2025/26 Russian Season -- moving the season forward one month and holding the Russian championship 2-3 weeks later

[Skating91]

On second thought I almost agree but not really. On one hand you're right that her BV is so enormous that its hard to imagine she doesnt gold. She has gotten really stable and really mature. She has given her life to the sport, it would take something serious to make her lose everything. That being said it's still a different atmosphere. She hasnt trained under that atmosphere, ever. Almost zero international experience. She said something like "if I only compete in Russia, I will be nobody in the history of skating". She clearly really cares and realizes that the Olympics is going to either vindicate her entire career, or if she just has one bad day, then its all finished. Done. I know what its like to perform, its literally a different skill, it employs different neural connections. The neural connections you build in practice are like half ignored. She should win anyways but its a different world when she steps onto that Olympic ice. She cant train for it until the exact second where she skates out to actually skate her Olympic program. Its not the same thing as skating in Russia, every stage and every tournament is training, even training is training because shes training with the same people shes competing against in the same country. This is not only for her legacy but, one bad day, one poor entry or one poor landing which can happen to literally anyone, and she just disgraced the entire country. When Valieva got back everyone supported her, I cant imagine what Adeliia would feel walking back through the airport if she lost the gold. All of these factors running through her mind when she steps onto ice she never felt before, in an atmosphere magnitudes harder and different than anything she knows, and she only gets once chance. Crazy. These are not normal people who do can handle these things.

I don't think anyone would rubbish her for not getting gold. Sure, some will, but everyone will realise that this is not a normal Olympics where there would be three rolls of the dice for Russia, and if someone gets injured or sick they can replace them before the event. The requirements almost seem designed in such a way to greatly reduce -- even eliminate -- the independent athletes chances of success (really petty imo if this was deliberate and not an oversight). I think it's really wrong to not have subs from September onwards because it's putting these independent skaters at great harm of injury or exacerbating an injury since they might feel compelled to hide an injury or push through because they don't want to waste their spot. I thought the sport was getting way from this kind of thing and trying to lengthen careers, to protect their health, but apparently not.

Don't forget though even if she has a bad couple of skates, she is probably good for a bronze with this Olympic field. After Sakamoto and possibly Glenn assuming she retains this consistent 3A another 12 months, it's basically Mone Chiba who is a 210-215 skater in her absolute best tournaments, Chaeyeon Kim who is generally a 200-210 skater.

For all of Glenn's heroics, she has still been a 210-215 skater this year, in other seasons struggling to break 200 plus wildly inconsistent. Hendrickx and Levito already were struggling to rotate jumps, it's going to be even harder next season for them so I don't think they are a threat. Sakamoto even in Japanese events maxes out at about 235 when it's gone perfect getting 77 in PCS for a program with one 3-3 combo and 62 BV. That's basically the absolute maximum and happens rarely now. This year in 4 international starts she's had 199.94, 201.21, 231.88, 201.13. So it would really have to go wrong, run into peak Sakamoto (Sakamoto isn't as consistent now and she may get worse over the next 12 months), and Adelia have her worst performance in years.

I think they will be fair to Adelia but of course she won't get the PCS of Sakamoto. She'll get 70 minimum in the free skate. What the IOC, ISU don't need is another judging scandal on the biggest stage. The sport has no credibility among regular sports fans as it is.

 

[Mathematician]

I don't think anyone would rubbish her for not getting gold. Sure, some will, but everyone will realise that this is not a normal Olympics where there would be three rolls of the dice for Russia, and if someone gets injured or sick they can replace them before the event. The requirements almost seem designed in such a way to greatly reduce -- even eliminate -- the independent athletes chances of success (really petty imo if this was deliberate and not an oversight). I think it's really wrong to not have subs from September onwards because it's putting these independent skaters at great harm of injury or exacerbating an injury since they might feel compelled to hide an injury or push through because they don't want to waste their spot. I thought the sport was getting way from this kind of thing and trying to lengthen careers, to protect their health, but apparently not.

Don't forget though even if she has a bad couple of skates, she is probably good for a bronze with this Olympic field. After Sakamoto and possibly Glenn assuming she retains this consistent 3A another 12 months, it's basically Mone Chiba who is a 210-215 skater in her absolute best tournaments, Chaeyeon Kim who is generally a 200-210 skater.

For all of Glenn's heroics, she has still been a 210-215 skater this year, in other seasons struggling to break 200 plus wildly inconsistent. Hendrickx and Levito already were struggling to rotate jumps, it's going to be even harder next season for them so I don't think they are a threat. Sakamoto even in Japanese events maxes out at about 235 when it's gone perfect getting 77 in PCS for a program with one 3-3 combo and 62 BV. That's basically the absolute maximum and happens rarely now. This year in 4 international starts she's had 199.94, 201.21, 231.88, 201.13. So it would really have to go wrong, run into peak Sakamoto (Sakamoto isn't as consistent now and she may get worse over the next 12 months), and Adelia have her worst performance in years.

