The thing with Lambiel is that he never coached a top skater until Deniss, at least not that I remember, and he's still super young ... which might impact in his ability to coach and how much he can achieve with a skater--he's barely over thirty.
I always forget how young people still are (and in turn, how old I am!). It seems like I’ve been watching and following Lambiel’s career forEVER and it surprised me that, yes, indeed he is only 33!
However, I think Misha was aiming for, something a bit off-track, less limelight, and less daily pressure from Mother Russia. That could be a good thing for him.
Yes, that surely would be! We often talk about Russian skaters’ reluctance to leave their home country—and it *is* a huge step for anyone to take and particularly to potentially be seen as something of a traitor to one’s country (although with that warm reception Evgenia received, I wonder if the response in Russia was as negative as it was depicted to be). I didn’t really think about the freedom that would be involved. I think of language barriers and culture shock and homesickness.
I wonder though how Misha would fare in Italy, with Franca and Valter--Matteo's father and coach. They've achieved a lot with him.
I don’t know much about Matteo at all. Do they coach others? Do they want others to challenge their rising-star son?
And if Misha wanted to stay in Russia, perhaps Urmanov, who was developing a good relationship with Lipnitskaya, and perhaps this time he has more experience to deal with hardheaded skaters than he did before, haha.
Good point! I forgot about Urmanov! That really seems to be best, speaking speculatively, as we won’t be able to do much else post-season. (Btw, sign me up as an entitled fan who wants to see Misha skate at WTT—and wants to see him every chance I can, conflicted about whether it is good for him. I’m always thinking, *This* will be the breakthrough performance where he puts two program together!)
Alas, at this point, he seems very much self-suficient, up to a point, of course, that I don't know what's the best thing for him. I doubt it would be a coach that's overbearing and super strict.
Yes, true. But maybe someone who can bring out the grittiness needed that allowed him to finally skate a clean(ish) Carmen. It’s obvs not a good strategy to rely on getting mad at oneself and needing to always come from behind to win, especially with the top skaters being more consistent in jumps now. But if only he could *just* want to do it for himself and not for his country. American skaters have an advantage because the general public doesn’t pay much attention to skating, even in Olympic years.
(BTW, and OTT, but I can’t tell you how many people say to me during Olympics when I try to talk about them, “I’m kinda Olympic’d out.” I’m thinking, like, “you only have to pay attention for *two weeks* every *four years* and you’re suffering Olympic fatigue??!!” I don’t if you all deal with non-ubers, but when my sisters and mom texted me wanting to watch World Championships with them in a group—yes, ofc I had steamed all compos live, so I knew the outcome but didn’t spoil—it was pretty rough on my texting thumbs. I had to continually tell everyone about who to watch, what the back story was, who was coming up, what *wasn’t* being shown in the lame NBC prime time coverage—backstage and KnC drama, which is half the fun, and on and on. Maybe I’ll convert one to uber-dom by next season. One of my sisters said she fell down a rabbit hole watching vids I had sent. Yes! *rubs hands together*)
not that I’m expecting anything amazing, but it would be great if he could score new season’s bests.
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