From Russia with Love [#30]: If There Are Test Skate Videos, It Must Be Fall 2018

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Mishin has given an interview saying Tuktamysheva has just left hospital and they will now concentrate on recovery.

https://tass.ru/sport/5945240

I'm sure the pneumonia has weakened her a lot. If it is the case that a deliberate decision was made to not send her to Euros to allow recovery time, I approve of that. Liza needs her 3A and she needs to be in top shape for that.
 
starrynight said:
I feel like it's a bit short sighted for the Russian Fed to have delivered their senior skaters to the wolves ahead of Europeans and Worlds. The reputation of their seniors skaters has been tarnished by this whole debacle. The junior skaters are of no use right now in securing senior medals and spots. Whether the juniors will be able to be successful for Russia is an issue for 12 months time.

But now what Russia is left with is a bunch of battered senior skaters who have to go to Worlds with the world knowing they've been knocked off their pedestals at home. Can't be that good for politics I would have thought.
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So what do you think the Russian federation should have done? Ignore the quality of skating of the younger skaters and just pad the senior skaters so much that theere would be Zagitova-Konstantinova plus whoever podium? I don’t think I would be comfortable with seeing Zagitova or Konstantinova beating Scherbakova-Trusova- Kostornaya, considering how the older skaters skated. How fair would that be? And what message would it be sending to the younger skaters, that no matter what they show on the ice, no matter how great they skate, they have no chance to win?
 
hanca said:
So what do you think the Russian federation should have done? Ignore the quality of skating of the younger skaters and just pad the senior skaters so much that theere would be Zagitova-Konstantinova plus whoever podium? I don’t think I would be comfortable with seeing Zagitova or Konstantinova beating Scherbakova-Trusova- Kostornaya, considering how the older skaters skated. How fair would that be? And what message would it be sending to the younger skaters, that no matter what they show on the ice, no matter how great they skate, they have no chance to win?
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Ideally, I think that only those who are age eligible for international senior skating should compete at senior nationals.

Not for a second would I suggest that the scores be artificially altered. I don't approve of that. Just have juniors compete with juniors and seniors compete with seniors. Nice and simple.

That goes for all countries too. Particularly as the USA is about to have a girl compete at senior nationals who is too young to even go to junior worlds. Russia doesn't even do that anymore. Honestly, I don't even understand how a girl who is too young for juniors can be a senior at Nationals.
 
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TAHbKA said:
Kostornaya about her programme: (SP):
Q: Your SP music is the same Medvedeva was trying to skate to, but it didn't work for her. Did you hear it by chance?
Kostornaya: When we first started working on that programme I thought the music was familiar. Then we recalled it's what was tried with Evgenia last year, but it didn't work and her programme was changed. We thought if the music is fresh, why not try it.


reminds me the Morozov ice dance programmes with `take a programme, ad a skater, stir, cook for 2 seasons...'
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I think it is about mind games. Same thing they did with Lipnitskaya- Medvedeva. Lipnitskaya got a program, she didn’t like it, so they gave her another program and the following season they gave the program to Medvedeva and she was pretty successful with it. That was sending Lipnitskaya the message that they were right and she was unreasonable.

I don’t know what’s the story behind Medvedeva getting a new program last season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave Kostornaya the program on purpose. I don’t believe that the choreographer in her group forgot that they made a program to the same music the previous season.
 
starrynight said:
Ideally, I think that only those who are age eligible for international senior skating should compete at senior nationals.

Not for a second would I suggest that the scores be artificially altered. I don't approve of that. Just have juniors compete with juniors and seniors compete with seniors. Nice and simple.

That goes for all countries too. Particularly as the USA is about to have a girl compete at senior nationals who is too young to even go to junior worlds. Russia doesn't even do that anymore. Honestly, I don't even understand how a girl who is too young for juniors can be a senior at Nationals.
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The problem with your suggestion is that those juniors will be senior eligible next season, and Russian funding and selection for their team for next season is based on the nationals from this season. So if those skaters were not allowed to compete at the nationals, how can you fairly decide who will get chosen to the team and who will get funding? They already increased the age for the nationals to 14, to protect the senior skaters. They can’t increase it further otherwise skaters who will be newly senior eligible would have no chance to get on the senior team and get decent funding.
 
