I will always believe, even with total lack of evidence, that the only reason she let Eteri in the first place was a knee jerk reaction to losing he Olympics to a fellow training mate. She could lose to Kaetlyn, Carolina, the Japanese, or anyone else and while she would be hurt and upset she wouldn't have left Eteri. She dominated the sport for two years and then briefly had to leave competition due to injury only to come back and realize she had been dumped by the judges for the girl she trained side by side with. She came back and handily beat everyone like usual EXCEPT her fellow training mate. That seriously had to hurt like hell and I would have felt exactly the same.
She felt betrayed because she felt Eteri (not on purpose mind you) played a major role in the failure of her biggest dream and Eteri felt betrayed because the girl she treated like a second daughter left her. I'm sure even at the lowest point of the last two years both of them deep down still loved each other and regardless of the reason why this reunion occurred both are quietly very pleased it happened. Maybe I'm being totally naive but I do believe that, or at least like to.
100% and I really can't fault her for feeling that way. But it's over 2 1/2 years later now and hopefully she can see the bigger picture. That Eteri isn't psychic and could not foresee Zhenya's injury that precipitated the avalanche ending with Zagitova as the Olympic champion.
yes, the fan wars are ridiculous. There is no real bad guy. The girls skate to win. They’re trained to win at any cost. And the coach wants to coach a winner. It’s just the way it is.
I've mellowed a bit in my old age (I cringe at some of the things I used to write about young women whose only fault was beating my favorites), but for whatever reason, fans really get personally invested in these athletes/teams to the point where you'd fight for them like you would any family member or loved one.
While Med lost the 2018 OG in the SP, (she technically won the FS tiebreaker), I do wonder if some of her feelings of betrayal had to do with strategic decisions they made regarding the FS. If she had swapped her 3f3t with her 3f, that would have earned her 0.43. Another small but totally possible change if it had been made early enough, perhaps at Euros, would have been to use her flying camel from the SP as her spin in one position in the FS and put her layback variations in a flying combination spin. This would have added another 0.5. So that's 0.93, which doesn't entirely make up for the 1.31 margin, but puts quite a dent in it.
I wonder if she was told she had a chance with her program as it was, therefore, don't take these additional risks. Because if she was, that wouldn't sit well. As it was, she skated better in the FS than Zagitova. Zagitova herself skated better in the team final, but magically had virtually the same PCS despite the ladies final being a more competitive field than the team final.
This is definitely a huge part of the picture. Zhenya originally had a FS for the 17-18 season to The Leftovers (IIRC) that, like Zagitova's, was nearly completely backloaded (all but a 2A).
Evgenia MEDVEDEVA Евгения Медведев in Ondrej Nepela Trophy 2017. Exceptional proof
youtu.be
Zhenya is an exceptionally strong-willed and competitive athlete and could literally see what she was up against every day in Alina. She surely wanted to give herself the best possible chance to win. Eteri probably felt (correctly) that the winning layout and formula Zhenya had been using for years would be enough for Zhenya to win the Olympics due to her PCS advantage (as the two-time and reigning World Champion) over a first-year senior with a recycled program. Keep in mind how important reputation is in skating, and at this point Zhenya had not lost in
TWO YEARS. I'm not sure if the decision to keep Zhenya's content the same was decided before or after her injury, but either way it seemed like a pretty sound strategy.
The problem, of course, is that Zhenya had to take a few months off due to her stress fracture (?), and miss the GPF (where she also was the two-time and reigning champion). So suddenly Zagitova is the top Russian skater and got a PCS boost she never would have received if Zhenya hadn't had to sit out the competition. By the time the Olympics rolled around, Zagitova was considered basically on par with Medvedeva PCS-wise. Which was not the case, was never the case, and never should have been the case. But the judges had let the horse out of the barn, and there was no going back to marking Zagitova's PCS accurately and relatively after they'd been inflated for months.
It also didn't help that Zhenya's SP for the Olympic season was a shadow of the masterpiece she had the prior season.
In celebration of this joyous reunion, I went back and re-watched Zhenya's LP at the Olympics, to see if I had overlooked something (as it's been too traumatizing to re-watch before this). But it was actually BETTER than I remembered. (I think watching it in real time was so stressful that I just wanted to make sure she hit all her jumps.) I remembered a scratchy landing or two, but there weren't any, really. She sold that program more than it was worth (tbh), making Daniil G look like Peak David Wilson. She was giving me ALL the Anna Karenina Realness to the point I was waiting for a train to barge into the arena. Medvedeva's expression is simply
PHENOMENAL. (This can never be stated enough; it's always been one of her strengths, even as a junior.) To me, it was BY FAR the winning performance, and rises above trivial things like flutzes or backloading or hand-me-down tutus.
Zagitova's program was brilliantly conceived to hide her weaknesses (plus fantastic & exciting music that makes you smile and fondly remember the legendary John Curry). And it was executed really well (minus the glaring mistake of her missing the first lutz combo). But objectively, her PCS overall were nowhere near Medvedeva's (skating skills and transitions roughly equal, although you could argue Alina's SS and/or transitions were better.. but the other ones were hugely in Zhenya's favor).
So this is a slightly long-winded way of saying that if Zhenya hadn't gotten injured to the point of missing competitions (and all other things remaining equal), she would have won the OGM. Just as God and Eteri intended. But poor Zhenya had no control over her body breaking down or Zagitova's inflated PCS, so her first instinct is to lash out at Eteri for 1. Not letting her do the hardest content she was capable of, and 2. The conflict of interest in Eteri coaching her biggest rival and the girl who she had literally just lost to at the most important competition of her life. But I honestly believe Eteri had a rooting interest in Zhenya winning and thought that would be the case. Of course, at the same time, it certainly didn't hurt to have a back-up plan in Zagitova as well. Eteri is nothing if not resourceful.
It was just a horrible series of mis-timed and unfortunate events and at the end of the day, Lady Luck favored Alina in the end. That's sports, really. A lot of it can come down to luck. So I can understand why Zagitova won, still not agree with it, but ultimately not blame her or Eteri. As a Zhenya Stan, it's sometimes easy to forget that this was Alina's dream to win the Olympics as well. She also worked really hard, and was able to battle her nerves and skate mostly clean when it mattered the most (something she hasn't always been able to do).
So it's taken a long time, but I've finally come to peace with the result. And I hope Zhenya has too.
Juliet, like Karenina, kills herself because she lost her boyfriend. Alena Kostornaia portrayed Bella from Twilight, who basically tried to kill herself for a whole book because her boyfriend left her (jumping off of cliffs, recklessly riding motorcycles, approaching seedy-looking men at dive bars...). Bella is by far the worst female character I have ever had the misfortune to read about, but I seriously doubt Alena is a one-dimensional weak-willed whiny pathetic excuse for a heroine who is absolutely ruled by the men in her life (can you tell I effin' hate Twilight?
). Sometimes skaters pick music to reflect their feelings (Gracie Gold's FS from last year comes to mind), but generally I don't read too much into music choices as some reflection of a skater's inner feelings or thoughts, especially when it comes to often used or classical pieces.
