2024-25 German Figure Skating

[Jumping_Bean]

While I am not sure the interest in this thread will be very big, with there now being multiple medal contenders again among the German skaters, I thought it would be nice to have one thread for the entirety of German figure skating.

The German National team is subdivided into multiple tiers, so let's go from the highest to the lowest:

Olympic-level squad (OK)
Pairs
Annika Hocke (23) / Robert Kunkel (25)
Minerva Hase (24) / Nikita Volodin (24)

Perspective squad (PK)
Men
Nikita Starostin (21)
Kai Jagoda (22)
Ice Dance
Jennifer Janse van Rensburg (31) / Benjamin Steffan (28)
Charise Matthaei (23) / Max Liebers (24)
Darya Grimm (17) / Michail Savitskiy (20)

Supplemental squad (EK)
Women
Kristina Isaev (23)
Pairs
Letizia Roscher (19) / Luis Schuster (23)

Youth squad (NK1 & NK2)
Women
Anna Gerke (13)
Julia Grabowski (17)
Nikol Kalugina (14)
Olesya Ray (16)
Valentina Andrianova (15)
Marie Bierwert (13)
Helen Böhm (11)
Jekaterina Brinster (13)
Sophie Erhardt (14)
Frida Herrmann (13)
Leyla Tosun (12)
Jara Tanaya Wabner (15)
Adelina Voroteliak (12)
Diana Ziesecke (12)
Men
Luca Fünfer (18)
Hugo Willi Herrmann (16)
Arthur Wolfgang Mai (19)
Soner Öztürk (14)
Leon Rojkov (15)
Emil Eiffler (13)
Richard von Göler (14)
Robert Wildt (16)
Pairs
Aliyah Ackermann (16) / Tobija Harms (22)
Sonja Löwenherz (15) / Robert Löwenherz (20)
Katalin Janne Salatzki (19) / Lukas Röseler (22)
Anna Kopp (14) / David Beck (15)
Sophie Krebs (12) / Ilia Trofymov (16)
Ice Dance
Karla Maria Karl (17) / Kai Hoferichter (22)
Alexia Kruk (17) / Jan Eisenhaber (18)
Lilia Schubert (19) / Nikita Remeshevskiy (20)
Enikö Kobor (15) / Zoard Kobor (15)
Mia Lee Mayer (16)

Grand Prix Assignments

	#2 Skate Canada	#3 Grand Prix de France	#4 NHK Trophy	#6 Cup of China
Pairs	Annika Hocke / Robert Kunkel	Minerva Hase / Nikita Volodin	Annika Hocke / Robert Kunkel	Minerva Hase / Nikita Volodin
Ice Dance	-	-	Jennifer Janse van Rensburg / Benjamin Steffan	-

Challenger Series Assignments

	#3 Lombardia Trophy	#4 Nebelhorn Trophy	#5 Denis Ten Memorial	#6 Budapest Trophy	#7 Trophy Metropole Nice Cote d'Azur	#8 Nepela Memorial	#9 Tallinn Trophy	#10 PGE Warsaw Cup	#11 Golden Spin of Zagreb
Women		Sarah Marie Pesch
Men		Arthur Wolfgang Mai Nikita Starostin						Kai Jagoda
Pairs	Annika Hocke / Robert Kunkel	Minerva Hase / Nikita Volodin Letizia Roscher / Luis Schuster	-	-	-	-	-
Ice Dance	Karla Maria Karl / Kai Hoferichter Charise Matthaei / Max Liebers	Jennifer Janse van Rensburg / Benjamin Steffan

Junior Grand Prix Assignments

	#1 Riga	#2 Ostrava	#4 Ankara	#5 Gdansk	#6 Ljubljana
Women	Anna Gerke	Sophie Erhardt	-	Olesya Ray	Anna Gerke
Men	Genrikh Gartung	Soner Öztürk	-	Leon Rojkov	Genrikh Gartung
Pairs	Janne Salatzki / Lukas Röseler	Janne Salatzki / Lukas Röseler Aliyah Ackermann / Tobija Harms	Sonja Löwenherz / Robert Löwenherz	Aliyah Ackermann / Tobija Harms Sonja Löwenherz / Robert Löwenherz	-
Ice Dance	Darya Grimm / Michail Savitskiy	Lilia Schubert / Nikita Remeshevskiy Nelly Hemcke / Artyom Sladkov	Darya Grimm / Michail Savitskiy Alexia Kruk / Jan Eisenhaber	Lilia Schubert / Nikita Remeshevskiy Enikö Kobor / Zoard Kobor	Alexia Kruk / Jan Eisenhaber Enikö Kobor / Zoard Kobor

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

for the thread!

