From Russia with Love [#31]: Winter to Spring 2019

[Tinami Amori]

I am wondering if this talk about sex earned her some negative points?

we'll never know for sure.... but there is an old american commercial "Charlie the Tuna who dressed well and showed his good taste":
Sorry, Charlie! We don't want Tuna with good taste, we want Tuna that tastes good.

so maybe it is: Federations don't want hot skaters, they want skaters that skate hot??

 

[Sasha is DIVINE]

Maybe Liza should have gone ahead and competed at Russian Nationals. Even sick with pneumonia, she probably would have beaten Zagitova.

 

[Vash01]

Maybe Liza should have gone ahead and competed at Russian Nationals. Even sick with pneumonia, she probably would have beaten Zagitova.

IIRC she was in a hospital for at least a week, for pneumonia. I cant imagine anyone competing at any level in that condition.

 

[Tinami Amori]

Federation's Lakernik was called an "old-fart" (grand-pa) by fans and it got in the press, he is mad and offended, and told the next journalist that he will not talk at all, or explain anything about the selection process, until "they" apologize.....

https://www.sport-express.ru/figure...sostava-na-chm-po-figurnomu-kataniyu-1517384/

 

[Loves_Shizuka]

This whole business will probably end up being more dramatic than Worlds themselves.

 

[Vash01]

This whole business will probably end up being more dramatic than Worlds themselves.

Particularly if Med wins the Gold there.

 

[kwanatic]

I am wondering if this talk about sex earned her some negative points?

She's a grown woman and grown women tend to engage in sex. Nothing wrong with that. I'm all for it!

However...being that female figure skaters are seen as "sweet, innocent and wholesome" (a lie in most cases I'm sure) it may not have been the best idea to talk about sex so freely with her federation able to see/hear everything she says. I find her rather entertaining but seeing as how figure skaters are always trying to maintain that virginal image, I wouldn't be shocked if the fed held that against her in some way or another. I remember she got a lot of backlash from her mid-program wardrobe change during her "Toxic" EX this year from some people.

 

[mjb52]

I honestly don't think it has to do with Liza at all. Med has been a top skater for them for the last two years and so they have a certain degree of "sunk costs" in her emotionally. I think because Liza hasn't been going to Worlds recently it is easier to think of her as not part of the Worlds team than it is to think of leaving Med out, but it's not personal, it's just more Medvedeva vs. person who is not Medvedeva (a recent two time World champion and Olympic silver medalist), or the person who just won Euros, or the person who just won Olympic gold. Of course I could be completely wrong...

 

[Tinami Amori]

I wouldn't be shocked if the fed held that against her in some way or another. I remember she got a lot of backlash from her mid-program wardrobe change during her "Toxic" EX this year from some people.

I don't think, if "feds" were asked, they would even think that they could be holding it against her. It could be more on a subconscious level, if a person presents an image/leaves an impression of "a determined athlete" vs. "a fun-loving celebrity". Sometimes little bits and pieces add up in people's mind, and they don't even realize it.

If looking for "tuktamysheva + subjects" fotos or articles, on google, produces many many of these results, and scandalous article headings...
https://ss.sport-express.ru/userfiles/materials/132/1324212/large.jpg

.. "Without a toe loop, and without shame"..?
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...tHsymBnyqSNRw_PND-T55nV4NGgcvgPVbEAGy22cTBs3c

.. sex secrets of russian figure skater???!!! and this?
https://s5.cdn.eg.ru/upimg/photo/182556.jpg
https://s3.cdn.eg.ru/upimg/photo/182602.jpg
https://s1.cdn.eg.ru/upimg/photo/182560.jpg
https://s5.cdn.eg.ru/upimg/photo/182564.jpg

... it's not the best image for a competitive skater who is pretty much fighting for a spot against a skater with huge reputation who has Big Media, Agents and Sponsors pushing her to the top.

Don't do it, girls! 5 minutes of fame, will cost 5 years of reputation.

 

[starrynight]

I just get the feeling that Worlds in Japan is going to be judged differently to events so far this season. In other disciplines, we are starting to see *corrections* in the judging of skaters who have been held up due to past reputation. I do think that the same will happen at Worlds.

I feel like the political overscoring of Zagitova will actually come back to harm the Russian Fed because it has resulted in them being obligated to send a team that is not actually their best to Worlds. Any OGM cushion that Zagitova previously had will disappear in front of a sold out Japanese crowd that wants their ladies to win. Same situation probably for Medvedeva.

 

[Vash01]

I honestly don't think it has to do with Liza at all. Med has been a top skater for them for the last two years and so they have a certain degree of "sunk costs" in her emotionally. I think because Liza hasn't been going to Worlds recently it is easier to think of her as not part of the Worlds team than it is to think of leaving Med out, but it's not personal, it's just more Medvedeva vs. person who is not Medvedeva (a recent two time World champion and Olympic silver medalist), or the person who just won Euros, or the person who just won Olympic gold. Of course I could be completely wrong...

