2021-22 Russian Women's Figure Skating

[voolfee]

Yeah sure, I also don't think it's realistic for either Zhenya or Alina to compete at Beijing 2022 tbh, but Gorshkov as president of the Fed shouldn't make such a blunt statement. At least Zhenya is still actively training and has publicly stated the desire to continue her competitive career - to be honest I find it very unsportsmanlike of Gorshkov to flat out rule out the possibility of Zhenya or Alina participating at the Olympics. The Oly team is decided based on RusNats (and probably after Europeans) and everyone who wants to fight for a place and qualifies for Nats should be given a fair chance there. What's even the point of excluding some athletes beforehand?

Edit: Well, Gorshkov said as much himself in the corrective statement posted by JazzUp above, so who knows, maybe he was misquoted. But the guy definitely has comedic potential with his press statements and retractions and the "I know nothing" approach.

Wow, are you serious? Zhenya has been doing everything recently, except for training. Today she published that she did nothing on vacation for a week, and only then went to the gym. And probably you know that she will participate in Averbukh's show "Anna Karenina" from July to September and in his New Year's shows? And besides, she hopes to fly to the Tokyo Olympics as an ambassador. If you look at Alina, after a week of quarantine in Japan she jumped 3Lz and 3F in the program dedicated to friendship between Russia and Japan. She doesn't go to any TV-shows or other events, she trained to the last in Crystal before flying to Japan. She's not announced on any show. I see everything here is often turned upside down.

As for Gorshkov's words, I don't believe she was quoted incorrectly. His words were published in two different serious media, first about Alina, and then about Zhenya. They probably have telephone records. I think that this speaks about the attitude of the rusfed towards their skaters, and this has long been known. With such an attitude of your fed it is difficult to find motivation to continue when you have already won all the titles, like Alina, and you have such a huge competition in your country. But Alina often made surprises in her career. I believe that she will surprise everyone once again.

 

[Amei]

Wow, are you serious? Zhenya has been doing everything recently, except for training. Today she published that she did nothing on vacation for a week, and only then went to the gym. And probably you know that she will participate in Averbukh's show "Anna Karenina" from July to September and in his New Year's shows? And besides, she hopes to fly to the Tokyo Olympics as an ambassador. If you look at Alina, after a week of quarantine in Japan she jumped 3Lz and 3F in the program dedicated to friendship between Russia and Japan. She doesn't go to any TV-shows or other events, she trained to the last in Crystal before flying to Japan. She's not announced on any show. I see everything here is often turned upside down.

As for Gorshkov's words, I don't believe she was quoted incorrectly. His words were published in two different serious media, first about Alina, and then about Zhenya. They probably have telephone records. I think that this speaks about the attitude of the rusfed towards their skaters, and this has long been known. With such an attitude of your fed it is difficult to find motivation to continue when you have already won all the titles, like Alina, and you have such a huge competition in your country. But Alina often made surprises in her career. I believe that she will surprise everyone once again.

Well I don't think either have a serious shot at getting to the Beijing Olympics as competitors; they both have spent too much time away from competition in a country that is insanely deep, while I haven't seen every single exhibition that they've done since the last time they competed - of the ones I've seen Zagitova has done 1-2 jumps per program, no combinations; Medvedeva has done a little more in jumps with the occasional combination; to be a threat to get on the Olympic team is going to require both of them to substantially increase their technical difficulty from what they were doing the last time they competed, which was about 18 months ago for both of them and they weren't exactly consistent the last season we saw them compete.

Wow, are you serious? Zhenya has been doing everything recently, except for training. Today she published that she did nothing on vacation for a week, and only then went to the gym. And probably you know that she will participate in Averbukh's show "Anna Karenina" from July to September and in his New Year's shows? And besides, she hopes to fly to the Tokyo Olympics as an ambassador. If you look at Alina, after a week of quarantine in Japan she jumped 3Lz and 3F in the program dedicated to friendship between Russia and Japan. She doesn't go to any TV-shows or other events, she trained to the last in Crystal before flying to Japan. She's not announced on any show. I see everything here is often turned upside down.