And since it belongs here, I will quote my last post from the European Skating thread.

The Russian Fed has released 16-year old Genrikh Gartung to Germany. Now you all probably have never heard of him, but I've watched Genrikh since he competed in Novices and just had learned all his triple jumps, so I'm mildly intrigued by this news.

For the past season Genrikh has been training in Oberstdorf with Niko Ulanovsky.
Based on his performances when he competed in Russia, he has lots of work to do in terms of artistry and expression. I would say in that department he is behind other German Juniors such as Hugo Herrmann. But Genrikh used to have a relatively consistent 3A in competition and I've seen him jump clean 4Lz in training. So if there hasn't been a significant decline in technical ability during the last year, he should be ahead technically among the German Juniors and could probably challenge Nikita Starostin once he is old enough for seniors. His technical ceiling is definitely higher than Nikita's who I doubt will ever get a quad with his Rippon jumps.
But it's too early to say for sure, first he has to deliver something in competition. I'm curious if he will get a JGP assignment for the upcoming season.

ETA: FS at Moscow City Championship, December 2022, in case anyone wants to have a look. The Flying Camel was but jumps are solid.

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

www.youtube.com

Later on, I can also add some program updates from the German Juniors and Novices. There's been a lot published in the latest Pirouette magazine. But right now I absolutely need to continue lounging in the sun with my book.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

There's also a new addition to the crop of German Junior boys coming from the USA - August Perthus. He was 12th at Jr Nationals.

And a few men looking to change disciplines - Davide Calderari (Mia Lee Mayer's former partner) from Ice Dance to Pairs and Robert Weber (7th at 2022 Junior Nationals) from Singles to Pairs.

On Ice Partner Search, there are also two German women looking for Ice Dance partners - Yara Illig (15, 5th in Advanced Novices at 2023 Nationals with her former partner) and Michelle Konov (20, 7th at Jr Nationals 2019 in singles).

 

[Jumping_Bean]

The annual Junior Monitoring is currently taking place in Berlin. Very limited information as always, though I'm expecting an article on the DEU website once the meeting has concluded in which the first JGP places are likely to be assigned already.

The ever-so-reliable Hella and Dietmar Höppner have started uploading some pictures on their website (only Jr Women so far, hopefully they'll upload some pictures from the other disciplines soon too):
https://eislauffotos.de/piwigo/index.php?/category/2575

The skaters who took part are:
Frida Herrmann (who looks so much like her brother)
Anna Grekul
Olesya Ray
Valentina Andrianova
Marie Bierwert
Sophie Erhardt
Anna Gerke
Julia Grabowski (who is now co-coached by Michael Huth and Nicole Schott)

 

[Jumping_Bean]

The first pairs pictures have now also been released - Katalin Janne Salatzki / Lukas Röseler seem to be returning to Juniors (at least for the JGP) and Aliyah Ackermann / Tobija Harms also took part in this monitoring session.

At least 6 Junior Men were there, including the newcomers August Perthus and Genrikh Gartung.

As for Ice Dancers, Darya and Michail were of course there (And for those with a keen eye, they are indeed wearing their 2021-22 FD costumes - Their new costumes are most likely not finished yet), as were Alexia Kruk / Jan Eisenhaber, Lilia Schubert / Nikita Remeshevskiy (who will also be taking advantage of the new Junior age limits), Enikö Kobor / Zoard Kobor (who are finally (for me) moving up to Juniors) and the new team of Nelly Hemcke / Artyom Sladkov (both National medalists in Advanced Novices with their former partners).

 

[lilimum]

It seems like there is a competition beween the regional feds of Bavaria and NRW of acquiring young skaters from other countries. I understand this for Spain where are only small number of rinks existing but for Germany it is really a shame. Neither the German Fed nor the regional feds are able to set up a program to grow skaters within Germany. It must be very frustrating for the young people putting all their effort in reaching a certain level unter horrible training conditions, combine it with school - expecially that one that are not on the family and friends list aka Kader and have to compete against skater that are grown under complete different conditions.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

It seems like there is a competition beween the regional feds of Bavaria and NRW of acquiring young skaters from other countries. I understand this for Spain where are only small number of rinks existing but for Germany it is really a shame. Neither the German Fed nor the regional feds are able to set up a program to grow skaters within Germany. It must be very frustrating for the young people putting all their effort in reaching a certain level unter horrible training conditions, combine it with school - expecially that one that are not on the family and friends list aka Kader and have to compete against skater that are grown under complete different conditions.