Read my post #1338 in which I gave a detailed analysis of what may have happened.

It wasn't about Liza. It was about Zagitova's struggles. They could not trust her anymore. She has had too many bad performances, even if we let go of worlds 2018 as Olympic fatigue.

 

[Coquelicot14]

we'll never know for sure.... but there is an old american commercial "Charlie the Tuna who dressed well and showed his good taste":
Sorry, Charlie! We don't want Tuna with good taste, we want Tuna that tastes good.

so maybe it is: Federations don't want hot skaters, they want skaters that skate hot??

I'm not sure if that helped, but honestly, this is the result of all the politiking that was done on Medvedeva's behalf (by Tarasova) she had the weakest showing out of the 5 top senior Russian girls this year. Sad for Liza. Hope she wins the Universiade with a huge score.

 

[Dobre]

PCS bubbles were made to pop.

Skate well in Japan, and the scores will be there. Skate poorly, and they likely won't.

 

[Vash01]

I'm not sure if that helped, but honestly, this is the result of all the politiking that was done on Medvedeva's behalf (by Tarasova) she had the weakest showing out of the 5 top senior Russian girls this year. Sad for Liza. Hope she wins the Universiade with a huge score.

I don't know how she feels motivated to the comic Universiade. She should have been on the world team as Russia's best. I know Sofia has been consistent all season and deserved her European title but IMO the worlds judges may not see her as their number one. RSF politicking will make her a sacrificial goat to promote their beloved Medvedeva (and they had dumped her last year when she got injured).

 

[Tinami Amori]

I'm not sure if that helped, but honestly, this is the result of all the politiking that was done on Medvedeva's behalf (by Tarasova) she had the weakest showing out of the 5 top senior Russian girls this year. Sad for Liza. Hope she wins the Universiade with a huge score.

... well..... there is an article out already, by Anatoly Samokhvalov, from RAI sport, a writer that @TAHbKA usualy translates, it's her territory.

I'll post it in russian, if she does not translate it, i will tomorrow.

The title is "The Mafia won - "an innocent bystander" Tuktamysheva lost; and who is Medvedeva in this game?" (about the selection process). This publication is pretty much "pro-Med" and very "anti-Eteri everything"... but even here the author had to say what is too obvious.
https://rsport.ria.ru/20190227/1551425257.html

 

[Finsta]

The Russian federation dropped Medvedeva when injured and dropped Tukt when sick. Blame the Russian federation bot Medvedeva. If smart they would’ve sent Tukt, Zagitova and Medvedeva- leaving the other girl off team. She still skated juniorish. Clearly Tukt was #1 Russian this seasons.

 

[Tinami Amori]

Alina Zagitova today received a "Silver Doe" award for being in top 10 of the Best Athletes in Russia (along with 9 other top athletes in Russia), awarded by the Russian Sports Journalists Association.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfKVdTqIWuU
https://tass.ru/sport/3991294

In an interview she was asked "who would you pick for the team, Tuk or Med?".
Alina answered "it is a very difficult decision. I am not in a position to decide".
https://www.sovsport.ru/figure/articles/2:889444

 

[Vash01]

The Russian federation dropped Medvedeva when injured and dropped Tukt when sick. Blame the Russian federation bot Medvedeva. If smart they would’ve sent Tukt, Zagitova and Medvedeva- leaving the other girl off team. She still skated juniorish.
Clearly Tukt was #1 Russian this seasons.

That juniorish girl was The most consistent jumper and she won the European. It will be ridiculous to drop her.

 

[Tinami Amori]

That juniorish girl was The most consistent jumper and she won the European. It will be ridiculous to drop her.

May i suggest to you to once in a while check the scores and standings on ISU's official site, before making proclamations.. (these are not world ranks, these are scores from this season's competitions).

http://www.isuresults.com/isujsstat/sb2018-19/sbtslto.htm
http://www.isuresults.com/isujsstat/o100lto.htm

 

[NAOTMAA]

I love how people are acting like its Alina who stole Liza's spot on the world team. And I can already tell people are ready to put all the blame on her if Russia fails to keep the three spots for worlds next year

 

[Vash01]

I love how people are acting like its Alina who stole Liza's spot on the world team. And I can already tell people are ready to put all the blame on her if Russia fails to keep the three spots for worlds next year

I honestly don't think Russia would lose the third spot, even though the Japanese are very strong.

 

[Vash01]

May i suggest to you to once in a while check the scores and standings on ISU's official site, before making proclamations.. (these are not world ranks, these are scores from this season's competitions).

http://www.isuresults.com/isujsstat/sb2018-19/sbtslto.htm
http://www.isuresults.com/isujsstat/o100lto.htm

What really matters is that Sofia won the Gold at the Euros and made the GPF, something that Med could not achieve. So it wouldn't make sense to drop Sofia.

