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- Jan 31, 2019
Selection of dragons is marginally better than one dragon.
2021-2022 Russian Men's Figure Skating
- Thread starter anonymoose_au
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- Jan 31, 2019
Because of this string of bad luck, as long as Mozalev gets back home without injury and/or Covid, I will be okay. Maybe his body simply can’t produce second quad. His 4T is still as beautiful as ever. But, his 4F killed his 3F, and could it be that 4S is destroying his 3A? I mean, I am good watching him compete nationally for as long as he does. If things do not go well tomorrow, is his only remaining option to use change the coach card? He seems too young to play that way, but who knows…
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- Nov 12, 2021
I cannot say that Mozalev disappointed me - in any case, I did not expect any outstanding results from our men. But still, after his successful short program at the European Championships, it was hard to imagine that he would perform so badly today.
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- Feb 2, 2019
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- Feb 14, 2018
That was a great skate from Semenenko. Yesterday he was the best of the Russian man. And if Kolyada didn´t have bad luck with covid, Evgeni wouldn´t even be in Beijing.
I was very sad for Andrej Mozalev. But at least he still made the final.
Poor Mark was probably a bit tired, but he still fought for every jump like he always does. And no-one can take away his gold medal.
I was very sad for Andrej Mozalev. But at least he still made the final.
Poor Mark was probably a bit tired, but he still fought for every jump like he always does. And no-one can take away his gold medal.
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- Jan 31, 2019
His practices were bad. He continued pounding 4S, trying to get over popping it, and he started popping 3A. He’s really struggling with that 4S. I dunno if it’s shoulders or hips or if he added a couple more centimetres of height we can’t really see over Christmas break. Or maybe he simply is burned out or aggravated whatever injuries there are. Whatever it is, he wasn’t doing great all week, so as much as I would love a beautiful free, I don’t have much hope. My hope peaked after Eu short…
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- Feb 14, 2018
Mozalev is still young and has a lot of time left. He will only be 22 at the next Olympics. So hopefully his time will come.
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- Feb 22, 2014
Heh, this is a kind of funny comment since I know that Plushy and Mishin were raked over the coals for Plushy's programs. Dick Button famously said after Plushy's FS in Torino that Godfather "wasn't a program" and in Vancouver Jaime Sale said she "didn't believe in his skating" - I assume that meant choreo but who knows, it was a bizarre comment. And the general consensus on many a Plushy program was "Jump drill" "pointless arm waving" "zero artistry" and perennial favourite "just standing in one spot posing".
Although if you meant commitment to the choreo, Plushy did/does have that.
I'm not sure they don't care...but I suppose they care more about the jumps because that's where the points are?
Some of it could be a bit of sexism too, all these girls doing quads...how could the boys let themselves be beaten by girls?!
In the hunt for jumps boys are trying to get quads younger and younger. During the Novice competitions I watched a few weeks ago boys were trying quads and 3As in the elements portion. I guess this could have benefits as once you get the jumps down you can concentrate on PCS, although that's not a given as boys tend to have huge sudden growth spurts and that makes it hard to modify their technique fast enough.
Or maybe I'm just rambling
or I'm biased because I really love Mark and Zhenya S's style and don't get all the hate. But then I also love Plushy's arm-waving, jumping, posing programs the best 
so I'm not a reliable observer.
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- May 20, 2021
RE: skating skills in Sokolovskaia's group, remember that both Samarin and Kondratyuk had coaches before her (same with Rukavitsin's students, too), and she doesn't seem to have many/any students who actually trained their foundations with her from the beginning. That in mind, you might be better off looking at some of the previous coaches for each to understand where the differences come from.
On the topic of Russian men and PCS - and non-Russian men and PCS, and women of all nationalities and PCS, and just PCS in general - the whole concept of a 'PCS skater' is inherently flawed. PCS isn't a single score, but rather, a total of 5 scores, and realistically very few skaters will be genuinely strong in all of them. The skaters who tend to be strong across all components tend to be extreme generalists, i.e. guys like Jason Brown or, controversial comment incoming, Yuzuru Hanyu, and the current CoP doesn't favour generalists unless their name is Hanyu (really, doesn't favour anybody except jump specialists right now).
