Evgenia Medvedeva

[lbamda]

If Alina was in another group Zhenya definitely would have technical upgrade this season even if it was more risky.

Absolutely truly. Alina was conducted as on a risky gold medal, and Zhenya as on reliable, in case of Alina mistakes. Here therefore Zhenya didn't allow to technical upgrade.

Eteri was all the same who will win it. She doesn't think categories of the specific athlete, it is purely junior approach, Eteri still remains the trainer of juniors.

And now a question - whether it is necessary to remain in this group, that on the following OG it was merged under the next junior?

 

[Sugar Coated]

Actually I think Alina won fairly there. It is not about who should won it is about Eteri's team strategy in Olympic season and the future seasons concerning Zhenya. So yes, may it is time to move on.

I agree. New to being a fan, but from what I understand the judges were willing to let her flutzes slide, most likely due to reputation. But it would have been hard to have her win with people reviewing the replays. And to me as a new comer to thee sport, Alina’s performance was superior. I think the general public may not appreciate PCS or artistry and it seemed this year was more about technical ability.

I also got the impression that Eteri doubted Alina would consistently skate clean. Especially at the olympics due to the pressure. She had seen Yulia succumb to nerves in the individual event. I think the strategy was to maximize the technical score because even if Alina fell she would still score respectably high.

So I do think Eteri was playing it a bit safe with Zhenya. She didn’t want to take any risks with her assumed champion. Alina isn’t as mentally strong as Zhenya. I think Eteri thought Alina would contribute to the team event and finish relatively high on an individual level, but that she didn’t have the experience dealing with the pressure to actually medal. Likely she was just getting Alina ready for the next Olympic Games by getting her some experience this time around so she’d know what it’s like the next time. Eteri never thought she needed to match Zhenya’s technical score to Alina’s since Alina would not actually skate clean under pressure.

 

[Sivush]

So I do think Eteri was playing it a bit safe with Zhenya. She didn’t want to take any risks with her assumed champion. Alina isn’t as mentally strong as Zhenya. I think Eteri thought Alina would contribute to the team event and finish relatively high on an individual level, but that she didn’t have the experience dealing with the pressure to actually medal. Likely she was just getting Alina ready for the next Olympic Games by getting her some experience this time around so she’d know what it’s like the next time. Eteri never thought she needed to match Zhenya’s technical score to Alina’s since Alina would not actually skate clean under pressure.

No, Eteri as Feds and as everyone else had more doubts in Zhenya before this Olympics. Because of very short time for her to go back in top form and because her trauma was back right on the Olympics. And about anticipation of Alina's technical score you can watch the late doc where Eteri was smiling when she very interesting reflected about Zhenya's chances against clean Zagi.
And overall girls who skate not clean most of the time don't last long in this group.

 

[lbamda]

No, Eteri as Feds and as everyone else had more doubts in Zhenya before this Olympics. Because of very short time for her to go back in top form and because her trauma was back right on the Olympics.

Yes. Shot from the last film - panic.

http://sa.uploads.ru/DgqO4.jpg

Therefore Lakernik in the Moscow European championship was necessary to begin the old plan of Sochi v.2.0. How Aline was to struggle with Osmond on OG with junior components?

 

[esteticlove]

So I do think Eteri was playing it a bit safe with Zhenya. She didn’t want to take any risks with her assumed champion.

As much as I don't want to write this here, I'll do - I don't think that losing the Olympic gold is all Eteri's fault. Yes, there were some mistakes during this season, for example letting Zhenya skate injured, maybe not giving her full psychological support at such hard time etc., but last year Eteri mentioned in an interview how at the beginning of the 2016-2017 season she insisted to make a new (probably harder) layout but Zhenya refused. That didn't prevent her from winning Nationals, Euros and WC. However, Alina wasn't on the senior podium yet with her fully-backloaded program. Remembering this now, I guess Eteri had a clue that if Medvedeva doesn't upgrade her TES soon, "someone" will come and surpass her.