I agree about Medvedeva if she's signed up for shows at New years which is between Nationals and Europeans that's a huge indicator that she understands what her chances are for getting the Olympics, and while I realize that they could certainly substitute her out for those shows if by some chance a combination of her getting back her old form and more than few of the top Russians getting injured/sick/degradation of their skills from last year, that's not really something that they want to do with the headline skater of the show. Zagitova, watching her skate, I don't particularly think random pictures of her at Crystal is necessarily some indicator that she's attempting to get back to level to compete, watching her skate it appears she's really just doing enough training to stay in shape enough for her money gigs which is what the Japan number was, I doubt she did that for free.

 

[Shayuki]

Does anyone realize how most Eteri skaters have a pattern of becoming seniors either on a Olympic season or on a “middle season” (the season in between the post-Olympic season and the pre-Olympic season?

2013/14 - Yulia Lipnitskaya
2014/15 -
2015/16 - Evgenia Medvedeva, Elizabet Tursynbayeva
2016/17-
2017/18 - Alina Zagitova
2018/19-
2019/20 - Aliona Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova
2020/21-
2021/22 - Maiia Khromykh, Kamala Valieva, Daria Usacheva
2022/23-
2023/24 - Adelia Petrosan, Sofia Akatieva

That's incorrect, as Petrosyan became eligible in 22/23.

 

[spicymacaron]

Adeliya is so tiny than I always think she's the younger one, even though Sofia is by a few months(Also, wow, that's a bit of an unlucky birthday).

 

[bouncy]

Does anyone realize how most Eteri skaters have a pattern of becoming seniors either on a Olympic season or on a “middle season” (the season in between the post-Olympic season and the pre-Olympic season?

2013/14 - Yulia Lipnitskaya
2014/15 -
2015/16 - Evgenia Medvedeva, Elizabet Tursynbayeva
2016/17-
2017/18 - Alina Zagitova
2018/19-
2019/20 - Aliona Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova
2020/21-
2021/22 - Maiia Khromykh, Kamala Valieva, Daria Usacheva
2022/23-
2023/24 - Adelia Petrosan, Sofia Akatieva

That's an interesting observation!

 

[halulupu]

no, he's not.
saying (as a private person or as a fed rep) that a skater has very slim chances would've been "just stating the obvious" and acceptable
saying "no, no, no, not a chance" as a head of the fed is openly stating that the fed has already decided not to give a skater any chance at all (i.e., gp/cup stages to even try to qualify).
former is ok, latter is not

If Zhenya starts jumping quads he will change his mind for sure

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

Wow, are you serious? Zhenya has been doing everything recently, except for training. Today she published that she did nothing on vacation for a week, and only then went to the gym. And probably you know that she will participate in Averbukh's show "Anna Karenina" from July to September and in his New Year's shows? And besides, she hopes to fly to the Tokyo Olympics as an ambassador. If you look at Alina, after a week of quarantine in Japan she jumped 3Lz and 3F in the program dedicated to friendship between Russia and Japan. She doesn't go to any TV-shows or other events, she trained to the last in Crystal before flying to Japan. She's not announced on any show. I see everything here is often turned upside down.

Look, I'm not interested in starting or being dragged into yet another Alina/Zhenya debate. I simply used Zhenya as an example in my post, but feel free to substitute her name with Alina's. Both Zhenya and Alina have grown into amazing young women and they should do whatever makes them happy, be it skating in shows, training for another competitive season or just focussing on university or other off-ice activities.
In principle I believe we are on the same page, namely that Gorshkov should have kept his mouth shut. If Alina or Zhenya decide to end their careers, fine, they certainly don't have anything left to prove. But if either of them wanted to have another go at the Olympics, they should get the same chance as anyone else to earn their place on the team, without having to deal with their Fed president publicly announcing that it won't happen for them before the Olympic season has even started.

 

[Paulipau]

If Zhenya starts jumping quads he will change his mind for sure

Jumping a quad takes years of training. Zhenya is not going to just jump it out of nowhere and surpise everybody.

When she has with Orser we heard that she was training 4S on the harness. There is a long way from trying smth on the harness to actually putting it in the program.

 

[sinus]

Does anyone realize how most Eteri skaters have a pattern of becoming seniors either on a Olympic season or on a “middle season” (the season in between the post-Olympic season and the pre-Olympic season?

