- Joined
- Mar 29, 2014
Here is the controversial article from Feb. 1st written by Sport-Express contributor Elena Vaitsehovskaya.
I wasn’t sure if this is worth posting but I think that this is a good read.
http://www.sport-express.ru/figure-skating/reviews/961550/
The bolded part in the text alludes to the title.
Project “Medvedeva”, a victory by the rulebook.
The Russian triumph in the ladies’ event, where 3 Russians took the whole podium, did not surprise anyone. Here’s what did, though: the 5.46 point difference, with seemingly equal efforts, between the European champion Evgenia Medvedeva and an almost perfectly skated Elena Radionova.
When the score show up on the screen, it is difficult for most figure skaters to hold in their true emotions. In the moment, when Evgenia Medvedeva, happily observed her scores, Radionova’s face clearly showed: that everything that’s happening today is a tragedy for her. Plus, she was stronger than last year during the GPF, where Elena (also with a clean skate [tn: talking about the LP]) lost to Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. After all, during that Final Radionova had a fall in the SP, and in the FS the competition between the two athletes was on equal grounds. They even finished their programs with absolutely equal TES.
Remembering Lipnitskaia.
In Bratislava, Elena squeezed out everything that she capable of in her free skate. So how do we explain the almost 6 point difference?
If we wish, of course, we can methodically dissect both performances, counting in detail, what caused such an advantage. A reason for that, in part, was the ease with which the young campion stamped her jumps, and also, that 5 of her jumping passes were in the second half of the program, and many musical and choreographic “details” which influence the second mark. However, we should be talking, in my opinion, about a different thing. About that in Bratislava, we had a collision of two completely different approaches to figure skating.
Radionova’s loss was accepted, by her fans, (and not only them), with pain. This always happens, when the life of a figure skater, during a long period of time, passes in front of the public eye, and everyone remembers how difficult that path sometimes is. This happened to Adelina Sotnikova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, and dozens of others, who skated before. Overcoming yourself after injuries, and a plethora of other problems concerning female growth, is a respectable thing. Radionova was skating while overcoming herself. To note, this wasn’t the first time. She skated courageously and a the same time beautifully with no mistakes, realizing with all of her existence every move, every musical nuance. Even during times when she missed the music because she had to “save” the more difficult parts of the program.
Medvedeva looked completely different on the ice – like a person, professionally chiseled to execute a very specific task. Since her win at the Grand Prix Final, she became even thinner, causing here already-light jumps to become completely weightless.
In this regard, [Medvedeva] can be compared to Julia Lipnitskaia of the Olympic season, where her coach did everything possible to make her not gain a single gram of extra weight, which causes a change in figure, and later, technique. Basically, the goal of that season was to squeeze out the maximum from project “Lipnitskaia”. At any price.
This was possible to realize. Julia won the European championships in brilliant style, surpassing Sotnikova with a virtually mistake-less skate from the latter skater, causing her to make the Olympic team, and be able to skate in the team event where she earned her Olympic gold. Also, she finished the season with a silver at the world championships.
Human Material
In truth, it would be completely unfair to judge a coach for losing interest in Lipnitskaia after that season, leaving her alone face-to-face with all of her problems. Eteri Tutberidze simply already had a completely different project. After all, big sport is - on one hand, results, on the other – playing by the rules. If the rules allow little girls with childlike bodies to compete against grown-up athletes and “kill” these athletes with difficulty and lightness, beyond the strength of an adult body, then why not bank on that?
Something similar was practiced by Stanislav Zhuk, during his time, who is deservedly considered one of the best coaches in the world. Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergein Grinkov, who later became two-time Oympic champions, were a pair that, if you will, is born once in a century. Their predecessors, Marina Cherkasova/Sergei Sharhai (with a colossal difference in height and weight between partners) were, on the other hand, a 100% realization of coaching technologies. They were the case where coaches like to use the term, unnerving to many, “material”.
In ladies’ singles this idea is not new to anyone: all we need to do is to remember the Olympic victories of Tara Lipinski or Sara Hughes, whose overwhelming pressure made the legendary, in all aspects of this word, Michelle Kwan lose two Olympics in a row, and in Salt Lake City, a no-less-legendary Irina Slutskaya.
But here’s the question, why didn’t any American coach get an idea to put these kind of skaters on an “assembly line”, artificially restraining growth and development of a girl’s organism with the harshest of diets? Now of course this is all personal choice: gold medals in a sport can pay off a lot of sacrifices. I was once a witness, of how a dad of a young female athlete, to whom doctors recommended to pull his daughter out of a sport due to a serious inflammation of the jawline and the risk of losing her teeth? Do you know what he answered? “Then we’ll make her golden ones. Out of an Olympic medal”.
I think I won’t be mistaken, if I say that the main objective of “Project Medvedeva”, is not a long and pretty career. I think it is to win everything this season, including worlds. If such is true, then in the context of this objective, what happens later to the athlete is of no one’s concern. So even if Zhenia goes through puberty relatively clean, she will still inevitably fall into the same trap as Radionova - she will, due to completely objective reasons, lose the ability to compete against another “wonder-girl”, who (and this is not out of the question) will become another “project” of her own coach.
For now though, we have the ability to admire, applaud, be touched and… feel sorry for those who are older. Well, what can we do – such is sport.