A year later we saw they tried to make changes, however, for different reasons it didn't work out. My guess is that if it wasn't an Olympic season, she would have probably kept the program and would have tried to improve during the season, who knows. And inbetween came the injury, which changed things a lot. If you paid attention to the Japan documentary, you should have seen that at the time before Nationals (as Zhenya was skating in front of the men from the federation) she was constantly falling, even randomly slipping up doing some transitions. Also, at the end of the FS she was barely breathing (I got a little bit worried at that moment) which is telling me that her physical indurance was quite bad, due to the pause and off-ice time. This doesn't mean she suddenly lost her skating abilities but she was out of shape (understandably why). So, in this case I don't really see how she could have managed backloading. I think they made the best decision in this situation, or at least I can't see any better alternative right now. Afterall, she skated 2 clean programs at the Olympics and it was very memorable! :luv17:

 

[Sugar Coated]

As much as I don't want to write this here, I'll do - I don't think that losing the Olympic gold is all Eteri's fault. Yes, there were some mistakes during this season, for example letting Zhenya skate injured, maybe not giving her full psychological support at such hard time etc., but last year Eteri mentioned in an interview how at the beginning of the 2016-2017 season she insisted to make a new (probably harder) layout but Zhenya refused. That didn't prevent her from winning Nationals, Euros and WC. However, Alina wasn't on the senior podium yet with her fully-backloaded program. Remembering this now, I guess Eteri had a clue that if Medvedeva doesn't upgrade her TES soon, "someone" will come and surpass her.

A year later we saw they tried to make changes, however, for different reasons it didn't work out. My guess is that if it wasn't an Olympic season, she would have probably kept the program and would have tried to improve during the season, who knows. And inbetween came the injury, which changed things a lot. If you paid attention to the Japan documentary, you should have seen that at the time before Nationals (as Zhenya was skating in front of the men from the federation) she was constantly falling, even randomly slipping up doing some transitions. Also, at the end of the FS she was barely breathing (I got a little bit worried at that moment) which is telling me that her physical indurance was quite bad, due to the pause and off-ice time. This doesn't mean she suddenly lost her skating abilities but she was out of shape (understandably why). So, in this case I don't really see how she could have managed backloading. I think they made the best decision in this situation, or at least I can't see any better alternative right now. Afterall, she skated 2 clean programs at the Olympics and it was very memorable! :luv17:

I’d love to watch the Japanese documentary. Is there anywhere it is posted with English subtitles?

I actually worry Zhenya might have been weak due to not eating enough rather than lack of conditioning.

 

[esteticlove]

https://vk.com/videos-67998976?z=video-67998976_456240295/club67998976/pl_-67998976_-2

Unfortunately, is only in Russian (with Japanese subtitles). If you are interested in a specific part, I could try to explain to you what they're saying, however, I'm understaning only half-through

 

[MedoLove]

The documentary left me somewhat sensitive. Still, thank you, Japan, for letting us know this. The stress that is experienced in the training is immense. The level of pressure and anxiety that Evgenia feels even when she's almost a child it's crazy. Something was clear with the images of the documentary: when Rusfed visited the track and Evgenia could not connect any jump, and they asked her to omit the Nationals, she already sensed what was coming. Zhenya knew it, Eteri knew it. Even so she complied, despite the obvious abandonment of her federation, she went to the Europeans -which for good or bad were celebrated in Russia itself-, she wanted to know where the cards were betting. And the answer was obvious that day.
I'm proud of Zhenya, she's the strongest skater I've ever met, and I still believe in her, and Rusfed should be smarter. Of course I think that injury was the worst in the world, it came at the worst moment. But Zhenya gave us the best FS of her life, Anna Karenina: emotional, tragic, vulnerable. Olympic gold doesn't tarnish this magnificent presentation.
That injury had been coming for some time, and they had it hidden from the public, remember that later she rebelled that she skated with painkillers in Rostelecom Cup.
She will not leave Eteri, it is not convenient. She is in the best place where she can be competitive and become even stronger.
I do not like that they talk about Orser as a savior, because he's not. His only successful female athlete was Kim, and yet she never corrected her Lip or her 3Loop, becoming obsolete with only 6 triples and 4 possible types of jumps. Daleman has multiple edge problems and is totally inconsistent, and when she collapsed in the Olympics Orser looked quite angry. Elizabeth seems to be not taken into account, her layout is not competitive and she could be without problems, it seems as if the best is going Daleman. I'm sorry, but that's how I see it. Orser has no interest in his ladies as in his gold boys.