If we are hypothetically going to change the structure of junior/senior nationals, I think it would be possible to also hypothetically arrange a different method of deciding funding packages. Separating out juniors and seniors is just something I'd like to see happen on principle, regardless of any procedural restrictions there might be.
 
starrynight said:
If we are hypothetically going to change the structure of junior/senior nationals, I think it would be possible to also hypothetically arrange a different method of deciding funding packages. Separating out juniors and seniors is just something I'd like to see happen on principle, regardless of any procedural restrictions there might be.
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There is no point separating those who will be eligible the next season from those who are seniors, considering that in three months the season is over. To help the skaters who are eligible next season to have smoother transition to seniors, they should now be competing against seniors. And while it may suck for those who are seniors now, to be fair, they were in the same situation a few years ago and also benefited from being able to compete against seniors.
 
hanca said:
The problem with your suggestion is that those juniors will be senior eligible next season, and Russian funding and selection for their team for next season is based on the nationals from this season. So if those skaters were not allowed to compete at the nationals, how can you fairly decide who will get chosen to the team and who will get funding?
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Based on their junior international competition results? GPF and Worlds? I think that's fair enough, no?

hanca said:
There is no point separating those who will be eligible the next season from those who are seniors, considering that in three months the season is over. To help the skaters who are eligible next season to have smoother transition to seniors, they should now be competing against seniors. And while it may suck for those who are seniors now, to be fair, they were in the same situation a few years ago and also benefited from being able to compete against seniors.
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That's a fair point too. Idk though...I'm a bit worried that the rep. of these girls has been a bit tarnished, for lack of better word, by the results at nationals. Though they still have Euros to try and recover. We'll see.
 
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hanca said:
I think it is about mind games. Same thing they did with Lipnitskaya- Medvedeva. Lipnitskaya got a program, she didn’t like it, so they gave her another program and the following season they gave the program to Medvedeva and she was pretty successful with it. That was sending Lipnitskaya the message that they were right and she was unreasonable.

I don’t know what’s the story behind Medvedeva getting a new program last season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave Kostornaya the program on purpose. I don’t believe that the choreographer in her group forgot that they made a program to the same music the previous season.
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It also sends the signal that these girls are totally replaceable. If you choose to leave, then you are dead to us.
 
Do people think the total amount of mistakes Medvedeva made was worse than Zagitova over the two programs?
 
feraina said:
Do people think the total amount of mistakes Medvedeva made was worse than Zagitova over the two programs?
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No, if you're taking the Nationals into account, only. But based on total competitions so far this season, I still put Zag ahead of her, at the moment.
 
So if it's going to be hypothetically Trusova, Kostornaia and Shcherbakova for Montreal worlds team, where does this leave Zag and Med? Out in the cold? I think Kostornaia and Trusova will keep their jumps next season, not sure about Anna
 
Amantide said:
That's a fair point too. Idk though...I'm a bit worried that the rep. of these girls has been a bit tarnished, for lack of better word, by the results at nationals. Though they still have Euros to try and recover. We'll see.
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If the judges give marks based on reputation rather than on what happened on the ice, it is unfair and the audience is not happy. If they give marks based on what happened on the ice, it is fair but it seems they are still criticised by some people. I don’t think they can win no matter what they do. They can’t make everyone happy, but they can make it fair.
 
muffinplus said:
So if it's going to be hypothetically Trusova, Kostornaia and Shcherbakova for Montreal worlds team, where does this leave Zag and Med? Out in the cold? I think Kostornaia and Trusova will keep their jumps next season, not sure about Anna
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They can huddle up with Radionova, Pogo and Tuk and Sotskova and Konstantinova. And Sotnikova, and Leonova and Lipnitskaya. There's a pretty good bunch so they should be able to keep each other warm.
 
