Evgenia Medvedeva | Page 611 | Golden Skate

Evgenia Medvedeva

She needs to build muscle, work on jumps. Compared to a year or so ago, her jumps at the Olympics were smaller and heavier footed. Probably from injury. I also noticed she was less flexible than a year or so ago but could be from getting "older". But something for sure looked different at her exhibition performance where she skated to Windmills of your Mind.

I wonder what she meant by training honestly. That's what she said in her statement about leaving Eteri. ... understand that this was the only possible option for both of us, to continue to work honestly."
 
She needs to build muscle, work on jumps. Compared to a year or so ago, her jumps at the Olympics were smaller and heavier footed. Probably from injury. I also noticed she was less flexible than a year or so ago but could be from getting "older". But something for sure looked different at her exhibition performance where she skated to Windmills of your Mind.

I wonder what she meant by training honestly. That's what she said in her statement about leaving Eteri. ... understand that this was the only possible option for both of us, to continue to work honestly."

I think it was a pretty good achievement to skate three perfect programs on a broken foot already. I also noticed that her jumps looked more muslced and her flutz was worse than ever but... nah, honestly, I‘m biased as hell I didn‘t notice anything seeing Zhenya skate so beautifully at the Olympics but my own tears running down after the FS. :laugh:

I saw some improvements in her Windmills ex in her spins but if I‘m honest... the changes weren‘t that evident. I think it might have been some of the SS lessons, yes, but more the fact that she was able to skate more freely than at competitions when it was mostly pain from her foot & pure concentration & the general excitement of the Olympics. I think that translated to her skating and that‘s why so many people see such vast improvements. Fact is: She still flutzed. Not that I care about that. It’s actually just to be expected. TCC’s not a miracle working factory where your problems get fixed after two weeks. Unfortunately. :laugh:

Her loop and salchow looked fine in the exhibitions, though, almost back to her old standard. Idk it‘s hard to judge from just a few exhibition. We‘ll see what state she is in at the test skates.

Was it a translation from Russian? Sometimes google translate does weird things. Maybe she meant something as work earnestly. Or “It was the only possible option for us to continue to work, honestly.“ Like: “Honestly, there was no other choice if we wanted to continue to work.“ But I‘m no Russian speaker so no idea. We don‘t know what happened behind the scenes with Eteri and Zhenya and we‘ll likely never know because she very classily decided to just not comment the situation and rather simply thank Eteri for all the years of fruitful work. :)
 
I also noticed she was less flexible than a year or so ago but could be from getting "older".
No, her flexibility improved. Use the search function in this forum.
I wonder what she meant by training honestly. That's what she said in her statement about leaving Eteri. ... understand that this was the only possible option for both of us, to continue to work honestly."

Her statemement was:"I hope that the time will pass and everyone will understand that this was the only possible option for both of us, to be able to continue to work honestly"
 
She needs to build muscle, work on jumps. Compared to a year or so ago, her jumps at the Olympics were smaller and heavier footed. Probably from injury. I also noticed she was less flexible than a year or so ago but could be from getting "older".

When she is not injured, she is not a skater who tends to underrotate, and her jumps generally have decent height/distance. Making her jumps bigger is something that should happen as she gains a bit more muscle. She also has good extension, speed, and flow out of jumps. So it should be back to this standard by the time we see her at Autumn Classic.

Based on my understanding, she has a two main problems to work on: pre-rotation on toe jumps, which includes her beginning to turn her upper body before taking off and contributes to her jumps looking "muscled" and hammer toe. These are two things that she has already been improving over the past year or so, her flip pre-rotation was reduced by about 30-60 degees by Euros this January and her picking technique is making small improvements recently. So I think that barring something going pretty wrong, there should be visible progress beginning this season. It makes more sense to focus on the comparatively easier to fix problems so that Zhenya is in as good a place as she can be before trying to get to the flutz.

Also, from what I've seen and what other people say, Zhenya's flexibility is not really "decreasing" as of late. Her I-spin, for instance, is not the same as when she did it in about 2014, but I think it looks good the way she does it now.

And as a question to others with more experience in the skating community: all the links I put in this post are from the same blog -- the only figure skating blog I know, in fact. Are there any other blogs people like reading? Especially if they post about Zhenya :)
 
She needs to build muscle, work on jumps. Compared to a year or so ago, her jumps at the Olympics were smaller and heavier footed. Probably from injury. I also noticed she was less flexible than a year or so ago but could be from getting "older". But something for sure looked different at her exhibition performance where she skated to Windmills of your Mind.