2013/14 - Yulia Lipnitskaya
2014/15 -
2015/16 - Evgenia Medvedeva, Elizabet Tursynbayeva
2016/17-
2017/18 - Alina Zagitova
2018/19-
2019/20 - Aliona Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova
2020/21-
2021/22 - Maiia Khromykh, Kamala Valieva, Daria Usacheva
2022/23-
2023/24 - Adelia Petrosan, Sofia Akatieva

Wrong.

2017/18 - Alina Zagitova, Polina Tsurskaya (retired)
2018/19 - Daria Panenkova (retired)
2019/20 - Aliona Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova
2020/21 - Aliona Kanysheva (switched disciplines)
2021/22 - Maiia Khromykh, Kamila Valieva, Daria Usacheva
2022/23 - Adelia Petrosian
2023/24 - Sofia Akatieva, Daria Sadkova
2024/25 - Alisa Dvoeglazova, Lyubov Rubtsova

 

[Minz]

Wrong.

2017/18 - Alina Zagitova, Polina Tsurskaya (retired)
2018/19 - Daria Panenkova (retired)
2019/20 - Aliona Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova
2020/21 - Aliona Kanysheva (switched disciplines)
2021/22 - Maiia Khromykh, Kamila Valieva, Daria Usacheva
2022/23 - Adelia Petrosian
2023/24 - Sofia Akatieva, Daria Sadkova
2024/25 - Alisa Dvoeglazova, Sofya Rubtsova

I said most. (I'm talking about the top top skaters)
Kanysheva never went to senior as a single skater. I didn't know about Petrosian. And I legit have no idea who Alisa Dvoeglazova and Sofya Rubtsova are.

 

[Novalis]

Nobody knows who Sofya Rubtsova is

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

Nobody knows who Sofya Rubtsova is

Aren't there already enough Sofias in Russian figure skating, do we really have to make Sofias out of the Lyubovs too?

 

[Minz]

That's incorrect, as Petrosyan became eligible in 22/23.

I didn't know. But I said most

 

[sinus]

Isn't is strange most Eteri skaters have a pattern of becoming seniors either on a Olympic season or on a post-Olympic season or on a “middle season” or on a pre-Olympic season?

 

[Minz]

Isn't is strange most Eteri skaters have a pattern of becoming seniors either on a Olympic season or on a post-Olympic season or on a “middle season” or on a pre-Olympic season?

All I said is that the pattern I was referring to occurs with most of her students. Of course there are exceptions, but it is something that stands out to me. You don’t have to be rude about it.

(And is there another season for her skaters to become seniors other then the ones you mentioned, unless they invented a new season I haven’t heard about yet)

 

[spicymacaron]

If it doesn't apply across all her students, how is it a pattern? It's like me saying that every day is sunny, except for the days when it isn't ...

 

[Minz]

If it doesn't apply across all her students, how is it a pattern? It's like me saying that every day is sunny, except for the days when it isn't ...

I said it was a common pattern, not a rule. There is a difference. And I said it stands out to me. Look, I’ll delete the post, I really didn’t mean to start an argument here.

 

[LiamForeman]

Wasn't there a rumor that TT was trying to recruit Sofia Samodelkina since she would have been in the year between VUK and Akatieva? I thought Eteri wants a star for every new season.

 

[halulupu]

Jumping a quad takes years of training. Zhenya is not going to just jump it out of nowhere and surpise everybody.

When she has with Orser we heard that she was training 4S on the harness. There is a long way from trying smth on the harness to actually putting it in the program.

She has to make it happen, or no Olympics for her. Easy and hard as that. She is already an Olympic champion and achieved everything and she is a star

 

[Paulipau]

She has to make it happen, or no Olympics for her. Easy and hard as that. She is already an Olympic champion and achieved everything and she is a star

When I think about it she has more chances with no quad than she would have with a quad.

Quads are rarely consistent, and Russian Nationals is a one competition. The chance that someone bombs are huge, Kamila bombed FS twice last season, Tuktik is a hit or miss, Sasha well...we all know Sasha.
Even Anna couldn't get a quad out at World's.

Clean Evgenia would get the highest PCS from all Ladies if she goes clean, she has no quad but Daria doesn't have one either, or Alyona for that matter.

Still, chances that Evgenia could come back to her 2019 content are close tiny and I don't think that she will try.