Disclaimer: the online version of this article does not have the "project Medvedeva" part in the title.
I wasn’t sure if this is worth posting but I think that this is a good read.
http://www.sport-express.ru/figure-skating/reviews/961550/
The bolded part in the text alludes to the title.
Project “Medvedeva”, a victory by the rulebook.
The Russian triumph in the ladies’ event, where 3 Russians took the whole podium, did not surprise anyone. Here’s what did, though: the 5.46 point difference, with seemingly equal efforts, between the European champion Evgenia Medvedeva and an almost perfectly skated Elena Radionova.
When the score show up on the screen, it is difficult for most figure skaters to hold in their true emotions. In the moment, when Evgenia Medvedeva, happily observed her scores, Radionova’s face clearly showed: that everything that’s happening today is a tragedy for her. Plus, she was stronger than last year during the GPF, where Elena (also with a clean skate [tn: talking about the LP]) lost to Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. After all, during that Final Radionova had a fall in the SP, and in the FS the competition between the two athletes was on equal grounds. They even finished their programs with absolutely equal TES.
Remembering Lipnitskaia.
In Bratislava, Elena squeezed out everything that she capable of in her free skate. So how do we explain the almost 6 point difference?
If we wish, of course, we can methodically dissect both performances, counting in detail, what caused such an advantage. A reason for that, in part, was the ease with which the young campion stamped her jumps, and also, that 5 of her jumping passes were in the second half of the program, and many musical and choreographic “details” which influence the second mark. However, we should be talking, in my opinion, about a different thing. About that in Bratislava, we had a collision of two completely different approaches to figure skating.
Radionova’s loss was accepted, by her fans, (and not only them), with pain. This always happens, when the life of a figure skater, during a long period of time, passes in front of the public eye, and everyone remembers how difficult that path sometimes is. This happened to Adelina Sotnikova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, and dozens of others, who skated before. Overcoming yourself after injuries, and a plethora of other problems concerning female growth, is a respectable thing. Radionova was skating while overcoming herself. To note, this wasn’t the first time. She skated courageously and a the same time beautifully with no mistakes, realizing with all of her existence every move, every musical nuance. Even during times when she missed the music because she had to “save” the more difficult parts of the program.
Medvedeva looked completely different on the ice – like a person, professionally chiseled to execute a very specific task. Since her win at the Grand Prix Final, she became even thinner, causing here already-light jumps to become completely weightless.
In this regard, [Medvedeva] can be compared to Julia Lipnitskaia of the Olympic season, where her coach did everything possible to make her not gain a single gram of extra weight, which causes a change in figure, and later, technique. Basically, the goal of that season was to squeeze out the maximum from project “Lipnitskaia”. At any price.
This was possible to realize. Julia won the European championships in brilliant style, surpassing Sotnikova with a virtually mistake-less skate from the latter skater, causing her to make the Olympic team, and be able to skate in the team event where she earned her Olympic gold. Also, she finished the season with a silver at the world championships.
Human Material
In truth, it would be completely unfair to judge a coach for losing interest in Lipnitskaia after that season, leaving her alone face-to-face with all of her problems. Eteri Tutberidze simply already had a completely different project. After all, big sport is - on one hand, results, on the other – playing by the rules. If the rules allow little girls with childlike bodies to compete against grown-up athletes and “kill” these athletes with difficulty and lightness, beyond the strength of an adult body, then why not bank on that?
Something similar was practiced by Stanislav Zhuk, during his time, who is deservedly considered one of the best coaches in the world. Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergein Grinkov, who later became two-time Oympic champions, were a pair that, if you will, is born once in a century. Their predecessors, Marina Cherkasova/Sergei Sharhai (with a colossal difference in height and weight between partners) were, on the other hand, a 100% realization of coaching technologies. They were the case where coaches like to use the term, unnerving to many, “material”.
In ladies’ singles this idea is not new to anyone: all we need to do is to remember the Olympic victories of Tara Lipinski or Sara Hughes, whose overwhelming pressure made the legendary, in all aspects of this word, Michelle Kwan lose two Olympics in a row, and in Salt Lake City, a no-less-legendary Irina Slutskaya.
But here’s the question, why didn’t any American coach get an idea to put these kind of skaters on an “assembly line”, artificially restraining growth and development of a girl’s organism with the harshest of diets? Now of course this is all personal choice: gold medals in a sport can pay off a lot of sacrifices. I was once a witness, of how a dad of a young female athlete, to whom doctors recommended to pull his daughter out of a sport due to a serious inflammation of the jawline and the risk of losing her teeth? Do you know what he answered? “Then we’ll make her golden ones. Out of an Olympic medal”.
I think I won’t be mistaken, if I say that the main objective of “Project Medvedeva”, is not a long and pretty career. I think it is to win everything this season, including worlds. If such is true, then in the context of this objective, what happens later to the athlete is of no one’s concern. So even if Zhenia goes through puberty relatively clean, she will still inevitably fall into the same trap as Radionova - she will, due to completely objective reasons, lose the ability to compete against another “wonder-girl”, who (and this is not out of the question) will become another “project” of her own coach.
For now though, we have the ability to admire, applaud, be touched and… feel sorry for those who are older. Well, what can we do – such is sport.
Disclaimer: the online version of this article does not have the "project Medvedeva" part in the title.
Last edited:
for posting this article.