 

[Coquelicot14]

I love how people are acting like its Alina who stole Liza's spot on the world team. And I can already tell people are ready to put all the blame on her if Russia fails to keep the three spots for worlds next year

Agreed. The fact is, like it or not, Alina is the highest rated skater on the team, her participation was never in question.

From what I've read many people are upset with the decision of Med over Tukt. The whole thing may backfire on Tarasova if she doesn't outdo herself at worlds.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Medvedeva and Zagitova will skate in the last SP group with Sakamoto, Miyahara, Tennell, and ??? Challenge Cup results have been updated in the TES minimums page, and there were enough participants from the minimum number of members to earn WS points in Singles, but neither Yamamoto nor Kihira has been credited for the 250 WS points for an international, at least yet. Each has 300 points from a CS win and an open international slot for 2018-19, and for Kihira, that's the difference between the last SP group at Worlds and skating in the penultimate group. (Tursynbaeva has two 270 silvers at CS, so she has no room to earn more.)

Tuktamysheva would have skated in the penultimate group, as would Konstantinova.

 

[Polaris]

From what I've read many people are upset with the decision of Med over Tukt. The whole thing may backfire on Tarasova if she doesn't outdo herself at worlds.

Why would it backfire on Tarasova? The vote was 19-7. I don't think Tarasova has THAT much sway over RusFed. And if she did, then even more evidence that she'll be immune to any negative results.

 

[zoe111]

Here is my interpretation of this weird decision. I may be right or wrong. We will never know.

The RSF got nervous when they saw Zagitova struggling this season, particularly the last two competitions where there was no Japanese challenger. However, they didn’t want to leave off the team the reigning OGM and GPF silver medalist, mainly because it will look bad (though they had no problem leaving off the 2016 team the reigning world champion Liza).

Remember that last year when Med had to miss the nationals due to injury, the RSF immediately started promoting Zagitova and she started getting high marks. It hurt Med in the end but the RSF got their OGM.

They do believe in the mental toughness of Medvedeva, in spite of her poor showing in almost all her competitions this season. They believe in her more than they do in Zagitova.

They don’t have that level of confidence in Tuk. She has had an up and down career. She was solid this season, but then pneumonia struck and all their doubts rushed back in. She skated well enough at the Russia cup final to prove that she was back, but it was too late because the RSF had already made the decision to send Med to worlds. The competition was a farce. It did not matter that Liza landed a clean triple axel, the only weapon that is strong enough to compete against the Japanese ladies. I suspect it was too late when she went down with pneumonia and had to miss the nationals. The RSF political machine had already started the process to replace her, and Med was the only strong candidate for that. I see the parallels of Med-Zag in the Olympic season.

Medvedeva’s marks at the Cup were too high. I believe that the RSF politicking machine will put their capital in Medvedeva rather than in Zagitova. Samudarova is a forgotten entity at this point. She could skate well at worlds but will be held down to make room for the Olympic silver medalist.

It is possible that Med will skate well enough to earn a medal at worlds and all will be forgiven, but the way this whole thing was handled, disgusts me. At this point I really hate the RSF, but then it has happened before and it will happen again. Fairness is never important to them. Only medals are.

So I have no idea about the selection criteria and process but I disagree with a few components of the above. First, I don’t think the scoring at RCF was that biased. Tuk has almost nothing to offer that’s better other than the 3A. Her pcs were 6-7 points higher than better skates she had internationally- it was a joke. You could make an argument that Med was 2 points too high given the relatively flat performance, but she has more flow and speed, better spins, etc. If you right those two pcs factors, Med still wins. I think if Med went into that final and bombed, they wouldn’t have named her to the team- too risky given Zag’s struggles. But between the two she’s by far the better skater. Tuk’s 3A alone is not enough to outscore good skates from the Japanese ladies. Really good skates by Med and Zag might be good enough however.

 

[Bigbird]

PCS bubbles were made to pop.

Skate well in Japan, and the scores will be there. Skate poorly, and they likely won't.

I may be tempted to use this little ditty sometime in the near future

 

[Marco]

Interesting, if Tuk had skated at Nationals and skated like she did at GPF, she would make the Euro team ahead of Sam. Sam wouldn't then have become Euro Champ and secured her ticket to Worlds. The team would then be Zag, Tuk and Med.

 

[IceAlisa]

Can anyone confirm that Med is still in Russia? I was sure I saw a video of her training her SP at TCC yesterday.

 

[Tinami Amori]

Phil Hersh gave his review of the situation... , how could he not comment..

In Russian Figure Skating Federation's no-win game to pick worlds team, Tuktamysheva the loser.
http://www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com/