Woah, woah, woah, hold your horses. I'm not one to usually defend the German federation and I'm definitely not a huge proponent of "country-hopping" but I strongly doubt that there is any active recruiting going on here. Neither the federal nor the state federations have anything to offer for incentivising skaters to compete for Germany - Anyone not part of the OK or PK is not receiving any funding, and even those that are in these two tiers are receiving a few thousand a year at most.
State feds also don't have much money to offer, their teams get a few hundred at most if anything.

Being on the National team essentially gets you little more than preferential treatment when it comes to training times in Oberstdorf, and the list is very long in comparison to other sports, particularly at the Junior and Novice level.

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

As promised a very condensed summary of the latest news published in Pirouette:

From Berlin:

- Pair skaters Janne Salatzki and Lukas Röseler are mainly working with Nolan Seegert and choreographer Robyn Tweedale now. As @Jumping_Bean suspected above, they will start their season with two JGPs but have also prepared a senior version of their FS. Part of their SP music will be "Paint It Black" like last year, the FS will be to James Bond soundtracks.

- Arthur Mai suffered from a foot injury last season after the JGP in Linz, but he feels better now. He has aged out of Juniors and wants to perform at Senior Test Skates in August. Arthur will probably join Michael Huth's training group in Oberstdorf, he is currently trying out whether the coaching style suits him. Season's goal is to learn the 3A.
New SP: "My Way" and "Yellow Moon" by Luca d'Alberto; FS music will be kept from last season: "Run" by Ludovico Einaudi

- Hugo Herrmann also had to deal with some injuries.
New SP: "Music Was My First Love" by John Miles, FS to "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles will stay. He hopes to get two JGP spots. Plan is to do a 3-3 combo in the SP, maybe also a 3A. Training of quads hasn't been a priority lately. Season's goal is another trip to Junior Worlds.

- Soner Öztürk's goal is a JGP spot (there won't be enough for all of the boys ) and to land a clean 3A.

- Leon Rojkov would also be happy about a JGP spot. He is currently working on the 3Lz-3T combo. New SP: "St. James Infirmary Blues" by The White Stripes, "Happy" by Derek Martin; FS from last season ( "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac, "Paradise City" by Gun N' Roses") will stay. Both programs are choreographed by Joti Polizoakis.

- Ice dancers Karla Karl/Kai Hoferichter: New RD "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "La Grange" by ZZ Top, and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniel Band; FD with Arabic/Egyptian music, e.g. from the movie "Alexander"

- Ice dancers Alexia Kruk/Jan Eisenhaber will probably get two JGP spots, the goal is qualification to Junior Worlds. New RD "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis and "Brick House" by The Comodores, new FS to the soundtrack of "Billy Elliott" ("Electricity", "Long Calling", "The Jam - Town Called Malice")

That's it for now - the ice dancers with their many music pieces have exhausted me. I'll be back tomorrow with news from Oberstdorf.

 

[TeamGubanova]

Does Gartung still have his 3Axel.

 

[lilimum]

Woah, woah, woah, hold your horses. I'm not one to usually defend the German federation and I'm definitely not a huge proponent of "country-hopping" but I strongly doubt that there is any active recruiting going on here. Neither the federal nor the state federations have anything to offer for incentivising skaters to compete for Germany - Anyone not part of the OK or PK is not receiving any funding, and even those that are in these two tiers are receiving a few thousand a year at most.
State feds also don't have much money to offer, their teams get a few hundred at most if anything.

Being on the National team essentially gets you little more than preferential treatment when it comes to training times in Oberstdorf, and the list is very long in comparison to other sports, particularly at the Junior and Novice level.

Since years it is the situation that this skater coming from abroad are immediately part of the state fed, getting free ice and free coach (if they want, some keeping their private coach). Most time in Oberstdorf this ice is emty while the not supported ones have to pay their 15 € for patch and share the ice with 30 others with a very wide range of leve. And by the way most OK and PK as soon as they have the German passport become member of the Germany Army and getting a full salary, indepentant if they competing or not - there nave been some skater announcing their retirement very late after their last competition and still kept the status of a sport soldier with the salary.
But I was more talking about the novice and junior level. School kids training in Germany have no change to reach the same level except they get very early on the family and friends list aka Kader and are able to move with their families or alone to Oberstdorf (I don't know the situation in Dortmund and Berlin) where is free ice, free coach and the only schools with sport classes the bavarian fed has a contract with. In Germany ihome schooling is not an option.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

Since years it is the situation that this skater coming from abroad are immediately part of the state fed, getting free ice and free coach (if they want, some keeping their private coach).

