It's nostalgia night! It's Sunday, and my "When it all just started" challenge is well underway. Tonight we'll talk about Anton Shulepov's 2017-2018 season.
From my telling of Shulepov's career, there is an impression of some hopelessness. But if you take a neutral look soberly, things weren't going as bad as they could have been. In the 2017-2018 season, it felt like Anton was about to break into the top-5, just one short step short of the top-5. He qualified for the national team, which is a good achievement. He had the opportunity to travel to some international tournaments. He didn't make it to the 2018 Olympics, but it was already clear in the previous season that the chances were quite small. Yes, he was a bit overshadowed by the young stars in his group, Dimitri Aliev. But he fought to get to the top, to be at the top. At the Russian Championships, he tries for the first time in his career to perform 4T in the short and free skating programs, both attempts ended in a fall. In the final of the Russian Cup he tries to perform 4Lz twice - and he managed to land this jump twice, although with a mistake! At the same time he was still a great dancer on ice, graceful, plastic, he had his own face, his own image. It seemed that the real breakthrough was just a little bit away, but....
Let's just watch these retro skates.
SP (music Where I want to be by Josh Groban)
FS (music Hoist the Colours (From "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End") by Hans Zimmer)