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Is she "Officially" with Plushenko? I love Plushy but, this seems like a betrayal.
Alena Kostornaia leaves Tutberidze
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Is she "Officially" with Plushenko? I love Plushy but, this seems like a betrayal.
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- Mar 3, 2014
Why is it a betrayal, Mr. Rice? Surely you as a coach know better than most, that dancers/skaters/whatever can, and indeed should, leave a training situation when they feel it is not working for them. For whatever reasons
But yes, this entire thread is about the official news that Alena is switching coaches. Well, with some discussion of technique of other skaters thrown in
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Ummm, not for everyone: again it's that eye of the beholder thing. She and Anna are both very pretty but there are and have been quite a number of stunningly beautiful young women especially - as Mathman said - in ice dance (and some men, helllooooo Guillaume) but in singles and pairs as well. It's a very visual sport, after all.
On the other hand, Mao Asada is a lovely, very appealing, but not classically beautiful woman, and she is hugely sought after by advertisers.
Well, not everyone has one (and yes, you know who I'm talking about) but these days, especially if they want to maximise earnings, it's a big plus. A good pr firm does cost, and also to an extent controls your public image, so they need to weigh that up. Does Plushy himself have one?
Marin is actually a fascinating case in the discussion of marketability: she's successful but not in the very top flight of women skaters, however she is artistic and lovely to watch, very beautiful (in the style that most appeals to her market) and a TV/Media star in her own right as well in her own country.
Are we seriously back to debating who is the most popular skater by Youtube views? That number can be incredibly skewed as others have said videos are geo-blocked in certain countries, some videos get taken down and then put back up, Youtube has very little restrictions for counting repeat views of a video, and people will literally get on videos to trash skaters, example: look at some of Sotnikova's videos they nice view counts but then the comments are filled with people trashing her for winning the Olympics in 2014 - so her view count can be decent but not because she's the most popular skater in a good way at least.
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yes its official , she has been training with them already and its not a betrayal, its absolutely ok and normal for skaters(actually all athletes of all kinds)to change trainers if they think that its time to move , thats not betrayal its the right of every single athlete in this world. And its time that people understand this. Most of them do the only time i see people writing betrayal or traitor or something in this direction is when someonemleaves eteri, otherwise i dont hear anyone saying anything like this if another skater leaves another trainer,
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Based on view count from youtube search, I found that Alexandra has at least 3 competition videos with over 1 million views. And thats not including her exhibition programs. Her unstoppable ex has 13million views. While the highest view count of an Alena competition video is 905k uploaded from 1tv. I find that Alexandra generally gathers more interest because people want to know if she landed the quads while Alena is more popular in the sense that she gathers less polarizing views.
I talked about WHAT people probably like to see and not WHO people want to see. I talked only about ISU videos which i think are not taken down like random youtubers' videos. And if they are geoblocked, they are in the same countries so they have the same number of potential viewers.
On SM i see that Aliona is the most popular or at least is the one getting the most positive comments (i don't know how it is on Russian SMs). But maybe casual viewers are more curious about those quads which are so much discussed in media.
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I disagree about using YouTube views, which have different geo blocks, as a proxy for popularity. For example Alina has many more fans than all 3 Sasha, Anna and Aliona, yet her videos from the Grand Prix don’t have millions of views due to geo blocks in certain countries. Until all videos are available in all countries and stop randomly getting removed, it’s impossible to know what people are most interested in watching.
We also have to consider the YouTube algorithm which randomly promotes or suggests certain videos. If the ISU were to put all videos on their site, that would be a better representation of popularity of skaters. Until then we have way too many unknowns.
We also have to consider the YouTube algorithm which randomly promotes or suggests certain videos. If the ISU were to put all videos on their site, that would be a better representation of popularity of skaters. Until then we have way too many unknowns.
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- Feb 17, 2010
Actually I found this to be untrue. In my post above, I mentioned on the ISU channel I can see Sasha’s LP from Skate Canada, but no other performances. I don’t know why this is, but for some reason in the US I can see her while everything else is blocked. So it’s not uniform across all their videos for some reason.
I for 1 watched a lot of GP skates on Instagram this past year due to the blocking with Youtube.
ISU published a list of countries were videos can be blocked and i thought it was for all videos, not just some.
I can see all the videos so i didn't know that issue existed.
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I think Alyona has unique voice that somehow reminds of Pinocchio. If there is ever a Russian cartoon about Pinocchio, she can voice Pinocchio himself. I guess she can make a lot of money that way.