There really have not been very many skaters coming to Germany from other countries over the years. Most of the ones that have are skaters in partnered disciplines who have partnered up with established German skaters. Kind of impossible for privileges to only benefit one half of a pairs or ice dance team.

There are four coaches (Robert Dierking, Nicole Brünner, Rico Rex and Stefano Caruso) that are (partially) paid by the German skating Union, costs for all other coaches are not being covered regardless of if the skater has been in Germany their whole life, in which tier of the national team the skater is or if the coach is stationed in Germany or not. Go through the ISU bios of the German skaters, and you'll end up surprised by how little you see these names.

And by the way most OK and PK as soon as they have the German passport become member of the Germany Army and getting a full salary, indepentant if they competing or not - there nave been some skater announcing their retirement very late after their last competition and still kept the status of a sport soldier with the salary.

Yes and no. There's a limited number of athletes who can be sports soldiers in each sport, so if these quotas are filled, no new skaters can become sports soldiers. The salary of a sports soldier is also not supposed to fund the sports side of things, but to fund the actual life expenses of the athletes and essentially replace the salary of a "normal job".

But I was more talking about the novice and junior level. School kids training in Germany have no change to reach the same level except they get very early on the family and friends list aka Kader and are able to move with their families or alone to Oberstdorf (I don't know the situation in Dortmund and Berlin) where is free ice, free coach and the only schools with sport classes the bavarian fed has a contract with. In Germany ihome schooling is not an option.

I am fully aware that home-schooling is not an option. The reason very few sports schools offer a program for skaters specifically (though skaters can still attend these schools, Arthur Mai for example went to one of the three sports schools in Berlin that does not have a program for skaters) is because there are a) very few sports schools in each state and b) very few rinks that are open the full year around.

The Kader list is also not a "friends and family list", it is like all National teams a list based on results. That is indeed how (elite) sport funding works. Especially if your sports federation has limited funding. You can easily look up the criteria online, for both the federal and state Kader.
Are people coming from a privileged background more likely to succeed in getting those results because they can afford better coaches? Yes, but that's the fate of niche sports. And the discrepancy in other countries is even bigger, where skaters actually get a lot of monetary funding by getting on even the Novice or Junior National team.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

At least 6 Junior Men were there, including the newcomers August Perthus and Genrikh Gartung.

Update: There were 8.

Alexander Vlascenko
Robert Wildt
Leon Rojkov
Luca Fünfer
Genrikh Gartung
Soner Öztürk
Hugo Herrmann
August(in?) Perthus

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

This has unexpectedly turned into a bit of a drama thread.

 

[lilimum]

This has unexpectedly turned into a bit of a drama thread.

therefore I will not answer. To back up all this point I would have to name names what I wont*t do here.

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

News from Oberstdorf, ice dance edition:

- Jennifer Janse van Rensburg and Benjamin Steffan got their new programs from Pasquale Camerlengo. The music for the RD will be "Boogie Shoes" by KC and the Sunshine Band and "Land of 1000 Dances" by Wilson Pickett, the FD will be an interesting instrumental version of POTO. They will give their season debut either at Nebelhorn or Denis Ten Memorial.

- Darya Grimm and Michail Savitskiy aim for two early JGPs and a spot at the final as well as a couple of (senior) Challengers. The RD will be to "Miss Broadway" by Belle Epoque and an electro swing cover version of "Black Betty". For the FD they chose a dramatic version of Tomaso Albinoni's "Adagio" performed by Dimash Kudaibergen.

- Lilia Schubert/Nikita Remeshevskiy would like to skate at the same JGPs as Grimm/Savitskiy to save some money on the travelling costs for the coaches. Their season's goal is qualification to Junior Worlds.
Their RD is set to "I Just Want to Make Love" by Etta James and "Boogie Wonderland". They will keep the FD from last year ("I Put a Spell on You" mixed with the Moonlight Sonata).

The gossipy part:
Lara Luft has a potential new partner from Russia, who had been trying out in Spain before. But so far, the guy didn't get a visa for Germany.

 

[TeamGubanova]

The gossipy part:
Lara Luft has a potential new partner from Russia, who had been trying out in Spain before. But so far, the guy didn't get a visa for Germany.

is it Vitryanyuk. That would be interesting he is russian but idt he has competed for russia since he started competing for Cyprus in 2018. (He was part of the ice dance team that K/K used to compete against and everyone was excited about b4 they broke things off b4 their juniiior debut)

 

[LoisAGOEs]

The gossipy part:
Lara Luft has a potential new partner from Russia, who had been trying out in Spain before. But so far, the guy didn't get a visa for Germany.