about the choreographers, yes, there is a problem there, and the team must hire more choreographers, Daniil seems to favor Alina when it comes to the best ideas, and Zhenya seems to have a kind of contract with Averbukh. The girls can choose other choreographers, Zhenya should only ask for it.


In short, it's another year, another season. Zhenya remains strong and determined while the others tremble. All this made our girl stronger, I'm sure (;
Let's stay positive

 

[thestage]

filling idle moments with endless, baseless speculation of the heart is not good for anyone. the result is only grief and angst, projected as anger. zhenya herself is on vacation. take the hint.

 

[tha]

https://twitter.com/sara8570/status/991479159401541632
Some parts of the doc translated

 

[1critic]

filling idle moments with endless, baseless speculation of the heart is not good for anyone. the result is only grief and angst, projected as anger. zhenya herself is on vacation. take the hint.

On the other hand what a ride.

 

[50 Words for Snow]

I completely agree. This is about an athlete making the best choices for herself and with all the young talent in eteri’s group she has to be wondering if she’d be more successful elsewhere. I mean its likely that as soon as the juniors become seniors, even Alina will have aged out of their model and need to seek coaching elsewhere.

The thing is, Zhenya skated her programs pretty much perfectly. She broke her world record in the short program and I think she said at the end of her FS “I did everything I could” or something like that. Her program wasn’t enough to win. Her teammate got a program that won. Maybe this was due to injury or inability to do some of the same jumps. But she has to be wondering if the program should have been different and if she will continue to get lesser programs if she sticks with Eteri. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate all Eteri has done, but she may feel she would do better with someone else.

She broke her own world record with her SP twice. It was a world record setting program twice over. That should be sufficient for a gold, and she matched Alina's FS score even though her program was much easier than Alina's. Eteri did not shortchange her with her programs and hamstring her in any way as far the programs were concerned. She might not have done her any favors letting her skate at NHK, but she didn't screw her in the Olympics, not when Clinical Death set two records and a modestly-difficult Anna Karenina matched Alina's technically-extreme Don Quixote. Zhenya lost because the judges gave Alina such a high PCS on Black Swan, not because Eteri gave her inferior programs.

I believe Daniil was primarily responsible for Alina’s programs.
http://www.absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=interviews&id=2018gleichengauz

I don’t think Eteri ever expected her program to beat out Zhenya’s. Look at her face when Alina’s short program scores are announced. She is in shock.

There is a psych study where silver medalists are way less happy than bronze medalists. Silver implies you “lost.” Whereas bronze medalists are happy to be on the podium. As competitive as Evgenia, silver must be devastating to her. Even if it was a very high score, it wasn’t enough to win.

Jerry Seinfeld also does a short comedy routine about the phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9rbwM3omA

 

[50 Words for Snow]

I agree. New to being a fan, but from what I understand the judges were willing to let her flutzes slide, most likely due to reputation. But it would have been hard to have her win with people reviewing the replays. And to me as a new comer to thee sport, Alina’s performance was superior. I think the general public may not appreciate PCS or artistry and it seemed this year was more about technical ability.

I also got the impression that Eteri doubted Alina would consistently skate clean. Especially at the olympics due to the pressure. She had seen Yulia succumb to nerves in the individual event. I think the strategy was to maximize the technical score because even if Alina fell she would still score respectably high.