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Didn't ANA sign him up in Jun 2013, before he had either OGM or WGM? (Possibly P&G were early too). Of course, Yuzuru's appeal is a special case, a perfect storm of factors - more than one of which I would not want to see other skaters having to go through - converging. But yes, he and Yuna are very good examples of "something rare and marketable" that can be added to the medals and the firsts. So, in her time, was Gracie Gold in my opinion, even if she never hit the same heights skating-wise.
Social media is very very difficult to gauge in a sport where at least one big market - China - doesn't use the major ones we normally look at. Weibo has millions, quite literally multi-millions, of posts, tags, likes and retweets that people in the west don't think about. And then there are video sites like bilibili.
I don't know at all. Maybe. But his visibility definitely skyrocketed after Sochi.
I don't think brands always care about what Chineses think. Unless the market targeted is China.
West SMs are the most worlwide known and popular. I think if you have 100+ millions followers on instagram + 30 millions on twitter, followers from all continents, you're definitely a well-known and popular person. If your name doesn't appear that much on weibo that doesn't necessarily mean you aren't popular.
On the contrary someone can be very discussed on weibo, well-known in China while the rest of the world doesn't know them.
I think we can agree that Federer, Nadal, Serena Williams are popular on SMs without even knowing what is said about them on Chinese SMs.
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Yes, it’s very strange and I don’t understand why it’s like this! And I don’t think it was always available - I noticed it recently while watching another video of Sasha’s it came up as “recommended”. I’m going to do some investigating to see if any other videos from the GP are now available for me (USA).
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- Apr 23, 2018
Agreed. We in the West and they in China both tend to be insular that way.
But if we are talking - as we are - about skaters getting endorsements and such, it becomes more to the point. Skating isn't basketball or tennis. Western brands may not care whether one of the Russian girls is popular in Japan or China, but Japan and China may pay handsomely - maybe more handsomely than Nike, Puma, Pantone etc will for skaters anywhere, given the available information on Yuzu's Kose and Citizen deals.
If Aliona is looking at getting access through Plushy to more and better-paying ice shows, his links to Japan (Fantasy on Ice anyone?) certainly won't hurt
Agreed. We in the West and they in China both tend to be insular that way.
But if we are talking - as we are - about skaters getting endorsements and such, it becomes more to the point. Western brands may not care whether one of the Russian girls is popular in Japan or China, but Japan and China may pay handsomely - maybe more handsomely than Nike, Puma, Pantone etc will for skaters, given the available information on Yuzu's Kose and Citizen deals.
If Aliona is looking at getting access through Plushy to more and better-paying ice shows, his links to Japan (Fantasy on Ice anyone?) certainly won't hurt
Japan maybe. China, it depends. Yuzu is basically someone coming from Mars. Do you see many foreign skaters getting endorsements from China?
Japan on the contrary love the foreign skaters. Medvedeva, Zagitova, Zhou got endorsements (while Japanese skaters start crowdfundings...), more are invited to shows. So yeah, you better be liked on Japanese SMs.
I seriously feel for top Japanese skaters who don't get invited that much in shows in their country. Satoko must have a good agency since she's the exception.
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- Jul 9, 2014
Why is it a betrayal, Mr. Rice? Surely you as a coach know better than most, that dancers/skaters/whatever can, and indeed should, leave a training situation when they feel it is not working for them. For whatever reasons
I think betrayal was the wrong word.......This is an excellent question. IMO, it's all in the way it's been handled. She's so young that her parents could have said, "We don't care for Eteri" In my case, I had to change studios because my parents got divorced and we moved away. In any case, I would never blame the skater, dancer, or student for things that are beyond their control. Isn't she still a teenager?
I think betrayal was the wrong word.......This is an excellent question. IMO, it's all in the way it's been handled. She's so young that her parents could have said, "We don't care for Eteri" In my case, I had to change studios because my parents got divorced and we moved away. In any case, I would never blame the skater, dancer, or student for things that are beyond their control. Isn't she still a teenager?
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- Feb 27, 2014
Yes. Officially with plushenko. Betrayal is kind of harsh to be honest with you although I'm sure EG feels that way since she took Alena from being another pretty good skater to be a great skater. Benedict Arnold committed obvious betrayal . Alena Kostornia did not. The reality is aliona is a different kind of cat. She is not by any means of skating zombie 100% of the time. She's going a have a full life and she wants to be a doctor for real. That my friends is off the charts impressive more impressive than her beautiful skating is.
Like I said Aliona is different and if she had won Nationals and had a perfect debut season she still may have left EG if that's what she felt in her heart she needed to do. The whole thing is perplexing to us but Aliona wanted to do it for some reason and we shouldnt stop rooting for her.
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