productive.

There are cases when husband and wife can't be compatible anymore. That's why divorce exists. Is that a reason why to cancel the institution of marriage from scratch? I don't think so.

 

[flanker]

But can’t most 16 yr olds quit their first job? I did

And that is an argument for (or against) ...?

I’m not sure if going on a few photo shoots and endorsing a product at events and on social media is on the same level as that of a student to coach relationship. The dynamics are way different and hardly comparable when you get down and evaluate the day to day interaction between sponsors and athletes versus the much more vital interactions of coaches and athletes.

It doesn't matter, once again, the marriage is way different relationship than a job, though both have legal aspects.

You know, many people before actually defended the relation of a coach-athlete as commercial relation. "I hire a coach, if he doesn't suit me, I change him. Why someone should be angry about it"!" And somehow now, when that would get some more precisely regulated form, suddently the defence calls for personal aspects. I see a big contradiction here.

 

[katymay]

Like Eteri as a person or hate her, but as for the coaching she is Everest while in comparison PLushy as a coach is that mound from the movie "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain" in this moment. Being succesful athlete doesn't make you a succesful coach trhoughout the whole sport. There are such cases but many succesful athletes became mediocre coaches and unknown athletes became succesful coaches. Though the main and only important thing now is that you can't claim Plushy is proven reliable coach now to whom should be entrusted such important athletes. If there would be long practise behind him that would show him as a coach, who can truly improve skaters abilities not just to skate in training, but also stand in competitions, OK (and no, one Titova in the novice championships is not a proof). But there is nothing so far even if his (and Rozanov's) fangirls chose to ignore this simple fact. Good driver is not authomatically a good driving instructor. And Plushy's self confidence also is not a qualification for such role.

One thing is to predict Plushy's future coaching career, the other one is his coaching career now does not entitle to put him into the role he is now. It's too risky.

Well, we will see. Both Trusova and Kostornaya are dealing with growth issues, so even if they stayed with Eteri, I'm not sure they were going to make the Olympic team, and hang in to 2022. Plushy's team seems much lighter, as if the athletes are having more fun.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

There are cases when husband and wife can't be compatible anymore. That's why divorce exists. Is that a reason why to cancel the institution of marriage from scratch? I don't think so.

I think you’ve cracked if you think the relationship a coach and student have is comparable to a vow a couple makes in front of god. Maybe you just value figure skating that much more than me but i don’t see the comparison between holy matrimony and a coach to their students.

Also these sports you’re talking about having contracts. How many of them involve minors?

 

[flanker]

Well, we will see. Both Trusova and Kostornaya are dealing with growth issues, so even if they stayed with Eteri, I'm not sure they were going to make the Olympic team, and hang in to 2022. Plushy's team seems much lighter, as if the athletes are having more fun.

Nobody can be sure who will make it into the Olympic team (though many people already predicted Kamila will be an olympic champion), but there is always higher and lesser probability.

It was actually Aliona who said "90 % of our training time are jokes"

Nevertheless, the happiest time is always in the K&C if the skate was according to expectations.

 

[zounger]

Also these sports you’re talking about having contracts. How many of them involve minors?

All sports at all levels in all the countries I know as examples, have some kind of contract. This contract in minors usually is the so called "Athlets bulletin" or "Athletes permission" or however is called in each country. And it's under jurisdiction of the club an athlete is (state or private). Its just usually have a meaning in team sports. So here since skating is an individual sport from the skaters perspective it doesn't has much meaning. If they don't want to be somewhere, they are free to go and that's the right. But from a club perspective even the individual sports are a matter of a team sport, this is how they've seen from their perspective. So some rules are involving to manage the situation in between. Depending on the individuality of the sport some times the rules are more close to individual athletes interest. Like skating,athletics etc. And some times to the teams (clubs) like basketball, football etc.

 

[flanker]

I think you’ve cracked if you think the relationship a coach and student have is comparable to a vow a couple makes in front of god. Maybe you just value figure skating that much more than me but i don’t see the comparison between holy matrimony and a coach to their students.

Also these sports you’re talking about having contracts. How many of them involve minors?

No matter whether you enter the marriage in church or in the office (if will burn in hell for being an atheist like me), it has legal aspects. Your arguments seemed to exclude legal aspects from the relation between the coach and an athlete, becausem, that's how I understood your logic, it is too high. I was just pointing out that legal aspects are present even in relations that are even higher and that it not a reason why to exclude it from the advance of having agreements with clear conditions.

