2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

[snowflake]

Ksenia S. 4T-3T:

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I'm among the ones who miss her skating. What does she say?

Yes, we’ve seen it time and again with Trusova. She puts in 4-5 quads and it‘s a huge go big or go home. Sometimes she implodes and gets knocked off the podium (like at the Rostelecom Cup 2020) or sometimes it more or less works out and she becomes the first woman to break the 100 TES mark. (Skate Canada 2019) The problem is you don’t always know which one you’ll get.

But that's why she wants to go for them in every competition. Like her plan is that finally she'll succeed.

 

[Scott512]

Yes, we’ve seen it time and again with Trusova. She puts in 4-5 quads and it‘s a huge go big or go home. Sometimes she implodes and gets knocked off the podium (like at the Rostelecom Cup 2020) or sometimes it more or less works out and she becomes the first woman to break the 100 TES mark. (Skate Canada 2019) The problem is you don’t always know which one you’ll get.

That's a pretty big problem to have. It Sasha has one of those poor short programs at the Olympics like at worlds it will cost Russia a sweep for sure. But if she scores in the mid seventies with her SP she has a good chance at the gold if she hits 3 of 4 quads. There is no reason to touch 5 quads. Sasha will put massive pressure on those ahead of her after the SP if she's within striking distance and they will know she will be like a leopard on a tree branch ready to pounce!

The problem at worlds was that sasha was too far behind after the shorty.

 

[Scott512]

I'm among the ones who miss her skating. What does she say?

But that's why she wants to go for them in every competition. Like her plan is that finally she'll succeed.

It's crazy Ksenia and a couple of nastyas did not skate in the recent Saint Petersburg event. Some girls competitive careers are hanging on by a thread. They need to skate even in a small event.

Ksenia has untapped potential. Will it ever be fulfilled?

 

[flanker]

It seems that the team will create the audience tomorrow:

 

[flanker]

Ksenia I think was listed, but had to withdraw.

Stasya had a nightmare SP today. Two invalid jump elements and all jumps popped. She earned from the valid combo (and all jumps in total) a whopping 0.90 points.

Better news today, Stasya had a solid skate with the score 129.59, which was second best score of the day. She finished 5th overally.

 

[Novalis]

Better news today, Stasya had a solid skate with the score 129.59, which was second best score of the day. She finished 5th overally.

Polina Sviridenko was amazing in this competition

 

[silveruskate]

What is the fixation with backloading? It only adds 0.4-0.5 to BV per combination backloaded and is completely washed away by GOE. If you're going to earn 1 point more in GOE across the whole program by not backloading, it's better not to backload.

 

[flanker]

Polina Sviridenko was amazing in this competition

Very good indeed:

 

[Minz]

What is the fixation with backloading? It only adds 0.4-0.5 to BV per combination backloaded and is completely washed away by GOE. If you're going to earn 1 point more in GOE across the whole program by not backloading, it's better not to backload.

It’s worth more than that. If an element has a BV of 10 points, then it is worth 11 points because of the 10% bonus. So a potential of 2-5 few points across the program, but even so, just one point can mean a lot. The real situation with backloading came at the 2018 Olympics. Because Zagitova put all her jumps in the second half, she was able to earn an extra point that won her the Olympic title. While it didn’t work at Worlds that year, (She fell a lot) the power of backloading was still shown during that Olympics. Since then they changed the rules so you can only backload a few elements in the program.

 

[Jeanie19]

Very good indeed:

Very good, who is her coach?

 

[flanker]

Very good, who is her coach?

Tatiana Klenina, team Sport School of the Olympic Reserves "Star Ice" (Zvezdny lyod).

 

[silveruskate]

It’s worth more than that. If an element has a BV of 10 points, then it is worth 11 points because of the 10% bonus. So a potential of 2-5 few points across the program, but even so, just one point can mean a lot. The real situation with backloading came at the 2018 Olympics. Because Zagitova put all her jumps in the second half, she was able to earn an extra point that won her the Olympic title. While it didn’t work at Worlds that year, (She fell a lot) the power of backloading was still shown during that Olympics. Since then they changed the rules so you can only backload a few elements in the program.

If you do 2 3Lzes you can do your combination in the first half, and then the solo 3Lz in the bonus zone. So in reality you're making 0.4 for a -3T and 0.5 for a -3Lo. It isn't so simple to just say 1 point bonus. It isn't worth taking the risk unless these combinations are easy for you wherever they are in the program. If you q or UR it's game over. Even if you just get 0.5 less GOE than optimal it's completely useless.

It works the opposite way too. Alina was able to save her program at the Olympics with a 2nd 3Lz to do her -3Lo at the Olympics. And look at what happened to Sasha at Worlds this year.

 

[Minz]

If you do 2 3Lzes you can do your combination in the first half, and then the solo 3Lz in the bonus zone. So in reality you're making 0.4 for a -3T and 0.5 for a -3Lo. It isn't so simple to just say 1 point bonus. It isn't worth taking the risk unless these combinations are easy for you wherever they are in the program. If you q or UR it's game over. Even if you just get 0.5 less GOE than optimal it's completely useless.