So I do think Eteri was playing it a bit safe with Zhenya. She didn’t want to take any risks with her assumed champion. Alina isn’t as mentally strong as Zhenya. I think Eteri thought Alina would contribute to the team event and finish relatively high on an individual level, but that she didn’t have the experience dealing with the pressure to actually medal. Likely she was just getting Alina ready for the next Olympic Games by getting her some experience this time around so she’d know what it’s like the next time. Eteri never thought she needed to match Zhenya’s technical score to Alina’s since Alina would not actually skate clean under pressure.

In Zhenya's interview with Yagudin right after returning home, she said something about the Olympics teaching her not to rely on someone else's mistakes in order to win. I think that probably she and Eteri both expected Alina to choke at some point like she did later at worlds, but bless her heart, the kid nailed it like a boss. I'd much rather that she had shined at World and taken silver in the Olympics, but the kid didn't ask me for my preferences before taking the ice. :noshake:

 

[hollyho]

I read some comments here that Zhenya "fell out of favour" with Rusfed.

I see from the Olympics video (link below) - at 0:19, Eteri goes over specially to pull Zhenya and pushed her into the arms of this man (looks like the guy from the doc?). They seem to have a warm relationship. On the other hand, there seem no "push" for Alina to specially to see him. Any insight as to what was going on?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvEy4gZzDks

Edit: I wasn't trying to prove/disprove anything with the video. Just curious why Eteri made Zhenya see that guy specially.

 

[skaterchic360]

Hi y'all, is there a way to watch Zhenya's new documentary without having a VK account? Everytime I click on the link it tells me to sign up.

 

[lesnar001]

In Zhenya's interview with Yagudin right after returning home, she said something about the Olympics teaching her not to rely on someone else's mistakes in order to win. I think that probably she and Eteri both expected Alina to choke at some point like she did later at worlds, but bless her heart, the kid nailed it like a boss. I'd much rather that she had shined at World and taken silver in the Olympics, but the kid didn't ask me for my preferences before taking the ice. :noshake:

This is supposed to be Evgenia's fan thread - if the only way you can be a fan is to bash someone else then you are not much of a fan are you.
And no, your weak attempt to "bless her heart" in the next sentence does not absolve you. Shame on you.

 

[50 Words for Snow]

This is supposed to be Evgenia's fan thread - if the only way you can be a fan is to bash someone else then you are not much of a fan are you.
And no, your weak attempt to "bless her heart" in the next sentence does not absolve you. Shame on you.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I feel no shame. I was not bashing her; she actually choked, and I like the kid, so the "bless her heart" was not a weak attempt at anything. She surpassed everyone's expectations for her and hardly got any praise for it at all. Instead, the Internet erupted with comments, including articles in major media publications, about how she should not have won. That was not fair to her at all. She skated her butt off. She cannot score her program; she can only skate her best, and she did. All props to her; she is the Olympic Champion. Then, she choked at Worlds. That's not a knock; it is what happened. She was nervous in her short program and made mistakes, and then she fell apart in her free skate while trying to make up for that first fall. I wish her luck in the coming season. She is a sweet and talented girl, and I can and do praise Evgenia, my favorite, without "bashing" Alina.

 

[50 Words for Snow]

Hey, on a separate note, how do I clear quotes? Everytime I reply, I end up having to edit my post by deleting all of the quotes I have previously replied to. How do I clear the cache, so to speak?

 

[1critic]

Hey, on a separate note, how do I clear quotes? Everytime I reply, I end up having to edit my post by deleting all of the quotes I have previously replied to. How do I clear the cache, so to speak?

Usually happens automatically.

 

[yukipon]

what makes you thinks that means a warm relationships and they did hug Alina in the interview zone backstage as soon as she won.
Anything wouldn't change the fact that Rusfed is using Zhenya to be machines of gaining money during the time she should be rest.