Also, people still refer to PCS as 'artistry', but several PCS categories are technical components, not artistic ones. Essentially, SS is wholly technical, TR mostly technical, CO half-and-half (this is where ice coverage gets counted, after all), IN is mostly artistic and PE is wholly artistic. So, what you end up getting is some guys like Samarin who excel at the technical components (skating skills) and some like Kondratyuk who excel at the artistic components (performance). Because corridor scoring is a thing, being good enough at one component will save you if the judges like you, but being bad enough on one of them is a death sentence if the judges don't like you, but this kind of corridor scoring even happens within individual component categories if there is one aspect that you're either good enough or bad enough at (i.e. having great speed can save your SS scores if your edges aren't the deepest and deep enough edges can save you if you're slower on the ice than my obese Nan trying to climb a flight of stairs). And, is goes without saying, the if the judges like you part is where good old politicking comes in.
Super controversial comment incoming, but this is exactly where the issues with Mishin's students lie. Basically, 90-100% of what comes under TES and 50% of what comes under PCS would have been the Technical score under 6.0, and the other 50% of what comes under PCS would come under the artistic score. The sort of corridor scoring that happens now with PCS happened just as much under 6.0, it was just less obvious to the average viewer; if you had great jumps/spins/spirals/general-elements but week technical components (poor skating skills, no/few transitions, poor ice coverage) you could still get a high technical score, so for a very long time these particular components went ignored in favour of technical elements (now TES) and artistic components, and this is evidently how Mishin is still coaches, which is who so many of his students lack in SS/TR but are strong on PE in particular.
A LOT of coaches, not just Russian, are still playing catch-up with the CoP and coaching like they're still under 6.0 (as you said, stuck in the past), and to some degree this won't really change much until the coaches who started coaching under the CoP outnumber the ones who spent the majority of their coaching careers under 6.0.
But anyway, that's enough of my senseless rambling, I need to be up for work in the morning.
Didn't Nathen have Osgood-Schlatter which slowed his progress for a year or two also?
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- Sep 22, 2019
Yup, and for ease of reference, these ex-coaches are (mainly):
Samarin: Goncharenko (other students include Voronov, Radionova, and interestingly D. Mikhailov of AoP)
Kondratiuk: Sapronova (only other notable student: Vetlugin)
Without excluding the possibility of confirmational bias, I do think Samarin's nice efficient air position takes after Voronov, while Kondratiuk shares Vetlugin's tendency to muscle jumps and be loose in the air (but he has better axis which lets him save jumps).
Yes, I included Plushenko, because while he didn't have the best choreo, he was at least a showman! But these days the Russian men often skate stone faced, don't even try to sell their choreography. I wonder if they do this by choice (maybe it's just a style the men prefer these days?) or because they can't. Well, Mark tries to, to be fair.
About Semenenko: I think he actually has a lot of potential artistically. I really liked his short program, I'm surprised hardly anyone else enjoyed it as much.
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- Jan 31, 2019
I think it depends on a person. Like, I love all out skaters, but I think it takes Fernandez, Plushenko or Uno's level to really get through to me with the extroverts.Yes, I included Plushenko, because while he didn't have the best choreo, he was at least a showman! But these days the Russian men often skate stone faced, don't even try to sell their choreography. I wonder if they do this by choice (maybe it's just a style the men prefer these days?) or because they can't. Well, Mark tries to, to be fair.
About Semenenko: I think he actually has a lot of potential artistically. I really liked his short program, I'm surprised hardly anyone else enjoyed it as much.
Semenenko, whenever he goes into that hydroblade and it's like he dropped to bang out 50 push-ups, or fights with his apocryphal daffodils... and I just start laughing. I'm sorry, but I just can't take him seriously artistically. I mean, I know, Mozalev suffers from the same try-hardedness, and that it might pass with age, but he just feels like a deeper well to plumb. Like any performance, it's 50% what they try to say, 50%--what you see or hear.
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- Nov 12, 2021
Марк Кондратюк: «Какая сейчас обстановка в команде? Этот вопрос без комментариев»
Российский фигурист Марк Кондратюк подвел итоги выступления на Олимпиаде-2022, а также рассказал об обстановке в команде. «У меня вчера был выходной.
www.sports.ru
Russian figure skater Mark Kondratyuk summed up his performance at the 2022 Olympics, and also spoke about the situation in the team.
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- Oct 25, 2014
I think, generally speaking, the guys competed okay. Not sure they’d have reached anything above what Evgeni did, or at least much above that. Mark clearly seemed a bit done after the TE, and Andrei unfortunately did a bit more of the same I was expecting.
He’s probably not going to be a first choice for Worlds. But now it’s time to bring them home and take a breather. Escape far and away from Beijing in this current climate.
He’s probably not going to be a first choice for Worlds. But now it’s time to bring them home and take a breather. Escape far and away from Beijing in this current climate.
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- May 27, 2021
So, we have a man who has never won a medal at Nats but placed 8th at Worlds and Olympics
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- Oct 25, 2014
And helped bring three spots for Russia.
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