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- Mar 6, 2021
not as champion. I meant the only team to not medal at all at nationals of any color. They've finished 7th, 5th, 4th, and 4th and never won gold, silver, or bronze. Yagudin medaled many times at nationals.
2021-22 Russian Pairs' Figure Skating
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- Mar 6, 2021
Akhanteva/Kolesov have had issues for a long time now which is why they're stuck in juniors still. Teams that used to be below them in the hierarchy such as Artemeva/Nazarchyev and Pepeleva/Pleshkov, who had much fewer accomplishments in Juniors, now moved ahead of A/K and gone senior already. But yes it's always possible they rebound.
Kostiukovich is one of the best of all the Russian pair girls in the last 10 years, a real star. But the jumping situation right now for her makes Panfilova look like Trusova by comparison. It would be fascinating to see what someone like Eteri could do for her.
I said this is the end of the generation not because Akhanteva/Kolesov and Kostiukovich/Briukhanov can't stage a comeback - they definitely can. But rather the qualifiers to the JGPF this year are all younger, and the very strong group of Russian pairs born 1998-2003 will not be represented at the final for the first time since the 2014-2015 season (!!)
I agree that it may be best if Akhanteva/Kolesov split up, because he could be quite successful with a more consistent partner. But that still doesn’t mean that their career is over if they stay together. Their careers are over only if they decide that they want it to be over.
I disagree that Kostiukovich is one of the best of all Russian pair ladies over the past year. She might have been pretty good a few years ago, but the past two seasons she has been struggling and this season she is also far from one of the best. How exactly do you measure this ‘one of the best in the past ten years’ title? If she was so great, she wouldn’t keep missing jumps frequently. At this moment, she is average or slightly under. There is a reason why they didn’t qualify for JGPF. It is not that they were unlucky. The reality is that Briukhanov exchanged one non jumping partner for another partner struggling with jumps. She lands them sometimes, but there is such competition in Russian senior pairs that no one can afford to be inconsistent. Saying that, that still doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to make transition to seniors. If they decide to stay together, they will be in si ilar situation as Kudriavtseva/Spiridonov- a pair with a potential, but somehow it didn’t materialise yet. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.
Talking about this new wave of young junior pairs, Chikmareva seems to have such a long legs that I am wondering whether she will get quite tall. She seems to have the same type of figure as Davankova and Ustimkina had. Both of them outgrew pairs within a few seasons.
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- Apr 9, 2016
Chikmareva will almost certainly grow, she is only 14 and her sister is quite tall, so I am not expecting them to last. On the other hand, Khabibullina/Kniazhuk are worth watching closely. If she keeps her jumps (she's almost 17 so it should become clear soon enough) and they work on PCS, they are going to be a real threat to the top pairs with their tech. She's the first girl in pairs with a respectable jump content for singles.
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- Mar 6, 2021
She’s one of the best in star power, charisma, raw talent. Yes puberty destroyed her jumps but she still has “the X-factor” moreso than most of the women. Mishina, Boikova, etc. are more stable for sure, no question about that
Having charisma doesn’t make her ‘the best of pair ladies in the past ten years’. Lots people have charisma and will never land a triple jump. Charisma and the x-factor is not enough to win the medals. One needs to have the technical skills; charisma may influence the PCS slightly (even though it shouldn’t), but on its own it doesn’t get her anywhere. Regarding raw talent, I have not seen anything that would prove that she has more talent than any other pair lady. How do you measure that? Have you coached her? Or you simply decided to give Kostiukovich this label based on her charisma?
I agree that in the last few competitions Khabibulina/Kniazhuk finally skate much more confident. Last season and at the beginning of this season they skated very careful, holding back and even when they were clean, they looked a bit lost. At the last Russian cup, that was a completely different skate. Confident, fast, more like a senior pair. I really like what I see.