The team has been named for Euros: Konstantinova, Zagitiva, & Samodurova. Alternate 1: Tuktamysheva. Alternate 2: Medvedeva

Konstantinova and Tuktamysheva to Winter Universiad
 
feraina said:
I hope this is a blessing in disguise for Medvedeva. So that she can have time to heal and consolidate her new technique.
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Have to agree on what's best for Med as if she has probs.she will be crucified. If however Zag's complete meltdown is not just a weird blip and she is withdrawn from Euros to fix her for worlds and if Tuk takes the time she needs to recover from an illness that knocks you on your butt Med could end up there (not hoping for this) without the same amount of pressure.
 
Medvedeva's "I’m not a social activist to hold demonstrations with posters “No to negative comments” made me laugh so much. I love her. There's a lot of interesting stuff in that interview.
 
Michalle said:
Medvedeva's "I’m not a social activist to hold demonstrations with posters “No to negative comments” made me laugh so much. I love her. There's a lot of interesting stuff in that interview.
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Here’s some video I found of her practice before the fp. You can see the spins hurt but I really think there are signs of technical improvement.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYhFBzjigAM
 
Do we think that the skaters who will for sure go to Worlds will still go to Universiade? Like Kovtun and Samarin if they do well at Euros. Or if Stasya beats Sofia at Euros again and is on the Worlds team for sure.
 
Totally agree with hanca. A few thoughts here-

A) The skating world knows that these juniors who medaled are amazeballs as evidenced by their performances and SB scores in the top 10! The same people know that clearly Med is rebuilding, Samo, Zag, and Tuk just came off a very busy season and none are in top form now. Every Russian singles skater who came out of the senior GPF was screwed by the time Nationals rolled around. Voronov out with a major injury, Kolyada with his sinus thingy, Tuk with her pneumonia, Samo looking completely drained in her FS compared to her earlier fresh self at SA, Zagitova either melting down due to injury or fatigue in a similar fashion to 2018 Worlds...honestly this is kind of a huge problem for Russia since so many of their skaters make GPF and Nationals is right after. And GPF $ is too good to pass up. If Europeans is going to stay in January, then the whole GP series should be pushed back a month to allow for recovery time. It won't happen, but at least push Euros to Feb so Russia can hold their Nationals in January. The juniors are not as tired because their JGP was months ago by now with only the final being recent.

B) Medvedeva is having a rebuilding year. Pogorilaya took the season off or something. Radionova injured herself out of contention. Sakhanovich started the season poorly and by the time she got it together it was too late to make Nationals. This leaves the only really fresh top level seniors as Konstantinova and Tarusina, who both skated quite well. And below that, Guliakova, Gubanova, and Leonova, who are somewhat less skilled right now. So it totally stands to reason that the juniors made the podium. So to any thinking person/judge, the senior reputations should not be significantly "tarnished." As it is, Zagitova has been horrifically overmarked all season with super high PCS and cheated jumps being called clean. A little tarnishing IMO is fine anyway since her OGM rep scoring is ridiculous.

C) Who exactly are we worried about them losing to with these tarnished reps? Certainly nobody at Euros. Meite? Kostner who has been MIA? Paganini? Let's be real. Any rep lost at Nationals is quickly restored at Euros unless they bomb on their own accord.

D) Trusova, Kostornaia, Scherbakova have been crushing it all season. May as well let them loose at Nationals to give them greater things to strive for besides a junior medal. I hate to add any fuel to Eteri's fire by encouraging even more praise and success on young skaters, but its not the skaters' fault they are doing well now. And they now have all the info about what happens to Eteri's skaters at age 16+ so it is up to them to readjust coaching/technique if they want to stay competitive afterwards. Good for Med showing them what is possible. Next season will be very interesting to follow Med and Zag if they continue, regardless of what happens this year.
 
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