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- Feb 10, 2018
Mishin destroyed the career of Alisa Lozhko when she wanted to leave him and his skaters know that. That's the whole "magic" of his team.
2021-22 Russian Women's Figure Skating
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“I don't understand her at all. She tells me that we are continuing our career, we will perform. But she does not come to training, she refused the Grand Prix, she trains there in Italy.
If you look on the Internet, she constantly uploads videos of how she trains. For whom? For sponsors?"
Like that ? By the way, Kostner was injured that year
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This is correct.
I recommend watching Over the Limit, the documentary that was made about Rita Mamun's Rio journey. I won't spoil anything, other than saying she was a Russian rhythmic gymnast who has now retired. You might have seen her this year during test skates: she was conducting the interviews after the programs.
The whole documentary is available on YouTube. Here's the description:
The film only lasts an hour, and should be mandatory viewing for every figure-skating fan in my opinion. Truly eye-opening.
(If you know nothing about her, like I did, don't look her up and watch the whole thing fully unspoiled. More impactful that way.)
I’m glad he didn’t choose Alina and I’m happy that Eteri gave her a second chance after kicking her. Maybe it was the booster she needed at that time to give her everything like Alena today by putting more pressure on her shoulder. And they also gave her a second chance.
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- Nov 28, 2020
Yes, Zagitova is a highly intelligent girl. Went out on top and has only positive memories attached to her. And has had a great post skate career.
She saw the writing on the wall fast.
This was the first week that the grand prix could be shown live in Russia at a decent hour. It was on from 5:30-7pm which is still not prime time but close to it. Earlier it's been shown in the afternoon and I think on tape delay. Still, it seems only the women were shown. I hope they show more events for the GPF.
Anyway, the women's free skate was the 19th highest rated show for the week with a 2.9 rating in Moscow which if is applied to the whole country I think would amount to about ~4.1 million viewers. In the US, this same level of viewership would result in to about 9.3 million viewers. 9.3 million would pretty much be better than any annual sport event in the US that isn't the NFL, NBA championships, World Series, College Basketball Final, and the Kentucky Derby. The most comparable event I could find is the US Gymnastics Olympic Trials which sharply declined this year but received 8.58 million viewers in 2016 and 10 million viewers in 2012.
Ice Age was the 27th highest rated show with a 2.8 rating and the women's short program was the 47th highest rated show with a 2.3 rating. The top non-skating sporting event was a football/soccer match between two Moscow teams which had a 2.2 rating.
But if you look at the prime 18-54 demographic, the women's free skate falls to 28th in the rankings while 3 football/soccer matches went from 60, 74, 91st to 7,10,11th in the ratings. 28th isn't bad at all, but it shows how much older the demographic of skating fans are in comparison to football/soccer. These football/soccer matches had about 25% more viewers in the 18-54 demographic but the women's free skate had at least 25% more total viewers.
I suspect the age pyramid might not be as bad in Russia as it is elsewhere in that I suspect there's a lot of younger fans(at least in comparison to other major skating countries) who move onto other things as they grow up... something I associate happening a lot with professional wrestling.
https://mediascope.net/data/
Anyway, the women's free skate was the 19th highest rated show for the week with a 2.9 rating in Moscow which if is applied to the whole country I think would amount to about ~4.1 million viewers. In the US, this same level of viewership would result in to about 9.3 million viewers. 9.3 million would pretty much be better than any annual sport event in the US that isn't the NFL, NBA championships, World Series, College Basketball Final, and the Kentucky Derby. The most comparable event I could find is the US Gymnastics Olympic Trials which sharply declined this year but received 8.58 million viewers in 2016 and 10 million viewers in 2012.
Ice Age was the 27th highest rated show with a 2.8 rating and the women's short program was the 47th highest rated show with a 2.3 rating. The top non-skating sporting event was a football/soccer match between two Moscow teams which had a 2.2 rating.
But if you look at the prime 18-54 demographic, the women's free skate falls to 28th in the rankings while 3 football/soccer matches went from 60, 74, 91st to 7,10,11th in the ratings. 28th isn't bad at all, but it shows how much older the demographic of skating fans are in comparison to football/soccer. These football/soccer matches had about 25% more viewers in the 18-54 demographic but the women's free skate had at least 25% more total viewers.
I suspect the age pyramid might not be as bad in Russia as it is elsewhere in that I suspect there's a lot of younger fans(at least in comparison to other major skating countries) who move onto other things as they grow up... something I associate happening a lot with professional wrestling.
https://mediascope.net/data/
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- Joined
- Nov 28, 2020
A lot of it has to do with the fact that people are attached to the skaters because it’s an individual sport and forget it’s still a sport. A high level sport.
The goal of the school is not to develop girls for their future post skate life, it’s to win. Parents and the individuals are responsible for that.
And replacing an underachieving skater is like a club replacing a striker that was the scoring leader 3 years ago but hasn’t scored a goal in 9 months. Nobody advocates for him to continue to be in the squad because it affects the whole operation.