You never heard about junior leagues in football, hockey etc.? Of course they use contracts. In my country, for instance, it is common that even if a kid/junior moves to another city and plays let's say volleyball, than if the kid wants to play in the new city's local club, the new club (or the parents) must pay a fee to the old club, that trained him before.

 

[ballerina]

Well, I do appreciate you taking your time to find it. Because in all honesty, without a link and evidence that this really happened like you said, I‘d have to consider it a mere conspiracy theory..

https://www.sport-express.ru/olympics/sochi2014/figure-skating/reviews/823131/
Here's an article called "Multiway substitutions". It was published on February 8, 2014 - the morning of ladies SP in the team event of Sochi Olympics. "Sport Express" is a national newspaper, a respectable one at that..., not a tabloid or something. The author of this article is Elena Vaytsekhovskaya - one of THE most respected Russian sports journalists. She's an Olympic champion herself (platform diving, Montreal, 1976).

So, first, I translate the part of the article which directly talks about what led to the substitution of ONE ice dance pair to TWO pairs, which consequently led to one less ladies entry:

"When I asked whether that was the final decision of Russian Figure Skating Federation (RFSF) to have only one ladies entry in the team event, the president of RFSF Aleksandr Gorshkov answered evasively: you know, Olympic Games - they are unpredictable. Anyone can get sick or get injured, that's why the deadline for submitting the official entries is set as close to the performance as possible. Americans, for example, based on what we saw during the training sessions, were going to submit the American champion Gracie Gold for the SP, but eventually it turned out that Ashley Wagner would skate in this section of the competition.

A few days before the beginning of the Games I heard another story from one of the coaches: that during the test skate, which was held for Evgeni Pluschenko in Novogorsk after European championships, experts were left somewhat disappointed with the performance of Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev. And that supposedly this was the moment when a behind-the-scenes decision was made to substitute the skaters of Aleksander Zhulin [Bobrova/Soloviev] in the team ice dance event, giving them the short program only.

It was also talked about the second Russian ice dance team, Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov, that there was an influential sponsorship company who wanted to see this pair on the ice very much. Elena was the "face" of this company during the Olympic season, and it influenced the decision of the federation.
This version of events, you see, is perfectly viable. Moreover, because it's obvious: by substituting one ice dance team for the other - RFSF doesn't risk anything because the strength of both dance teams is rather equal."

Hopefully this clears up some doubt that actually there WAS certain "politicking" going on...
In this particular article, there's no direct reference to the Minister of Sports, Vitaly Mutko, what role he played in these decisions and his phone call with Tutberidze. In case I find an explicit reference somewhere else - I can share that, especially for you..., because I remember PERFECTLY WELL that Vaytsekhovskaya talked about it. Furthermore, this greatly contributed to Vaytsekhovskaya's long-standing feud with Tutberidze, which is a whole another story.
(Vaytsekhovskaya jumped to Lipnitskaya's defense, criticizing Tutberidze for burning out the 15-y.o. by contributing to the decision to make her skate both programs; about not taking care of Lipnitskaya's eating disorder which was an open secret at the time, etc. etc. Let's just say... Tutberidze was NOT happy.)
During and after the Games, Vaytsekhovskaya also shared a lot of behind-the-scenes info on her blog. Unfortunately those comments are not searchable, and there are thousands upon thousands of comments... I don't 100% remember regarding every single piece of information - whether I read that in some newspaper, organization web page or a blog.

The other significant part of this article is regarding Lipnitskaya - was she UNANIMOUSLY the favorite for the only ladies entry in the team event, as potentially the most consistent skater. On the contrary of what some fans have argued here during the last few days, among Russian figure skating experts - in fact, she was not. At least, not unanimously. As you can read in the translation above, even the president of RFSF just ONE DAY before the event didn't give a clear "yes, Lipnitskaya is the favorite for the team event, that's her who will skate".

"By the way, by far not everyone whom I talked to was convinced that among ladies singles skaters Lipnitskaya would be the one who had a better chance at surviving the Olympic marathon. One of them, for example, had exactly the opposite opinion - Adelina has been skating at senior level for 6 years already, she has become the national champion 4 times, 2 times European silver medalist, therefore the figure skating world perceives her as a mature, accomplished athlete. Meanwhile, there are not so many successful competitions on Lipnitskaya's resume."

