2022-23 Russian Women's Figure Skating

[klena]

The brightest shots of the women's competitions at the Russian Nationals!

 

[alexocfp]

The brightest shots of the women's competitions at the Russian Nationals!

Good lord. Channel 1 tops itself with every video they release. Just watch it if you haven’t already.

Not one word of narration in this video but it still manages to say about a million words.

 

[JimR]

Whatever the motives, as a figure skater, would you rather be promoted by Channel 1 or by Match TV? A station that doesn’t seem particularly fond of the sport to begin with.

On paper, it’s a no brainer.

The choice is clear.

Фигурное катание на Первом ⛸

🔥 Самые яркие кадры соревнований девушек на чемпионате России по фигурному катанию! Закулисье главного национального старта сезона — уже на Первом канале. Пожелаем нашим фигуристкам удачи в наступающем году!

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www.youtube.com

Both links are the same Channel 1 recap of the ladies competition, but the telegram link is far better resolution and frame rate.

Trusova and her father have basically made an enemy out of Channel 1 and chosen to write a weekly teenage blog on the Match TV about what she ate for breakfast instead. Even though Trusova will make money out of shows for several years to come, people go to shows wanting to see the Rocket and Quad Queen. Trusova's fans don't care about artistry only jumps otherwise they would be fans of Valieva or Shcherbakova. So I don't know how she'll maintain her fanbase and have a long career in shows unless she develops artistry, which is not really something you can develop as a nearly 19 year old skater.

Whereas a 35 year old Valieva could probably still command an audience doing exhibitions with no jumps.

Edit. I noticed someone already posted the youtube video. I'll just leave the link in my post anyway, but the telegram version has much better resolution if you want to save it for your archives.

 

[Jontor]

Channel One's official statement regarding Trusova vs Channel 1 conflict:

"The First has always covered Alexandra Trusova's career correctly and with respect for her work and achievements, in sports broadcasts, newscasts, and special materials devoted only to Alexandra. This season however, her father Vyacheslav Trusov did make a number of demands, including the appointment of commentators and hosts for any programs featuring Alexandra, as well as criticism of her.

The channel would like to retain the right to choose their own sports commentators and experts. And they have the right to freely express their professional opinion on air. We take this opportunity to wish Alexandra a speedy recovery and look forward to her performance in tournaments next year, which, as always, we will surely show".
Translated with DeepL

I see this as a typical power/media/money/fame conflict, which happens when those things mess with each other.

Poor Sasha, she has been presented as the Rocket, the greatest skater ever, etc., ever since she was 12. It's understandable that she (and her parents) believed it, but time showed that wasn't necessarily the case. She won no big titles her first senior season and that trend continued, culminating at the Olympics. She really truly believed that her 5 quad program was unbeatable, but it wasn't.

 

[brakes]

 

[Skatelife]

I see this as a typical power/media/money/fame conflict, which happens when those things mess with each other.

Poor Sasha, she has been presented as the Rocket, the greatest skater ever, etc., ever since she was 12. It's understandable that she (and her parents) believed it, but time showed that wasn't necessarily the case. She won no big titles her first senior season and that trend continued, culminating at the Olympics. She really truly believed that her 5 quad program was unbeatable, but it wasn't.

Hopefully one day she will appreciate all her achievements including the silver medal, she has been amazing, besides her very difficult content, I think Sasha is a nervous competitor, and it affected her, after the first mistake she usually let it affect the complete program.
.

 

[Mariiiiskate]

Btw do we have any news on Maria Z, she kinda disappeared after junior test skates she was injured prior to test skates so im assuming thats what has kept her out of competition but do we have any actual info on that?

 

[Amei]

I see this as a typical power/media/money/fame conflict, which happens when those things mess with each other.

Poor Sasha, she has been presented as the Rocket, the greatest skater ever, etc., ever since she was 12. It's understandable that she (and her parents) believed it, but time showed that wasn't necessarily the case. She won no big titles her first senior season and that trend continued, culminating at the Olympics. She really truly believed that her 5 quad program was unbeatable, but it wasn't.