And if you are underperforming, and bringing drama to the team, that’s the worse combo in sports.
You are in a camp with Anna and Kamila, the standards are different there.
If you go to Eteri, you have to accept that what you did before doesn’t matter. There are no lifetime achievement awards. Your spot is not locked in. What have you done for me lately?
You can’t willing go there and then complain about how things work.
People want it to be nice and polite. High level, high pressure sports are neither.
Eteri doesn’t get paid to be a guidance counselor. She gets paid as a coach to get on ice results. Nothing evil or sinister about her job.
She has to justify her position every day and is under more pressure than the skaters because RUS Fed can move their money to someone else just as easily. This is always forgotten in the “poor skaters” narrative. Sambo 70 ice skating can be shut down at any time too. If another school comes along and outperforms TT, the fed will abandon her too.
Call it harsh, unjust, whatever, but it’s a cold hard fact. People want sports to be run with compassion. Doesn’t work that way.
People are always welcome to open their own schools and run it their.
The goal of the school is not to develop girls for their future post skate life, it’s to win. Parents and the individuals are responsible for that.
And replacing an underachieving skater is like a club replacing a striker that was the scoring leader 3 years ago but hasn’t scored a goal in 9 months. Nobody advocates for him to continue to be in the squad because it affects the whole operation.
And if you are underperforming, and bringing drama to the team, that’s the worse combo in sports.
You are in a camp with Anna and Kamila, the standards are different there.
If you go to Eteri, you have to accept that what you did before doesn’t matter. There are no lifetime achievement awards. Your spot is not locked in. What have you done for me lately?
You can’t willing go there and then complain about how things work.
People want it to be nice and polite. High level, high pressure sports are neither.
Eteri doesn’t get paid to be a guidance counselor. She gets paid as a coach to get on ice results. Nothing evil or sinister about her job.
She has to justify her position every day and is under more pressure than the skaters because RUS Fed can move their money to someone else just as easily. This is always forgotten in the “poor skaters” narrative. Sambo 70 ice skating can be shut down at any time too. If another school comes along and outperforms TT, the fed will abandon her too.
Call it harsh, unjust, whatever, but it’s a cold hard fact. People want sports to be run with compassion. Doesn’t work that way.
People are always welcome to open their own schools and run it their.
1)
"Russian skating is cut-throat", blah-blah. Okay. That still doesn't make the skaters robots. They're human beings, with bruisable bodies and bruisable minds, and as we've clearly seen, over and over, neither bodies nor minds can take that kind of treatment very long. So... should they?
The fact that some of you don't bat an eye, cheer for it, even... It's very "Panem et circenses".
More and more, I am left wondering if some people don't care about the individual skaters at all... might not even care about skating itself that much? Is the medal count the only important thing here?
2) Aliona is a barely 18 year old girl who has been through a lot over the past two years. She's not doing enough for your taste, or enough for Sambo's taste? And yet, I am CERTAIN she is doing her best. Interesting how some can't - or won't - entertain that possibility.
3) I'm not sure how much longer this situation can last. I wish another camp, preferably far, far away from the toxicity, could "rescue" her.
4) A more general observation: the conversations around Aliona are always so uncomfortable... Half the time, it's people gushing about her beauty; the other half, people piling on her because she doesn't know her place. Like two sides of the same coin?...
5) I won't get into the nonsense conversation mentioning a skater's bottom, another's sexual orientation and suggesting that saying artistry develops more and more as a skater ages is equivalent to asking skaters to sexualize themselves. Each time I think we've reached rock bottom... it seems I am proven wrong, unfortunately.
Between the misogyny and the blind nationalism, I wish someone would write a thesis on women's skating fandom. There's a lot to say.
Okay. Does that seem good, healthy, sane to you? (Or good management? They have many girls, but if they keep treating them so carelessly, I'm curious how many will still be standing by February.)
"Russian skating is cut-throat", blah-blah. Okay. That still doesn't make the skaters robots. They're human beings, with bruisable bodies and bruisable minds, and as we've clearly seen, over and over, neither bodies nor minds can take that kind of treatment very long. So... should they?
The fact that some of you don't bat an eye, cheer for it, even... It's very "Panem et circenses".
More and more, I am left wondering if some people don't care about the individual skaters at all... might not even care about skating itself that much? Is the medal count the only important thing here?
2) Aliona is a barely 18 year old girl who has been through a lot over the past two years. She's not doing enough for your taste, or enough for Sambo's taste? And yet, I am CERTAIN she is doing her best. Interesting how some can't - or won't - entertain that possibility.
3) I'm not sure how much longer this situation can last. I wish another camp, preferably far, far away from the toxicity, could "rescue" her.
4) A more general observation: the conversations around Aliona are always so uncomfortable... Half the time, it's people gushing about her beauty; the other half, people piling on her because she doesn't know her place. Like two sides of the same coin?...
5) I won't get into the nonsense conversation mentioning a skater's bottom, another's sexual orientation and suggesting that saying artistry develops more and more as a skater ages is equivalent to asking skaters to sexualize themselves. Each time I think we've reached rock bottom... it seems I am proven wrong, unfortunately.