 

[Scott512]

Nobody can be sure who will make it into the Olympic team (though many people already predicted Kamila will be an olympic champion), but there is always higher and lesser probability.

It was actually Aliona who said "90 % of our training time are jokes"

Nevertheless, the happiest time is always in the K&C if the skate was according to expectations.

Aliona said that? I never knew the ruthless coach allowed humor at practice.

All sports at all levels in all the countries I know as examples, have some kind of contract. This contract in minors usually is the so called "Athlets bulletin" or "Athletes permission" or however is called in each country. And it's under jurisdiction of the club an athlete is (state or private). Its just usually have a meaning in team sports. So here since skating is an individual sport from the skaters perspective it doesn't has much meaning. If they don't want to be somewhere, they are free to go and that's the right. But from a club perspective even the individual sports are a matter of a team sport, this is how they've seen from their perspective. So some rules are involving to manage the situation in between. Depending on the individuality of the sport some times the rules are more close to individual athletes interest. Like skating,athletics etc. And some times to the teams (clubs) like basketball, football etc.

Interesting post. Do you think Sasha and aliona had contracts with EG? And then there are such situations like Panekova who was struggling and EG allegedly told her she could skate with the children's group or leave Sambo 70. I think what happened to Dasha is the more common scenario. This sport we like so much figure skating is very rough on the athletes in many ways and it's not easy on the coaches.

 

[zounger]

. Do you think Sasha and aliona had contracts with EG?

No I don't think there are such contracts. The "contracts", athletes permission to skate is/was with Sambo-70.

 

[macy]

Sasha's documentary:

Apparently Sasha said that Eteri and Co were trying to limit the amount of quads Sasha was doing, while Sasha wanted to go for more quads. So seems like this was the main conflict between them.
Sasha wanted to do more and more quads in practice and competitions, they tried to rein her in.
And then when they went for 3 quads at Euros it didn’t work out...
But then Sasha was on holiday before Europeans, and it would’ve been better if they sticked to the same content throughout the year, imo.

At GPF Sasha insisted to go for 3A and 5 quads, then at Rusnats coaches persuaded her to tone it down, she agreed only because they made an argument that for selection to Euros purposes it makes sense to go safe. At Euros coaches again insisted on having less quads and no 3A, but go clean instead, and Sasha didn’t like the idea of going back to no 3A and 3 quads.

So I’d say she felt like she was being held back, because they discouraged that amount of quads?

She repeated her quote from the trailer “I always wanted to jump, and they always stopped me. It’s not the first year this was happening”.

Sasha also mentions she herself approached Eteri to go for quads in 2017. Eteri first said “no”, next time Sasha asked Eteri suggested trying 3A first, they tried it, then Sasha asked again to go for quads and they did that time.

I know Sasha loves jumping a lot, this docu just showed that she’s really passionate about jumping and has fun when she jumps. It matters a lot to her, way more than I used to think before.
TBH, this isn't shocking, we've heard about this before.
If she went to Plushenko, just so no one would stop her from jumping as much as she wants - I'm not sure this is an ideal scenario for Sasha's future.

this is a bit concerning to me in the fact that if Plushenko lets her jump however many times and whatever she wants, there is a much bigger chance of injury. i can understand why Eteri wanted to limit her, and i'm not sure Sasha understands this. in her mind it sounds like she thinks they were purposely holding her back vs trying to limit the risk of injury.

 

[Scott512]

Nevertheless, the happiest time is always in the K&C if the skate was according to expectations.[/QUOTE]

No matter whether you enter the marriage in church or in the office (if will burn in hell for being an atheist like me), it has legal aspects. Your arguments seemed to exclude legal aspects from the relation between the coach and an athlete, becausem, that's how I understood your logic, it is too high. I was just pointing out that legal aspects are present even in relations that are even higher and that it not a reason why to exclude it from the advance of having agreements with clear conditions.

You never heard about junior leagues in football, hockey etc.? Of course they use contracts. In my country, for instance, it is common that even if a kid/junior moves to another city and plays let's say volleyball, than if the kid wants to play in the new city's local club, the new club (or the parents) must pay a fee to the old club, that trained him before.

In reality I bet you're more like an agnostic than an atheist. there is a difference.