It works the opposite way too. Alina was able to save her program at the Olympics with a 2nd 3Lz to do her -3Lo at the Olympics. And look at what happened to Sasha at Worlds this year.

I’m not talking specifically, just how it could work in general, and I did say that it works the opposite way too. If the risk is worth it, then ok, if not then no.

 

[flanker]

If you do 2 3Lzes you can do your combination in the first half, and then the solo 3Lz in the bonus zone. So in reality you're making 0.4 for a -3T and 0.5 for a -3Lo. It isn't so simple to just say 1 point bonus. It isn't worth taking the risk unless these combinations are easy for you wherever they are in the program. If you q or UR it's game over. Even if you just get 0.5 less GOE than optimal it's completely useless.

It works the opposite way too. Alina was able to save her program at the Olympics with a 2nd 3Lz to do her -3Lo at the Olympics. And look at what happened to Sasha at Worlds this year.

I guess you propose to switch quads with combos in the program

 

[McBibus]

I think backloading it good as it is right now.
If you can backload everything you're going to crowd the second half with jumps for an unbalaced distribution of elements.
Reverse if there is no incentive at all to backload something.
The actual rule encourage a pretty good ditribution of jumping elements along the programs

 

[Vilord]

I was wondering the same thing, especially in the SP when I saw Trusova's worlds SP. When she missed the lutz on her combo she was sunk. Is it really worth the risk to back load a combo? Especially for someone like Trusova whose LP is a nuclear arsenal that she can make up with. Was the extra point or two for backloading in the SP really worth the risk?

Well at worlds no it was deffenetly not worth it. But 3Lz+3T is a combo Sasha normally does in her sleep. Its probably her easies combo acoss both programs. She has had her combo backloaded since her junior years and I think worlds this year is the first time ever shes missed it.

 

[flanker]

Little ad for the Tutber House

Dasha:




Sofia and Aliona:

 

[Amei]

I was wondering the same thing, especially in the SP when I saw Trusova's worlds SP. When she missed the lutz on her combo she was sunk. Is it really worth the risk to back load a combo? Especially for someone like Trusova whose LP is a nuclear arsenal that she can make up with. Was the extra point or two for backloading in the SP really worth the risk?

Backloading the combination gives almost 2 points of an advantage, and its not like Trusova habitually misses that combination, she and Shcherbakova have both been backloading it for years and have rarely missed that badly on it. And if you look at my post from yesterday about Shcherbakova and Tuktamysheva's SP BV comparison, having that backloaded combination eats away at the BV advantage of the triple axel. And while yes Trusova does have the ability to throw a lot of quads, she's rarely shown the ability to be completely clean on it, so she still needs to perform the SP to set herself up to not need to do all those quads to win/podium. If she starts routinely missing the combination in the SP then yes they should move it. Given how competitive Russian ladies is, if someone wants to win I don't think they can really afford to sacrifice any points on the table - if she can reliably backload the combination in the SP and get 2 extra points then she needs to be doing that - I would say the same thing for any other skater as well.

 

[Pale]

Backloading the combination gives almost 2 points of an advantage, and its not like Trusova habitually misses that combination, she and Shcherbakova have both been backloading it for years and have rarely missed that badly on it. And if you look at my post from yesterday about Shcherbakova and Tuktamysheva's SP BV comparison, having that backloaded combination eats away at the BV advantage of the triple axel. And while yes Trusova does have the ability to throw a lot of quads, she's rarely shown the ability to be completely clean on it, so she still needs to perform the SP to set herself up to not need to do all those quads to win/podium. If she starts routinely missing the combination in the SP then yes they should move it. Given how competitive Russian ladies is, if someone wants to win I don't think they can really afford to sacrifice any points on the table - if she can reliably backload the combination in the SP and get 2 extra points then she needs to be doing that - I would say the same thing for any other skater as well.

How can you possibly get a 2pts difference ? For instance, she gets that 10% backloading bonus on 3F instead of 3Lz-3Lo. I don't understand your numbers.

 

[chasingneverland]

I was wondering the same thing, especially in the SP when I saw Trusova's worlds SP. When she missed the lutz on her combo she was sunk. Is it really worth the risk to back load a combo? Especially for someone like Trusova whose LP is a nuclear arsenal that she can make up with. Was the extra point or two for backloading in the SP really worth the risk?

It's different for Sasha. (Except for quads but that's not an issue in the SP.)

The inherent risk yes, is partially, that you miss your combo and don't have another opportunity to tack on a combo to anything else.

But for most skater's it's actually usually stamina that's the question and increased chance of under-rotations that make it difficult. On the contrary though, that wasn't the issue for Sasha. With her 3Lz in the SP, it was mental and she essentially went into it as if she would a 4Lz, and over-rotated it.

Also, part of what makes Sasha's FS a "nuclear arsenal" as you put it is because she backloads quads but there she struggles still. But if she wants to do 5, so essentially has to.