Between the misogyny and the blind nationalism, I wish someone would write a thesis on women's skating fandom. There's a lot to say.
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2020
Keep going media! Increase that PR! Go, go go! Haha
Yeah, I’m openly biased. Whatever advantage she can use to get that spot, I will be happy to look the other way.
Hey, I’m honest, I deserve credit for that at least. Haha
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2019
I
Might also consider that if someone is still learning choreography they will actually get through fewer run through by nature of the learning process.
I understand she isn’t meeting expectations for TT as a whole, but there will always be someone at the bottom. We don’t see such nasty words about Daria with no 3A or quads and roughly similar scores. On average they are near identical this season. But to TT she is somehow better because she didn’t face Liza and Kamila, but instead Sasha? The fact is that only Anna and Kamila have outscored Liza this season. And Anna barely. Maia and Daria would’ve placed 3rd at Skate Canada, and then I know we would hear tales about them too for losing to someone outside the camp. They should be directing their comments about performance outward. Politics should be protectionist in nature. If you see 2/3 of your team getting outscored do you blame one individual student for being outscored?
Which would be a fine narrative if they were not getting positive results with Aliona… we’ll see what happens in France but if they hadn’t changed the Beth hart program she probably could’ve scored 80+ with it the second time around. That was their call to change it, the lower PCS compared to the first competition would be expected with something barely practiced and performed especially when you consider that she was still working on choreography for the FS.
Might also consider that if someone is still learning choreography they will actually get through fewer run through by nature of the learning process.
I understand she isn’t meeting expectations for TT as a whole, but there will always be someone at the bottom. We don’t see such nasty words about Daria with no 3A or quads and roughly similar scores. On average they are near identical this season. But to TT she is somehow better because she didn’t face Liza and Kamila, but instead Sasha? The fact is that only Anna and Kamila have outscored Liza this season. And Anna barely. Maia and Daria would’ve placed 3rd at Skate Canada, and then I know we would hear tales about them too for losing to someone outside the camp. They should be directing their comments about performance outward. Politics should be protectionist in nature. If you see 2/3 of your team getting outscored do you blame one individual student for being outscored?
I'm sorry, but Lorenzo Marie is actually saying that, not we are. He actually opposes Tuktamysheva to Shcherbakova. He clearly explains this by saying that "they are not yet developed as women to fully express their emotions."
I'm trying to remember what kind of special artistry and musicality Tuktamysheva has? Maybe she once portrayed complex images, with deep involvement in the role, with complex choreography, which she had enough skill and musicality to show? Sorry, I can't remember that. But what I remember is that Tuktamysheva always masks her relatively weak abilities by kitschy sexualization of her image. Then I read Lorenzo Mari again - "...to fully express their emotions". In my opinion, what the coach says is obvious, no?
Why suddenly 24-year-old Tuktamysheva is an adult, and 17-year-old Anna is not? Just because Liza is sexualizing herself? Seriously? I have seen Liza behave like a moody teenager more than once (for example, her gestures to the judges in Finland a couple of years ago), and vice versa, I constantly see Anna's responsible behavior. I've heard them say in interviews - Anna speaks in a way that most adults are not incapable of speaking (at all times, rhetorical abilities were perceived as a distinctive feature of an intellectually developed, capable person), Liza, on the other hand, uses a rather superficial uncomplicated language of a typical teenager.
For me, Anna is a more mature person than Tuktamysheva, and cheap tricks with hypersexualization will not deceive me. But Lorenzo is not interested in all these things - he only needs " fully express their emotions."
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- Nov 28, 2020
We aren’t trying to deceive you, we are trying to deceive….em, I mean convince, the selectors. Haha
And I’m the last person on earth that will criticize Anna. Respect her more than words can describe. And remember, if she is ever put up for adoption, I am first in line to adopt her. Haha
I think the reason is obvious. You don't see such comments about Daria because she is working hard like others do.
It is not about low scores or being at the bottom.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2019
Well she's been working on quads and 3A for years and years. Even said she would have it by Feb 2020. It's just very very hard to do. I'm happy there haven't been comments.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2019
Only 5 months left
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2018
Nope, you are second behind me, get in the line
That's the thing, I'm more than sure that both Lorenzo and Brian are real professionals and understand everything perfectly themselves. I refuse to believe that they do not see all of Liza's weaknesses - emptiness of programs, insufficient edgess of skating, poor body work, simplicity and uniformity of choreography. No, suddenly everyone seemed to have gone mad and lost their professionalism
I refuse to believe it, and naturally I have suspicions about the sincerity of their words.
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2020
If they have turned their heads, we should use that as an example and do the same. Now is not time for reason, we need Liza on the Olympic team.
Is it too late to make entry for anyone over 21 just for this Olympics. We can go back afterwards. Haha
I got a month or 2 to get you on our side. Haha
Also, it’s been an hour and I haven’t seen a pro Liza piece. The press is slipping. Haha
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