I like the idea of the atletes or their parents paying a fee to the former coach. You need to contact the Russian Federation and Sambo-70 in particular about this.

https://www.sport-express.ru/olympics/sochi2014/figure-skating/reviews/823131/
Here's an article called "Multiway substitutions". It was published on February 8, 2014 - the morning of ladies SP in the team event of Sochi Olympics. "Sport Express" is a national newspaper, a respectable one at that..., not a tabloid or something. The author of this article is Elena Vaytsekhovskaya - one of THE most respected Russian sports journalists. She's an Olympic champion herself (platform diving, Montreal, 1976).

So, first, I translate the part of the article which directly talks about what led to the substitution of ONE ice dance pair to TWO pairs, which consequently led to one less ladies entry:

"When I asked whether that was the final decision of Russian Figure Skating Federation (RFSF) to have only one ladies entry in the team event, the president of RFSF Aleksandr Gorshkov answered evasively: you know, Olympic Games - they are unpredictable. Anyone can get sick or get injured, that's why the deadline for submitting the official entries is set as close to the performance as possible. Americans, for example, based on what we saw during the training sessions, were going to submit the American champion Gracie Gold for the SP, but eventually it turned out that Ashley Wagner would skate in this section of the competition.

A few days before the beginning of the Games I heard another story from one of the coaches: that during the test skate, which was held for Evgeni Pluschenko in Novogorsk after European championships, experts were left somewhat disappointed with the performance of Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev. And that supposedly this was the moment when a behind-the-scenes decision was made to substitute the skaters of Aleksander Zhulin [Bobrova/Soloviev] in the team ice dance event, giving them the short program only.

It was also talked about the second Russian ice dance team, Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov, that there was an influential sponsorship company who wanted to see this pair on the ice very much. Elena was the "face" of this company during the Olympic season, and it influenced the decision of the federation.
This version of events, you see, is perfectly viable. Moreover, because it's obvious: by substituting one ice dance team for the other - RFSF doesn't risk anything because the strength of both dance teams is rather equal."

Hopefully this clears up some doubt that actually there WAS certain "politicking" going on...
In this particular article, there's no direct reference to the Minister of Sports, Vitaly Mutko, what role he played in these decisions and his phone call with Tutberidze. In case I find an explicit reference somewhere else - I can share that, especially for you..., because I remember PERFECTLY WELL that Vaytsekhovskaya talked about it. Furthermore, this greatly contributed to Vaytsekhovskaya's long-standing feud with Tutberidze, which is a whole another story.
(Vaytsekhovskaya jumped to Lipnitskaya's defense, criticizing Tutberidze for burning out the 15-y.o. by contributing to the decision to make her skate both programs; about not taking care of Lipnitskaya's eating disorder which was an open secret at the time, etc. etc. Let's just say... Tutberidze was NOT happy.)
During and after the Games, Vaytsekhovskaya also shared a lot of behind-the-scenes info on her blog. Unfortunately those comments are not searchable, and there are thousands upon thousands of comments... I don't 100% remember regarding every single piece of information - whether I read that in some newspaper, organization web page or a blog.

The other significant part of this article is regarding Lipnitskaya - was she UNANIMOUSLY the favorite for the only ladies entry in the team event, as potentially the most consistent skater. On the contrary of what some fans have argued here during the last few days, among Russian figure skating experts - in fact, she was not. At least, not unanimously. As you can read in the translation above, even the president of RFSF just ONE DAY before the event didn't give a clear "yes, Lipnitskaya is the favorite for the team event, that's her who will skate".

"By the way, by far not everyone whom I talked to was convinced that among ladies singles skaters Lipnitskaya would be the one who had a better chance at surviving the Olympic marathon. One of them, for example, had exactly the opposite opinion - Adelina has been skating at senior level for 6 years already, she has become the national champion 4 times, 2 times European silver medalist, therefore the figure skating world perceives her as a mature, accomplished athlete. Meanwhile, there are not so many successful competitions on Lipnitskaya's resume."

That's some good information to read and reliving the team event and all of that. But I found the end of what you posted most interesting about Adelina being a four-time national champion at 17 and 2 time European silver medalist. She was more accomplished at that point heading ninto the Winter Olympics than people give her credit for. And she beat Julia in the SP at Nationals and Europeans shortly before the Olympic team event. That should have ensured Adelina skated the SP in the team event. It really is no way around that. The dance team that got switched out for the other dance team is not the same thing because Adelina was 4 time national champion and two-time European silver medalist heading into the 2014 Winter Olympics.