Her jumps were smaller and more muslced at the OG as a result of her injury - let's not forget she was skating on a fractured foot. Her flexibility hasn't gotten worse, if anything she has gotten more flexible, as Spirals has pointed out she has a new spin position that requires more flexibility.

As for her EX, I thought her spins and speed were really great. I won't judge her jumps simply because she had just resumed jumping after a 3 months break due to her injury, so I don't think they're a good indicator of where she will be at in the upcoming season
 
The season has begun! Test skates are very soon! Are we ready? Has there been a more exciting non-olympic season in recent memory?
 
When she is not injured, she is not a skater who tends to underrotate, and her jumps generally have decent height/distance. Making her jumps bigger is something that should happen as she gains a bit more muscle. She also has good extension, speed, and flow out of jumps. So it should be back to this standard by the time we see her at Autumn Classic.

Based on my understanding, she has a two main problems to work on: pre-rotation on toe jumps, which includes her beginning to turn her upper body before taking off and contributes to her jumps looking "muscled" and hammer toe. These are two things that she has already been improving over the past year or so, her flip pre-rotation was reduced by about 30-60 degees by Euros this January and her picking technique is making small improvements recently. So I think that barring something going pretty wrong, there should be visible progress beginning this season. It makes more sense to focus on the comparatively easier to fix problems so that Zhenya is in as good a place as she can be before trying to get to the flutz.

Also, from what I've seen and what other people say, Zhenya's flexibility is not really "decreasing" as of late. Her I-spin, for instance, is not the same as when she did it in about 2014, but I think it looks good the way she does it now.

And as a question to others with more experience in the skating community: all the links I put in this post are from the same blog -- the only figure skating blog I know, in fact. Are there any other blogs people like reading? Especially if they post about Zhenya :)
There are a range of blogs in English, but they have different interests.

FS Gossips focuses on IG round-ups, costuming and translations of Russian feature articles and interviews.

https://fs-gossips.com

Rocker Skating follows the season

http://www.rockerskating.com

Ice Style (from fashion designer Nick Verros) critiques costumes throughout the season:

http://nickverrreos.blogspot.com/2018/02/ice-style2018-winter-olympics-figure.html?m=1


And I would caution that on technical points, it's important to keep an open mind to different perspectives from different countries. Looking at blogs from Japan, China, Russia, Canada and the US will give different assessments and insights on technical points.

There are genuinely different ideas about constitutes 'good' or 'excellent'. The IJS is an attempt at a global consensus about excellence.

There are differences in emphasis and schools of thought between schools, regions and countries.

To me, skaters striving for true excellence should be going beyond 'what the system will let me get away with' and challenging themselves to be excellent across perspectives.

And I truly admire Zhenya for opening herself to different perspectives at this point in her career. It's really courageous and shows how she has the true heart of a champion.
 
If there's one thing we can rely on from Zhenya above anything else is her hunger to compete and win medals. She doesn't seem to strike me as someone who would be totally happy with anything other than 1st place (but will be graceful in defeat).

As a fan it's nice to know whenever she steps onto the ice she will give it 100% and give everything she's got to be the best she can be. She wants to improve her skating and she has a huge passion for the sport. I hope she has a long figure skating career and give us many more amazing performances! [emoji4]
 
I am curious with the test skates if Orser/Wilson will have a strategy of some sort. Since Eteri will be seeing Evgenia's new program for the first time and Alina is probably Evgenia's biggest competitor, Eteri might adjust her own skater's program based on what she sees from Evgenia so do you show her the whole thing before the Prix events?

BUT, if Evgenia just shows her "basic" program (if she has something extra or a surprise in it of some sort) then it might make Eteri think Alina's program is ample enough.

I just feel that the test skates might be a good opportunity to play some strategy between competitors.

And not sure why, but for some reason I am thinking there will be a surprise in one of Evgenia's programs that we haven't seen from her before in competition.
 
Let’s refrain from always bringing up her past coach and her ex training mate. It’s not likely that anyone will change their layout from one month to the next. Maybe at next year’s competitions though.

Every top senior lady next year is her competitor. No one knows what can happen. Trust me.
 
Let’s refrain from always bringing up her past coach and her ex training mate. It’s not likely that anyone will change their layout from one month to the next. Maybe at next year’s competitions though.

Every top senior lady next year is her competitor. No one knows what can happen. Trust me.

:thumbsup:
 
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