I think the detriment to Trusova was that Kostornaia didn't have her triple axel in the juniors and Shcherbakova broke her leg missed her first junior season and spent the second junior season recovering/stabilizing her quads again; Trusova spent her junior career being able to out-quad everyone to victories even when messy with few exceptions. Maybe if those 2 had their technical elements from their first senior season as juniors the 3 of them would have traded victories and maybe she would have gotten out of the train of thought that she all she needed was more quads and expected to win everything.

 

[DoubleBass]

I think the detriment to Trusova was that Kostornaia didn't have her triple axel in the juniors and Shcherbakova broke her leg missed her first junior season and spent the second junior season recovering/stabilizing her quads again; Trusova spent her junior career being able to out-quad everyone to victories even when messy with few exceptions. Maybe if those 2 had their technical elements from their first senior season as juniors the 3 of them would have traded victories and maybe she would have gotten out of the train of thought that she all she needed was more quads and expected to win everything.

Nope, Trusova was beating everyone even without any ultra c all the way back in 2017, including PCs. Aliona was her only competitor at that time, if you wanna see why, watch her "Big Spender" sp, to me it's one of the best junior short programs in ladies fs in terms of musicality and style, she nails the choreo, right on the music all the way down to little details, it's also fully backloaded (same as Aliona's Adios Nonino, who was her only competitor at the time). Trusova as a junior was an absolutely superb skater, even her spins used to be fast back then, it's only when she had started adding an extra quad to her 2 quad layouts + 3lz+3lo her artistry and components in general started going downhill rapidly, which made her neglect components and switched het focus on tech more and more

 

[Paulipau]

I think fame has gone to Trusova and her father's head. They think they have leverage, but in reality they have none at all. Sure, she's going to make a comfortable enough living over the coming years from shows, but as far as Channel 1 in concerned Trusova is barely a top 10 skater anymore. The Russian Nationals showed that Trusova's absence wasn't really noticed. There's just so much talent in the women's competition. Trusova without 5 quads is not particularly interesting to watch because there's no artistry at all. Probably Gorbacheva has surpassed Sasha at this point. I'd rather Channel 1 do one of their promo pieces on up and coming Gorbacheva not Trusova who will never be a top 5 skater in Russia again.

Trusova's fans don't care about artistry only jumps otherwise they would be fans of Valieva or Shcherbakova. So I don't know how she'll maintain her fanbase and have a long career in shows unless she develops artistry, which is not really something you can develop as a nearly 19 year old skater.

Those are just very silly and hateful comments, firstly please watch Sasha's programs from Junior years and then compare to Gorbacheva.
There is artistry in Sasha's programs when she is not focusing on 5quads, like her Frida or even this years short.
It's normal for artistry to take 2nd spot when jamming all those Ultra-Cs. You can even see that in Valieva's Storm, much better program without 50% successful 3A.

I didn't even want to mention this "never will be top again" but this is same what people were saying about Liza or even Medvedeva or Anna when they were having a hard time, so I think you can figure why is that hateful.

And lastly it's well known that skaters grow artistically when they grow up, so yes this is exactly something you develop as a nearly 19 year old skater.

 

[Jontor]

I think the detriment to Trusova was that Kostornaia didn't have her triple axel in the juniors and Shcherbakova broke her leg missed her first junior season and spent the second junior season recovering/stabilizing her quads again; Trusova spent her junior career being able to out-quad everyone to victories even when messy with few exceptions. Maybe if those 2 had their technical elements from their first senior season as juniors the 3 of them would have traded victories and maybe she would have gotten out of the train of thought that she all she needed was more quads and expected to win everything.

Another very important factor is that the judging system changed significantly after 2018 Oympics. Introducing the +5/-5 GOE, and quads got much lower BV. Suddenly, it was not worth doing quads if you didn't land them.

Sasha's first loss with this new system was at RusNats 2019 when Anna and Sasha made their debut (Kostornaia had already been to senior Nats the previous year). We all know what happened. Anna won her first national title with her 4Lz. Sasha also landed her 4Lz but fell on her 4T, a mistake that cost her the title. And if it had been the old judging system, Sasha would have won just because she attempted the 4T.