 

[flanker]

Aliona said that? I never knew the ruthless coach allowed humor at practice.

Yes, here

And during time they all, made commets about fun and jokes during training, so it's not like "in other teams there is light, fun and perfect relations, while in Eteri's labour camp everyone is frowning, there is dark all around etc."

 

[flanker]

In reality I bet you're more like an agnostic than an atheist. there is a difference.

topic:
No, I am not an agnostic, those are the people who are too lazy for the morning mass but are not bold enough to openly say "I don't believe", so they are always something in between. Nothing that should surprise you, my nation is probably the most religiously lukewarm in the world

I like the idea of the atletes or their parents paying a fee to the former coach. You need to contact the Russian Federation and Sambo-70 in particular about this.

I believe it works in a similar way in team sports there just like here. It just prevents the situation where the local clubs would serve just as reserves for the big team in the big cities. It could actually help local FS federations in Russia (if such system is not applied there already) that if a young kid goes to train to a team inn a big city (incl. eteri's team), they would get some payment for it that would help them to raise a new talent.

 

[Resa]

With the Senior GP planned (yet) to happen, do you think RusFed would risk sending its best skaters?

 

[flanker]

With the Senior GP planned (yet) to happen, do you think RusFed would risk sending its best skaters?

It will depend on the conditions. From the statements they made it seemed to me they would like to arrange something like they did for the NBA or NHL in America (everything in one - or few - place(s) under strict conditions), but I can't imagine how to do that for the international sport.

 

[starlight97]

Sasha's documentary:

Apparently Sasha said that Eteri and Co were trying to limit the amount of quads Sasha was doing, while Sasha wanted to go for more quads. So seems like this was the main conflict between them.
Sasha wanted to do more and more quads in practice and competitions, they tried to rein her in.
And then when they went for 3 quads at Euros it didn’t work out...
But then Sasha was on holiday before Europeans, and it would’ve been better if they sticked to the same content throughout the year, imo.

At GPF Sasha insisted to go for 3A and 5 quads, then at Rusnats coaches persuaded her to tone it down, she agreed only because they made an argument that for selection to Euros purposes it makes sense to go safe. At Euros coaches again insisted on having less quads and no 3A, but go clean instead, and Sasha didn’t like the idea of going back to no 3A and 3 quads.

So I’d say she felt like she was being held back, because they discouraged that amount of quads?

She repeated her quote from the trailer “I always wanted to jump, and they always stopped me. It’s not the first year this was happening”.

Sasha also mentions she herself approached Eteri to go for quads in 2017. Eteri first said “no”, next time Sasha asked Eteri suggested trying 3A first, they tried it, then Sasha asked again to go for quads and they did that time.

I know Sasha loves jumping a lot, this docu just showed that she’s really passionate about jumping and has fun when she jumps. It matters a lot to her, way more than I used to think before.
TBH, this isn't shocking, we've heard about this before.
If she went to Plushenko, just so no one would stop her from jumping as much as she wants - I'm not sure this is an ideal scenario for Sasha's future.

Oh Sasha... your coaches were perfectly right in their approach.
So it seems to have gone down pretty much how many of us thought with her layout changes.
I wish she had had the ability to see that her team's approach was the sensible one. And if not her, than at least her parents.
That with 3 clean quads and more focus on PCS, just like Anna, she would have been a strong gold medal contender in all competitions in which she only came 3rd or worse because of falling all over the place and pushing for more than was reasonable just for WR and wow effects.
So I guess from now on it will get even worse since Plushenko will not try to reason with her, but rather but gasoline to the fire

 

[macy]

Oh Sasha... your coaches were perfectly right in their approach.
So it seems to have gone down pretty much how many of us thought with her layout changes.
I wish she had had the ability to see that her team's approach was the sensible one. And if not her, than at least her parents.
That with 3 clean quads and more focus on PCS, just like Anna, she would have been a strong gold medal contender in all competitions in which she only came 3rd or worse because of falling all over the place and pushing for more than was reasonable just for WR and wow effects.
So I guess from now on it will get even worse since Plushenko will not try to reason with her, but rather but gasoline to the fire

i guess i don't fully understand Sasha's thought process on this. why did she always want to go for her max layout 3A included when she was so inconsistent the whole season? it would be one thing if she was hitting that layout or close to it at nearly every competition, but she wasn't. she had problems with a 3 quad layout. maybe she felt she needed to jump more and not be limited to help her consistency?