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- Mar 6, 2021
...she is one of what maybe 10 women in history to do the quad twist, is that enough for you? That means she has 10-in-10 billion or 1 in 100,000,000 talent. She went through puberty but that fact alone puts her in the most talented
Daria Kvartalova also did quads twist. Does it also make her one of the best female pair figure skater in the past ten years? (She and Sviatchenko didn’t even get to senior level.) Kostiukovich is 10 in 10 billion talent? Seriously? I would call it tiny body which was able to rotate very fast. It was not an exceptional talent; it’s called natural advantage. She was very slim and also very tiny. As soon as Kostiukovich grew even a tiny bit, goodbye quad twist. Natural talent is not measured by how fast someone could rotate when she had all the advantage of tiny thin figure. Natural talent is how she can manage to overcome challenges when she suddenly lost this natural advantage. Without having the tiny thin body, she is suddenly just an average junior skater. If she was so talented, she would be able to do triples even with her current body. Yes, she is getting used to her new body, but she has been struggling over two years, so there is a question whether she will ever regain the consistency of her jumps. If she is not consistent, she would be ok in other other country (if they decide to switch), but it won’t be good enough for Russia.
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With the two deductions I thought it will be hard for Daria/Denis to keep on the medal position tonight, but they did. I hope they wil keep that in the free skate. Their team puts their money on too overcomplicated programs though. It looks very acrobatic but can cause problems like we have withessed. Sometimes it is necessary to leave some space for breathing 
Though it was very good achievement, no doubt about that.
Though it was very good achievement, no doubt about that.
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- Oct 25, 2014
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I think P/K are just trying to make up the difference between them and the other three top pairs to reach the Olympics at any cost, and I hope it won’t backfire.
At this point, barring injury, it feels like M/G and maybe T/M are closer to being selected. B/K didn’t have the best participation in SA but they still have the scores on their side.
At this point, barring injury, it feels like M/G and maybe T/M are closer to being selected. B/K didn’t have the best participation in SA but they still have the scores on their side.
I think B/K may eliminate themselves, if they continue to be so inconsistent.
To be honest, none of their programs this year suits B/K. I have lots of respect for Moskvina, but giving classical Swan lake to a girl who looks like she has never done even an hour of ballet, and Kozlovski’s posture is also not great - I am not sure what Moskvina was thinking. Yes, I get it, B/K prefer classical music to something modern, but Swan lake is definitely not helping them. And the other program, it is so generic. It is like calling it tango while forgetting to add there enough tango moves. So if someone switched off the music, you wouldn’t guess it is a tango. I did like B/K’s skating in the past few years, but this year I wouldn’t mind if P/K was sent to Europeans and Olympics instead of B/K.
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- Apr 9, 2016
Not if they continue skating like they did here. Those programs are way overpacked, with some odd choices, and I am not sure Black Swan suits them any better than B/K.
I don’t think they are quite ready yet, but it is still the beginning of the season. They did Russian cup 1 recently and they did only SP, admitting that the FS was not ready yet, because they lost a lot of training time off season. It seems that the SP they had much more run throughs and that’s why it is much more ready for audience, whereas the FS they didn’t have time to work as much yet, and they are not to their full fitness.
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- Oct 25, 2014
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We’ll have to wait and see how things play out in the future. At the moment both B/K and P/K are at the same-ish level with readiness and mistakes. T/M and M/G a step closer to the Olympics.
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- Apr 9, 2016
Khodykin has talked about the current pairs skating being stale and obsolete and about a new style they want for themselves which is acrobatic as much different from ice dance as possible. His wife of course will only be too ready to help them revolutionise pairs skating. Their SP makes sense within that paradigm but why that LP? I know all that stuff about how the Black Swan movie is different from the ballet etc. etc. but still, that movie is about a ballet dancer, not an acrobat. I am personally not impressed by acrobatics for the sake of acrobatics, but at least it makes them stand out, whether in a good way time will tell.
With thinking like that, they wouldn’t be able to do most of elements because there is no death spiral in ballet, and no throw jumps, and no side by side jumps etc. one has to accept that there will be things that are no ballet, so why not the acrobatics?
I think the problem wasn’t that there were the acrobatic bits in the program, the problem was that they were not quite ready, and that’s why the acrobatic things were not looking like a natural transition in the program. It just didn’t have the smoothness, the flow of the action. So consequently the acrobatic bits were standing out and not in a good way. When they are ready, the acrobatic things will just become a natural part of the movement.
