Russian figure skating news & updates in 2022

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Bigbird said:
After all those Russian Ice dance couples broke up? Who will she skate with Smolkin? Russian Ice Dance Drama for ya. The gift that keeps on giving :)
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My assumption is that Smolkin will still be skating with Davis. As @Sylvia noted, they've been in Florida working with Platov recently, and Benoit Richaud choreographed their FD up in Boston last month.

Who knows how far along Gleb is in the process of possibly obtaining US citizenship. They've been training, off-and-on, in Michigan since at least 2019, so he might very well be able to get his passport by Jan 2026.
 
Karen-W said:
My assumption is that Smolkin will still be skating with Davis. As @Sylvia noted, they've been in Florida working with Platov recently, and Benoit Richaud choreographed their FD up in Boston last month.

Who knows how far along Gleb is in the process of possibly obtaining US citizenship. They've been training, off-and-on, in Michigan since at least 2019, so he might very well be able to get his passport by Jan 2026.
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They are a couple off-ice. They can easily get married and solve all the citizenship problems.
 
soogar said:
I'm not going to label someone who makes a mistake as an abuser. She has been with him for years and knows him best. I hope she has the confidence to leave an abusive relationship. I wouldn't assume the worst unless he has more recent stories about abuse.
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These are exactly the attitudes that enable abusive people. I would agree with not making too many assumptions about a one-time incident, but in this case it seems like a pattern that multiple people have observed. Something that someone does over and over again is not “a mistake,” and abusive behavior isn’t something most people just outgrow. And there are all kinds of reasons women don’t leave abusive relationships that have nothing to do with “confidence” or lack thereof. If he has done some serious work on his issues, good for him. But the fact that his partner is still with him has nothing to do with anything.
 
ChelleC said:
My burning question what now is what do all those ice dance couples think now? Hopefully the Russian press will come through with the :watch: :watch:
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LOL - who is left in Russian ice dance if DavSmo, MorNar and possibly others jump ship to other countries?
 
Stepanova & Bukin, Sinitsina & Katsalapov (so they tell us), Khudaberdieva & Bazin, Khavronina & Cirisano, Kaganovskaia & Angelopol. And new partnerships with various members of former established teams (Shanaeva, Drozd, Nekrasov). I don't think Zahorski & Guerreiro have said anything official at this point.
 
soogar said:
I'm not going to label someone who makes a mistake as an abuser. She has been with him for years and knows him best. I hope she has the confidence to leave an abusive relationship. I wouldn't assume the worst unless he has more recent stories about abuse.
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One of the consequences of abuse is a complete destruction of any confidence one might have had in oneself, so if the relationship is in fact abusive, I wouldn't count on Sinitsina having the self esteem to make a change. Abusive relationships depend on control, and one of the ways that abusers assert and maintain that control is by reducing their victim to an insecure mess.
 
Karen-W said:
My assumption is that Smolkin will still be skating with Davis. As @Sylvia noted, they've been in Florida working with Platov recently, and Benoit Richaud choreographed their FD up in Boston last month.

Who knows how far along Gleb is in the process of possibly obtaining US citizenship. They've been training, off-and-on, in Michigan since at least 2019, so he might very well be able to get his passport by Jan 2026.
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Now this is interesting: Eteri just called "fake news" on her wanting to relocate to the US and apparently Diana also had no idea she was about to switch to the US.
Source: Instagram (Eteri's stories and comments under a sports.ru article).
 
Ananas Astra said:
Now this is interesting: Eteri just called "fake news" on her wanting to relocate to the US and apparently Diana also had no idea she was about to switch to the US.
Source: Instagram (Eteri's stories and comments under a sports.ru article).
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Karen-W said:
The plot thickens... Diana's IG story - https://instagram.com/stories/di__d...ource=ig_story_item_share&igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=
Machine translation - "what interesting news we will learn about ourselves ?"
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Since the conversation happened here in Miami and I don't have reason to doubt the reporter, I'm guessing Eteri didn't expect it to get repeated to TSL. But if the plan was hush-hush, it would have to come out soon anyways. ?‍♂️
 
airgelaal said:
They don't have to confess now :shuffle: They would still not be able to compete in international competitions in the new season
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Technically, if it was/is just a matter of sitting out a season to comply with ISU requirements, they could sit out a full season & still go to Worlds, since they didn't compete at Worlds this year. (I don't know the precise dates of the dance events for this season's 4CCs versus last year's Olympics). But, again, unless we hear otherwise, Davis & Smolkin would have to get released. We haven't heard that they have been or that the ISU is overruling the Russian Fed's right to control its athletes' status, as of this point in time.

To say nothing of the possibility that TSL is just wrong, as they have been many times.