Spotted her IG posts hanging out with Aleksandr Gnedin a little while ago. He very briefly partnered up with Sofia Val a couple of years ago.

 

[lilimum]

Sofia Val ice dance partner is Azaf Kazimov who was the dance partner of Lara Luft before she switched to Maximilian Pfisterer. She elft this ice partner If I remember right in the first half of 2023
- Oh, now I saw that Val had a very, very short partnership with Gnedin before starting with Asaf.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

The gossipy part:
Lara Luft has a potential new partner from Russia, who had been trying out in Spain before. But so far, the guy didn't get a visa for Germany.

is it Vitryanyuk. That would be interesting he is russian but idt he has competed for russia since he started competing for Cyprus in 2018. (He was part of the ice dance team that K/K used to compete against and everyone was excited about b4 they broke things off b4 their juniiior debut)

Ooooh!!!!!! I wasn't expecting it to be Nikita Vitryanyuk that was being talked about. I was expecting it to be Aleksandr Gnedin.

For the record, Nikita grew up in Cyprus, and competed for the island for the whole of his Singles career, until the 2015–16 Season. As far as I know, the only time Nikita competed for Russia was for his initial Ice Dance partnership with Anastasia Burkina in the 2017–18 Season. I don't know what he has been doing since he split with Sofía Val. He may have been competing in Russia, for all I know. (It is so hard to keep up with what is happening in Russia nowadays!)

This may have passed you by because it was so brief, but if this is correct, Lara wouldn't be the first German that Nikita has tried out with. He turned up at the Cyprus Championships in May 2019 with Diana Lekhtman, barely 4 months after his last competition with Maria Miliukova. But their scores were considerably lower than Kudryavtseva / Karankevich. (The organisers didn't bother with the Pattern Dances; they just went straight to the Free Dance. Angelina and Ilia scored 50.61, while Diana and Nikita scored 32.34). In fact, they were the lowest scores he has ever got in Ice Dance. Which is hardly surprising, given how short a time they had been together.

And they never competed together again.

I still miss Maria...

Spotted her IG posts hanging out with Aleksandr Gnedin a little while ago. He very briefly partnered up with Sofia Val a couple of years ago.

For Lara's sake, I hope it is Aleksandr. Nikita doesn't exactly have a good record when it comes to staying with partners.

Lara deserves somebody who will stick with her. She is too good to be on the sidelines.

Sofia Val ice dance partner is Azaf Kazimov who was the dance partner of Lara Luft before she switched to Maximilian Pfisterer. She elft this ice partner If I remember right in the first half of 2023
- Oh, now I saw that Val had a very, very short partnership with Gnedin before starting with Asaf.

Yeah, it was very brief, so I am not surprised that you missed it. And I have a feeling that it was Visa issues then too. They never made it as far as any competitions, if I remember correctly.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Jumping_Bean]

Most JGP assignments have now been released, one spot each for the singles disciplines at JGP Ljubljana will be determined at a later date based on the results of the skaters assigned to the first three spots.

Junior Grand Prix Assignments

	#1 Riga	#2 Ostrava	#3 Bangkok	#4 Ankara	#5 Gdansk	#6 Ljubljana	#7 Wuxi
Women	Anna Gerke	Sophie Erhardt	-	-	Olesya Ray	TBD	-
Men	Genrikh Gartung	Soner Öztürk	-	-	Leon Rojkov	TBD	-
Pairs	Janne Salatzki / Lukas Röseler -	Janne Salatzki / Lukas Röseler Aliyah Ackermann / Tobija Harms	-	Sonja Löwenherz / Robert Löwenherz* -	Aliyah Ackermann / Tobija Harms Sonja Löwenherz / Robert Löwenherz*	-	-
Ice Dance	Darya Grimm / Michail Savitskiy -	Lilia Schubert / Nikita Remeshevskiy Nelly Hemcke / Artyom Sladkov*	-	Darya Grimm / Michail Savitskiy Alexia Kruk / Jan Eisenhaber	Lilia Schubert / Nikita Remeshevskiy Enikö Kobor / Zoard Kobor	Alexia Kruk / Jan Eisenhaber Enikö Kobor / Zoard Kobor	-

*Teams will only be allowed to compete after another monitoring session