1. Akatieva- Next to Kamila, Sofia is my favorite up and comer. Her skating to me is exquisite. So uncluttered, poised, controlled and precise. I love her posture, best of all the ladies. I'm glad she won, she was clearly the class of the field, save perhaps for Samodelkina. Deserved win, which she probably should have won last year over Kamila.
2. Adelia- Wow to her spins. She is just so tiny. Her jumps are super tiny (that Axel?). She seems fast, and I like her energy.
3. Muravyova/eva/whateva- I just don't understand her. People have been raving about her for years, and I don't see it. She is terribly unpolished. She has the flailing unnecessary purposeless arm movements that limits her to being just an unremarkable junior skater who is capable of landing her jumps. When you are skating to Liebestraum, flailing purposeless arm movements just for the sake of moving your arms to show "artistry" is barely watchable to me. Tarakanova has the same problem, and makes for an uninteresting and unpleasant viewing performance. Her jumps are pretty ugly, totally hunched and ugly in the air, almost always uncomfortably bent forward on almost all of her landings. Even her best jump in that program, the final RLutz, was just meh to me. Extend the landings too dearie.... ETA: Do you think if she just relearned her jumps to all Rippons she would be straighter in the air and hence on her landings?
4. Samodelkina- I was expecting Akatieva and Samodelkina to go 1/2. Yes, she was gifted in the SP, which was outrageous. I mean, EVERYONE could see she earned a 3ACOMBO in the SP. But anyway, the LP. I can see why she took out the 4Loop, since she was only two points behind, but WHY in the world would she take out her 3axels for the LP??? Those are consistent jumps for her. I'm not an Uber-fan of her presentation, but she clearly is listening to the music and despite her at times rounded and hunched back and shoulders, she has a very good presentation. But at this point, I've prepared myself to be seeing those two overdone programs for five more years leading up to her Olympic gold medal performances. New programs STAT to CSKA, CodeOverdone in progress at Team Davydov.
5. Berestovskaya- Uggh. NOT my cup of tea. Woefully slow, no air on her juniorish jumps (all spin-jumps with no air). Plus she has form and posture issues. And then, there's my biggest pet peeve of hers (or anyones for that matter...): The FACEography. Just no. These phony plastic smiles are way too much and overdone. Thank god she dropped Kalinka because that was even worse. I mean, when you warmup your 2axel in the 6 minute warmup and land with the automatic SURPRISED BIG "O" SMILE, it's annoying, unnatural, and obnoxious. Which describes her skating for me. Plus, she's going to lose her low and slow jumps with that slip slide technique. She is growing into a very pretty young lady though.
6. Frolova- I like her skating. I like that she is actually PRESENTING herself in her skating. She's always just going to be a second tier Russian skater, but that's still impressive.
???. Zhilina- Well, this was a surprise though really not a shocker. She was just a hot mess. And I don't know what Plushy or her mother have done to her programs, but this new version of Samson/Delilah was just so empty, rushed, unfinished, and well, she looked like a starting novice skater (albeit with a 4toe, but I'm talking about her skating and her choreography). What a horrible program and placement, she might not even make the JGP now, which is a shocker. Her skating has regressed since the beginning of the fall. And it's not a CV thing, it's her SKATING.
That’s second time I am agreeing with you in a relatively short period of several months. What’s going on here!
Well of course now it doesn't matter because of the rule change.