And to say nothing of how hard it would be for Davis & Smolkin to defeat the current 4CC champions (not to mention Carreira & Ponomarenko) at Nationals with no previous international season under their belts in order to make the argument.
 
tony said:
Since the conversation happened here in Miami and I don't have reason to doubt the reporter, I'm guessing Eteri didn't expect it to get repeated to TSL. But if the plan was hush-hush, it would have to come out soon anyways. ?‍♂️
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I'm sure Eteri is aware of TSL and probably is flattered by the attention. Sometimes people say things like. "it's lovely here and I would love to coach here, but I have to take too many skaters over here" in response to a query on whether she would like to come to America to coach, maybe a way of saying "no" diplomatically. Either way, if she really is dismantling that program she created at Sambo 70 just to come here to the states, she would be in high demand. Look at US gymnastics. As long as the Karolyis were getting gold medals, no one even cared about abuse. I think that it is really interesting that she is being very open in her actions. I wonder if she has some kind of ultimatum to the Russian Fed. She has produced a silver medal pairs team in addition to 3 ladies champions.


As for Diana and Gleb, both of them are in the states getting choreography so it doesn't seem like they are splitting up. Diana has already been to the Olympics. If they did switch, it just might be for a lifestyle change or to transition to college or an American coaching career.
 
I think Eteri being taken up as a USFS coach would produce huge backlash. American skating community might accept Davis/Smolkin as their own eventually (because parent =/= child), but I doubt they're ever going to accept Eteri, unless she comes up with some tall tale about how the Russian government made her do this and that (but well, if she's really trying to gain American citizenship, then why the heck wouldn't she say that).
 
PRlady said:
With the passage of the age limits for Senior, Eteri’s MO is obsolete anyway. She’s going to have to find a new business model wherever she is.
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Well, considering that gold and silver olympic medallist in women were 17, I think Tutberidze will be ok even after they raise the age. So I can’t see a reason why Tutberidze would have to find a new business. She will continue to prove that skaters can have quads even at 17, 18, 19…
 
Dai's Blues for Klook said:
I think Eteri being taken up as a USFS coach would produce huge backlash. American skating community might accept Davis/Smolkin as their own eventually (because parent =/= child), but I doubt they're ever going to accept Eteri, unless she comes up with some tall tale about how the Russian government made her do this and that (but well, if she's really trying to gain American citizenship, then why the heck wouldn't she say that).
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Eteri has already coached in the United States without any incidents. There's no real proof that she or her coaching team knew about the substance Valieva was taking other than conjecture. The Russian government has already had a connection with doping. She can plausibly claim that a doctor/patient relationship is confidential and the substance she was taking was not for an injury so her team wouldn't need to know about it.

It's not as if the US hasn't looked the other way. Look at what happened years ago between Tom Z and Josh Ferris when that poor kid was skating on a broken leg and Tom was just saying how it wasn't that bad in the kiss and cry while his skater was crying in pain. There are plenty of other incidents where American coaches were berating their students in Kiss and Cry or in general engaging in toxic behavior.

That beats anything that Eteri has ever done with her students. If she comes here and get the US ladies to win gold medals, they will look the other way.
 
soogar said:
Eteri has already coached in the United States without any incidents.
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I don't know when this happened, but you're kidding yourself if you think whenever this was is the same as compared to now.

There might be "no proof", but the community won't care about it. Sorry. Sports communities in the US are much wiser now, and the USFS isn't foolish enough to want to deal with the media and a lot of the former competitive skaters excoriating them after everything that's surfaced with them these past few years. Sponsors are a thing, and they'll lose a lot of those if they let Eteri coach.
 
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hanca said:
Well, considering that gold and silver olympic medallist in women were 17, I think Tutberidze will be ok even after they raise the age. So I can’t see a reason why Tutberidze would have to find a new business. She will continue to prove that skaters can have quads even at 17, 18, 19…
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Yes but the 15 year old would have won had she not been caught doping. As the 15 year old won in 2018.

For every Scher and Tru there are five pre-pubescent stars who are washed up by 17. It certainly makes her business model harder.
 
PRlady said:
Yes but the 15 year old would have won had she not been caught doping. As the 15 year old won in 2018.

For every Scher and Tru there are five pre-pubescent stars who are washed up by 17. It certainly makes her business model harder.
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Well, Tutberidze proved that her skaters can manage win the medals even without the 15 year old girl. I agree that a certain percentage of 17 year old will be washed up, but the past few years Tutberidze has the numbers. Even if a half of her skaters got washed up by the time they are 17, as you saw at the Olympics, she will have some left to win the medals. You may not like it, but you are kidding yourself if you think raising the age will be a problem for her. Look at this season - she started with six decent senior age girls, and even with all those injuries, she had three left. And there was one spare, Khromykh, who also can do quads.
 
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