Edit: She also lost the JGP Final in 2019 to Kostornaia who didn't even have the 3A at that time.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

 

[yume]

Nope, Trusova was beating everyone even without any ultra c all the way back in 2017, including PCs. Aliona was her only competitor at that time, if you wanna see why, watch her "Big Spender" sp, to me it's one of the best junior short programs in ladies fs in terms of musicality and style, she nails the choreo, right on the music all the way down to little details, it's also fully backloaded (same as Aliona's Adios Nonino, who was her only competitor at the time). Trusova as a junior was an absolutely superb skater, even her spins used to be fast back then, it's only when she had started adding an extra quad to her 2 quad layouts + 3lz+3lo her artistry and components in general started going downhill rapidly, which made her neglect components and switched het focus on tech more and more

Big spender + 4 seasons is the best set of programs she ever had imo. And she was fantastic performing them.
But she had a boulevard in 2017-2018 with Shcherbakova injured and Aliona being unknown (while Trusova already had the hype) and miraculously getting into JGP. That's why Trusova was getting higher PCS even if she was mostly winning on TES with the most difficult tech (her triples were fully backloaded with the hardest combos).
The next season, Scherbakova was landing 4lz and Kostornaia had a name + was consistent. The fed had no reason to promote only Trusova. Kostornaya getting senior PCS and almost max GOEs on every element at JGPF, winning without any ultra-C, not even the hardests 3-3s, was a clear message. Trusova knew she would have won without mistakes, will probably win in the future, and that's probably why she refused to take the easier route of less quads and more choreo. It's hard to be clean with 3/4/5 quads. She thought she could do it but she couldn't.

 

[brakes]

Just another little talent from Russia, but watch the spiral at 1:13...

 

[Amei]

Shcherbakova has restored with some level of confidence to put them in shows the triple flip, loop and double axel

 

[katymay]

Nope, Trusova was beating everyone even without any ultra c all the way back in 2017, including PCs. Aliona was her only competitor at that time, if you wanna see why, watch her "Big Spender" sp, to me it's one of the best junior short programs in ladies fs in terms of musicality and style, she nails the choreo, right on the music all the way down to little details, it's also fully backloaded (same as Aliona's Adios Nonino, who was her only competitor at the time). Trusova as a junior was an absolutely superb skater, even her spins used to be fast back then, it's only when she had started adding an extra quad to her 2 quad layouts + 3lz+3lo her artistry and components in general started going downhill rapidly, which made her neglect components and switched het focus on tech more and more

Loved her Big Spender program-seems to me she was more coachable back then, used the music and choreography team Eteri provided, and deferred to their knowledge of what would work best. She paid attention to the choreography, steps, and everything was so polished and impressive.
To everything there is a season, and the 3A's provided a wonderful, exciting quad of skating leading up to the Olympics. I hope Sasha in particular manages to save her commercial earnings and have a great life in retirement-certainly she is more fortunate than the newest generation of skaters who don't have the same opportunities. And maybe in the future she will find a way to fire her father/manager.

 

[brakes]

To everything there is a season, and the 3A's provided a wonderful, exciting quad of skating leading up to the Olympics.

Remember when Kostornaia asked in NHK's kiss and cry "so now all 6 golds are ours?"
I miss these three beautiful gangsters owning figure skating world. They were special...

 

[alexocfp]

Trusova was not included in the list of participants for the Channel 1 Cup.

I’m sure it’s going to become a talking point given what has transpired so far.

 

[Amei]

Trusova was not included in the list of participants for the Channel 1 Cup.

I’m sure it’s going to become a talking point given what has transpired so far.

Well the Channel One Cup is an exhibition competition as far as we know it has no bearing on national team assignments or funding so no big deal, there are plenty of willing skaters to take her spot for it. Now if she starts missing tournaments that do or are supposed to impact funding/ team assignments to avoid being on Channel One, then that's a separate situation.

 

[AlexBreeze]

Kseniia Sinitsyna got a stress fracture.