Mikhail Kolyada

[Silver Blade]

The audience loves Mika, lots of people supported him during runthru.
Still it seems he does not feel well, blew his nose often.
Anyway we are here and to be with him until the end is the only thing we can do.

 

[QueenOfTheRoad]

If I could send him some power and fighting spirit, i would so do it... Just to watch him crush and burn and feel powerless that one cannot help ones fave drive me crazy .

Oh please go and talk with the best sport psychologists, go and talk with Plushenko how you can keep going and how to stay strong. I wish Mika in his life an Orser-kind of person who can built him up like Orser did to Medvedeva after her short.

Can please the federation put down their opinion how the male skaters should all be strong and macho and try to find for Mika a solution? It is such a waste of talent between him and Aliev going on .

 

[rachno2]

I know I should be upset that Misha again made a bunch of uncharacteristic mistakes, but I'm honestly just so happy to see him land the 4S and smile as he left the ice :luv17: Hopefully he can put this behind him and move forward

 

[coldblueeyes]

I think that start of the program might be the best FS he skated yet - let's not get too gloomy about the second half. He landed two quads on his feet. That only happened once in the past. Let's hope this is a turning point for him.

And to add, maybe it's confidence, but he's still not ready athletically to compete this entire program clean, that's for sure.

 

[rachno2]

Kinda crazy that with two of the absolute worst competitions of his career he still managed 4th at both

 

[QueenOfTheRoad]

And it shows IMO how everybody is struggling with pushing their TES while the time in FS went to 4 min.

Edit: I was expecting this season a battle royal between Mika and Dima. And till now both chose to be very polite and let the other one do the honors of being the best.

 

[coldblueeyes]

I think the pressure not to fall is even affecting them in the SP. The time constraint is another problem for the FS.

 

[rachno2]

And it shows IMO how everybody is struggling with pushing their TES while the time in FS went to 4 min.

Edit: I was expecting this season a battle royal between Mika and Dima. And till now both chose to be very polite and let the other one do the honors of being the best.

I don't understand why everybody (not just you) was expecting that Dima would unseat Misha this year. Misha was off the podium only twice last season, while Dima only made the podium twice. He beat him at Euros and was virtually tied with him at the Olympics, it's true. But I feel like Dima is either brilliant or has an absolute meltdown, whereas Misha (up until the last two weeks, that is!) never goes clean but is usually able to keep most of his jumps/spins/step sequences together. But after HELLsinki and now Cup of Russia, I can't even depend on that!

 

[coldblueeyes]

The russian men are all struggling one way or another, that's the truth. I wonder the kind of splatfest that awaits us at RN.

 

[QueenOfTheRoad]

I don't understand why everybody (not just you) was expecting that Dima would unseat Misha this year. Misha was off the podium only twice last season, while Dima only made the podium twice. He beat him at Euros and was virtually tied with him at the Olympics, it's true. But I feel like Dima either goes clean or has an absolute meltdown, whereas Misha (up until the last two weeks, that is!) never goes clean but is usually able to keep most of his jumps/spins/step sequences together. But after HELLsinki and now Cup of Russia, I can't even depend on that!

I expected a closer fight after alll the hype Dima got here on this forum and all the back slash Mika got, i thought that perhaps i am too biased toward Mika as being the best. This is the first reason. The second is that Dima has quads and when he is on he is on, he is younger than Mika and as such has better possibility to learn new jumps and last season was for him getting-the-experience season so i thought this one he could do better. Dima is a very talented skater, IMO the second senior skater in talent in Russia (well, i have a big soft spot for Mika and in my eyes he is the best, so, i am very biased here ). When compared Dima with every other Russian guy in skating skills and presentation is very evident. But the jumping....sigh....

They both have now let the door wiiiiiide open at Nats and there the skating skills of PCS aren't judged properly, so we might see someone like Lazukin, Samarin or Kovtun upsetting them, Voronov is on the roll....

 

[rachno2]

Yeah, between the ladies and the men Russian nats is going to be crazy. I’m not ready!

 

[rachno2]

Copying somebody's post from the competition thread:

Mikhail said in an interview on Match Arena after the skate:

"Salchow was almost perfect, Toeloop was good. Axel was... bad (Mikhail laughs)"

The interviewer asked what went wrong.

"After the axel, I was a bit behind the music, so I started to stress"

The interviewer now asked if he knows what to do to prepare himself for the Russian Nationals:

"Yes, but I'm not going to tell you"

Well, I think we all know what the issue is. If anything goes wrong, Misha unravels. But how to combat this? More run-throughs? Sports psychologist? Probably both. Again, I am just so happy to see him answering questions and smiling

Also (I have so many thoughts running through my head, sorry): I wish he would do one jump before that big musical flourish right before Habanera begins. I feel like the combination causes him to be behind.

 

[QueenOfTheRoad]

Perhaps learning what to do when he is behind the time. His program is so fully packaged and so well interwoven with the music that after a fall he has to learn what to let from his program away to catch up.

 

[coldblueeyes]

Well, he's going to have more than a month now to prepare. I find interesting that he didn't want to mention what are the plans, so perhaps they do have better ones. Hopefully.

 

[rachno2]

Another interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=LzeIdrVVQao

"The short program was very bad. I'm not even going to talk about it. The free was a little better, but there are still serious mistakes that I need to work on."

He doesn't know if he is going to do 4Z at RusNats or not, but he is working on it in practice.

He said his instability is a psychological characteristic. "Every person has a defined system with which he was born. It can't be changed, it simply needs to be worked on."

 

[QueenOfTheRoad]

But the quads were beautiful, so there's that. Damn that Axel!

 

[vorravorra]

For someone like Misha falling behind the music would be a huge issue. But there are also physical factors at play - when did he look so beat at the end of a FS? Certainly not last season.

 

[coldblueeyes]

For someone like Misha falling behind the music would be a huge issue. But there are also physical factors at play - when did he look so beat at the end of a FS? Certainly not last season.

But this has become the reality for many of the guys, right? It seems like they have a lot more problems with skating a shorter program than doing more jumps.

 

[vorravorra]

I expected a closer fight after alll the hype Dima got here on this forum and all the back slash Mika got, i thought that perhaps i am too biased toward Mika as being the best. This is the first reason. The second is that Dima has quads and when he is on he is on, he is younger than Mika and as such has better possibility to learn new jumps and last season was for him getting-the-experience season so i thought this one he could do better. Dima is a very talented skater, IMO the second senior skater in talent in Russia (well, i have a big soft spot for Mika and in my eyes he is the best, so, i am very biased here ). When compared Dima with every other Russian guy in skating skills and presentation is very evident. But the jumping....sigh....

They both have now let the door wiiiiiide open at Nats and there the skating skills of PCS aren't judged properly, so we might see someone like Lazukin, Samarin or Kovtun upsetting them, Voronov is on the roll....

Lazukin? Highly unlikely. Samarin, Kovtun and Voronov all overtaking them? I think at least one of Misha and Dima will pull himself together enough and one of the three, well, won't. It's Russian men we are talking about.

 

[vorravorra]

But this has become the reality for many of the guys, right? It seems like they have a lot more problems with skating a shorter program than doing more jumps.

I think there is a bit more to it, but what I mainly mean is that it doesn't make sense
to say that if he can do certain jumps such as quads separately in official practices he should be able to skate a full clean FS with the same quads in the competition otherwise it's nerves alone. At the moment I think two landed quads and two 3As is too much for him, something's gotta give.