Alena Kostornaia | Page 180 | Golden Skate

Alena Kostornaia


I have to admit, this might have been my favorite moment of the entire competition! :biggrin:
She had a little red stain under her lip from the candy, and it looked like blood--very appropriate for a vampire!! :rofl:

Well, what is there to say??

CONGRATS DARLING ALIONA ON WINNING BACK-TO-BACK JGPF/GPF TITLES AND SETTING A NEW WORLD RECORD TOTAL SCORE!!! :yahoo:
:hap57:
Congrats on doing 3 clean triple axels in a single competition!! :yes2:
Congrats on setting new PB scores in both the SP and FS! :cheer2:

I hope she was able to enjoy herself out there! :yes:

I have to admit that Aliona looked a little slower than usual both in the SP and FS--she got a little behind the music today and that might be why she only got level 3 for her step sequence. She's probably feeling a bit fatigued since there were only 2 weeks between NHK Trophy and GPF. :yes: I hope she parties hard today and tomorrow and then has a nice good rest before gearing up again for Nationals! :agree:

Adorable interview:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5yV_2xJioZ/ :love:
 
Congrats to Aliona for skating both programs clean and also joining the elite group of skaters to land 3 triple axels across 1 competition!

I do admit she seemed a bit tentative/slower than usual out there today. I hope nothing is wrong (she makes me so nervous after last years injury) and she was just maybe skating a bit conservatively to not make mistakes?
 
Can Alyona be World Champ 2020? I'm excited to see it. She and Rika give me hope for figure skating because they have the technical goods and the artistry to boot.

I wish she'd try other choreographers. I think Shae Lynn or Tom Dickson could do wonders to her and as much as David Wilson's works are "fit for Yuna", i think he can make something awesome for Alyona. Perhaps something as awesome as Danse Macabre. This girl's future is bright!
 
She can definitely become world champion this season. She can't beat a clean Trusova technically but she is miles ahead in the presentation/artistry department and that is her strength. She is very young and I hope to see her develop her artistry even further.
 
I feel so grateful to have been lucky enough to see ALL of the ladies last night. What a competition! That said, Alena was just stunning. She is so quick on the ice and her movements are so crisp. The floating quality of her skating is very evident live. She is a star for sure!
 
So we had a rolling blackout last night, just as the FS warm-up finished, and I felt very aggravated by the fact that I wouldn't be able to see the FS until morning, because I really wanted to watch it live. But, having caught up at last, I think it was for the best that I didn't watch live, because the tension! Every skater coming out and scoring higher than the one before, and knowing Aliona would have to follow on from Sasha and Anna, and wondering if it would rattle her nerves at all. I don't think I would have been able to sleep after that kind of excitement.

And then Aliona came out on the ice, and the camera zoomed in on her face, and I had to pause the video and go hang up the laundry to compose myself and make sure I was prepared for all eventualities, and then, when the laundry was hung up and I was still worried, I went "Nope, not going to be tranquil about this whatever I do, just watch it." So I did. And when she landed the second of her 3As I breathed a huge sigh of relief with those two big jumps behind her, and then continued to watch with butterflies as she skated the rest of her programme, and only really relaxed when she was finished.

She was marvellous, once again, with such quality and self-assurance, and honestly, I'm running out of descriptives for her, because I think I've used most of them already. Her jumps look so secure, as she comes flying into them from her transitions and just lifts up into the air, making it look easy. She also gets such height on the initial leap into her flying sit spin! For me, she was in a class of her own in the free skate, when it came to her performance. I don't know enough to be able to break it down technically, and to say why and what it was that made her look so good to me, but I do know that I loved what I saw from her today, and considering the astonishing level of the competition, well, do I need words?
 
....
, well, do I need words?

Fortune Favours the Brave, and this goes for Anna and Aleksandra too.

These girls make it all look so easy, but no doubt their level of skills came with lots of falls, bruises and pain. But they have each other, both to spar with, to challenge and to comfort. The three of them together in the hot seat, in the medal ceremony and afterwards, what an experience this Grand Prix series and finals must have been. They didn't let themselves, their trainers nor their federation down and changed female figure skating forever.
 
I just read an interview with Aliona where she said that Yuzuru allowed her and Daria Pavliuchenko to look through the bags of toys that his fans threw for him and take something they liked. She said they almost got stuck in the huge piles :laugh: but they ended up with what translated to four "napkin holders," so I'm assuming tissue box covers.
 
I feel so grateful to have been lucky enough to see ALL of the ladies last night. What a competition! That said, Alena was just stunning. She is so quick on the ice and her movements are so crisp. The floating quality of her skating is very evident live. She is a star for sure!

It was amazing and we should be grateful on many levels. Alyiona it's a little genius to me. She and her teammates are classy and fun too.
 
I just read an interview with Aliona where she said that Yuzuru allowed her and Daria Pavliuchenko to look through the bags of toys that his fans threw for him and take something they liked. She said they almost got stuck in the huge piles :laugh: but they ended up with what translated to four "napkin holders," so I'm assuming tissue box covers.

I saw this interview as well--apparently Dasha almost lost her shoes in the pile of toys! Still, it would've been HILARIOUS if they had gotten stuck and had to wait for some people to come and pull them out. :rofl: I feel like that is exactly the kind of thing that would happen to Aliona though! :biggrin:

**

Some other stuff:

1) I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Aliona finally won the PCS battle in the FS, and she was the ONLY skater to score above 70 in PCS!
It's what she deserves! :yes2:

2) Selfie with Yuzu: :love:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B51HKSKp5To/
(If you can't tell, Aliona is closest to the camera, with the grey sweater with the yellow stripe on the arm.)

3) Organizing a jump photo with Nathan:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B50r2OjJewx/ :luv17:

4) New video interview (translation is in the comments):
https://www.instagram.com/p/B50dyLiov1G/

I'm glad to hear that Aliona knows that she needs to learn a quad. She won this time around because Sasha and Anna made mistakes (like they did at JGPF last year), but Aliona can't always rely on others making mistakes. If she wants to keep winning, she will have to increase her technical content. :yes:

From what I could tell of the auto-translated Russian comments on the Channel 1 FS video, TAT suggested that Aliona should be able to learn how to do a quad flip because she gets so much height on her 3F. I still am a bit worried that trying a 4F will mess up her gorgeous 3F, but I also feel like her 3S is not that high, so a 4S might be hard. I don't know... :think: Realistically speaking, though, if she hasn't been actively working on a quad already, she probably won't have an opportunity to do so until after Worlds, or possibly between Euros and Worlds (of course, assuming she makes those teams). Personally, I think it might be better to stabilize her existing content and aim to do it completely clean this year and work on a quad over the summer...

I'm eagerly awaiting banquet photos but haven't seen any yet! :biggrin:
 
Also - did anyone else notice that part of Aliona's hair was pink? Like the very edge of her bun. :laugh: :laugh:
It was like when she had green hair at JGPF 2017. :laugh:
 
If she wants to keep winning, she will have to increase her technical content.

Hmmmm, as a current world record holder, I'm not sure she needs to be worried about increasing her technical content. As her PCS can still increase, she's capable of scoring 250 points without a quad.. And how many guys can consistently score over 250 points, let alone girls? And if some girl does, can she keep doing it when hit by puberty? I think Alenka is quite OK without a quad...
 
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