I think they will be fair to Adelia but of course she won't get the PCS of Sakamoto. She'll get 70 minimum in the free skate. What the IOC, ISU don't need is another judging scandal on the biggest stage. The sport has no credibility among regular sports fans as it is.

Well bronze is a failure to her. So is silver. Big time.

All sports fandoms are immoral hiveminds. Even if you want to be extremely generous and say half the community would support her, then we still have half the community who is at best mocking her and at worst eating her alive and genuinely hate her for disgracing the country, not to mention fans of other skaters who believe their favourite would have taken the gold (since there are many Russian ladies who would be gold favourites) and Adeliia wasting their opportunity. Valieva was not even close to that, especially not in her own country.

 

[Skating91]

Well bronze is a failure to her. So is silver. Big time.

All sports fandoms are immoral hiveminds. Even if you want to be extremely generous and say half the community would support her, then we still have half the community who is at best mocking her and at worst eating her alive and genuinely hate her for disgracing the country, not to mention fans of other skaters who believe their favourite would have taken the gold (since there are many Russian ladies who would be gold favourites) and Adeliia wasting their opportunity. Valieva was not even close to that, especially not in her own country.

Valieva didn't fail at the Olympics, her life was destroyed mid tournament, more or less alone due to COVID restrictions, wasn't able to give her best performances after that. Most reasonable people understood why she finished 4th. I think most people will recognise this is far from a normal Olympics for Adelia, the requirements designed in such a way to guarantee a high probability of failure while the ISU can say 'hey we let them compete as the IOC asked us to do'. If she approaches this with the right attitude, maybe it takes the pressure off her. A lot of it is simply out of her control.

 

[Mathematician]

I think most people will recognise this is far from a normal Olympics for Adelia, the requirements designed in such a way to guarantee a high probability of failure while the ISU can say 'hey we let them compete as the IOC asked us to do'.

You cant invoke a high probability of failure and a 24 BV gap at the same time. Its one or the other. There are no rules ISU can put in place to make Adeliia not twice as good as second place in every way. If she melts down and loses a 24 BV lead, there will be no excuses. People were not reasonable with Valieva because they are reasonable, they were reasonable with her because they still got their gold medal anyways with Shcherbakova and the country was still the best in the world by the official record and nobody could change it. There was no damage done to the Russian zeitgeist meanwhile Valieva's fans are obviously Valieva's fans; which demographic has reason to hate on her? There was no reason for anyone to feel any personal shame because of that situation. The other two girls were team-tut so not Eteri fans either. With Adeliia however there is no such buffer. Its either she wins for the country or loses for the country. People are nice when they haven't lost anything, its much harder to be nice when you've lost something which would be the case for every single Russian if Adeliia doesn't take gold. Not only will they lose their dominant atmosphere they worked over a decade for, they will be ignored and subverted by the entire international scene and embarrassingly so (this time in an overt and effective way with actual substantiation, not like the past couple years where everyone knows the truth; now Russian would have to grit their teeth and bear it with zero rebuttal). People as a unit are not nice, especially sports fans. Russian fans literally have everything going for them the last 10 years and they've still been incredibly toxic to almost everyone of their athletes that gave them everything. Valieva gave them a world record and the rights to the greatest sports genius of the century, and after she went through a lifetime of trauma in front of the entire world on their behalf, with zero aggression towards anyone throughout the entire ordeal, half the community ripped on her for getting "fat" after just growing like a normal girl the next season. Good luck getting support from these people. Imagine they take their first loss in a decade, with a 24 BV gap, when everyone has already been ignoring the fact that they are twice as good as everyone else. Imagine the tension built up since Akateva took a 250 win and nobody even recognized Russia as existing, then Adeliia with 250 also and now 260, with everyone calling her juniorish despite dropping a freeskate Glenn or Kaori couldn't master in 10 years, basically participating in a different sport than the internationals, then she gets one chance to finally put it on the record for Russia at the only event anyone cares about continuing their undefeated streak with effectively zero competition and she folds under the pressure. Its GG for her if she does not gold. I am so nervous for her I almost hope she doesn't have to go through with it.

 

[Fetinia]

If there some kind of peace agreement reached between UA and RU this year (big IF), which probably give a little chance that Russian skaters are allowed participate in the Worlds next year (as neutral or in an other capacity), then it certainly a motivational factor for the skaters that had not been selected for Olympics. And maybe RusFed will choose the other skaters, not the Olympians, to go to world. For this reason the season should follow the same schedule as any other Olympic year. Selected Olympians actually have a little pressure going to nationals knowing they are going to Olympics, but not to the worlds.

 

[Minz]

I mean, skating 91 literally did say the ISU would kick up a fuss if nats is on the same weekend as Europeans or 4CC

A bit late but I really don’t think they would kick up that much of a fuss. US Nationals was once held the same week as Euros and last year there was less than a day in between Nationals and 4CC - I remember a couple of skaters skipped nationals, although most skipped 4CC.