I get that she needs to focus on her current jumps for this season, but she’s probably going to need a quad or 3A to remain competitive when the juniors turn senior. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to train for this. She can do 5 triple jumps in a row, I imagine she has the strength for a 3A if she trained for it. From what I can see of their program they have the training technique down for preparing girls to do more advanced jumps. I could see Eteri not wanting to risk the health of her top skater but that may be to the detriment of Alina’s career. She could easily be surpassed by all three juniors from her own team by the time she is 17.
I'm not a great technical appraiser, to judge future potential from present jumps, but I think that for a 3A you need to have a 2A with lots of strength and distance. Take Mirai's 2A, it is huge and goes long, that said she nearly does a full lap around the rink to set up her 3A. From what I currently see of Alina's 2A, it is nice but not huge, I'd say she has a better chance at getting one of her strong jumps (3F or 3Lo) into a quad than getting a 2A to become a 3A. Her 3Ltz is also a very strong jump but the 4Ltz is the hardest of the quads so that's why I picked the other two.
That said....who is to say she never did a quad in her life. Maybe they do them in practice and since she never did one consistently enough or super big and successful we just have never seen one. They pick very carefully what they let us see in videos from practices, can't say from what we have seen that she never attempted or landed one in her life. But to use it in competition you have to be way more successful and have over 50% chances of landing it regularly. I'd say you need to be 60% or 70% consistent. Maybe she did do them and never got consistent to "lets risk it in competition" levels. The reason I say this is because Zhenya actually mentioned that she did a quad in practice but never well enough, if she did why wouldn't Alina have done it also in the years she's been with Eteri.
My interpretation of Eteri's (and Serguei's and Daniil's) reasoning is the following: why would you risk your current success for your future needs. In the current field, as it sits, she doesn't need a quad, why risk injury and heavily taxing (score wise) inconsistency in something she doesn't need. To try to get better at this she would have to forgo getting better at other things that may make a difference for her right now. If we look at the current tops of the podiums there are people that live so far of from quadland that they wouldn't get there even with a map, and they are placing high and winning some events, those are the people she needs to worry about, her actual competition right now, this is her 2nd senior season.
Consider also this, Alina, as a Junior, competed with 3A people, lost to them (when she had skates with falls) and won from them. One that comes to mind, a beautiful skater, is Rika, she had a 3A to cry for. Alina beat her and lost to her with no 3A, it wasn't that much of a factor. In the Japanese ladies field, Rika is the same age as Alina, just now moving into seniors, and she was not considered to move up as the 3rd Japanese lady (even considering the current top ones don't do 3As).
To your point, the rear view mirror shows the Quadsters approaching, but as Rika's story illustrate, they have to actually get here (and get here with consistency), she is in a better position to access what they'll do and how they'll be than any other skater (she sees them everyday). Her team is too, Eteri mentioned several times in interviews how Alina was better technically than Zhenya, she will tell her when she needs to move up her game (and will access if she can do it, and in case she can't, how can she have a fighting chance with the elements and jumps she has).
It is a developing world for Alina, she is still uncovering her potential and exploring what she can do, I have trust that with the love she has for the sport (and what her success in it helped her achieve) she will move at the speed she needs to remain successful.
This reminds me of this picture:
I wish we could thank her for such good info. Alina does not need to do quads or 3a at this point.
