Russian figure skating news in 2026

[SakuraHere]

I'm highly amused by all those latching on (pardon the pun) to the new pro-Russian line: "Trusova breastfeeds and that means no Russian skater doped ever!"

Sure, Jan.

This is your "the new pro-Russian line". You said it, you have balls or whatever to take responsibility for that. Here another poster says that only doped Russian prepubescent females can jump quads. Another answers about a breastfeeding mother Trusova who jumps them too. You twisted all this into "the new pro-Russian line" hoping that no one will notice. That's pathetic.

 

[SakuraHere]

Politically, yes, the USA is just as bad as Russia. However, their figure skaters do not systemically state-sponsored(!) dope. That's the difference.


Lmao. Thanks for the laugh, doll.

Current ban of Russian skaters is political, not doping. Saying "Yes, political banning is bad but they are dopers" is a lame excuse. One Valieva case does not count as systematically. But TUE-ing athletes here and there, i.e. systematically, with light meth is a way more dangerous thing to their health than over the counter pills. It's just your jealousy talking that light meth doesn't work.

My username is SakuraHere. It's not Tootsie, or Sweety, or Honey, or doll. Just SakuraHere. Capital S-a-k-u-r-a-H-e-r-e. Sakura Here.

 

[SakuraHere]

It's indeed ironic that it was the Russian Fed that successfully lobbied to lower the base value on quad throws in pairs when Duhamel/Radford were the only team consistingly landing them.

Your math doesn't add up. Quad throw in pairs was devalued after 2018 when Duhamel didn't matter anymore. She was a breastfeeding mother then and she is not Trusova. Her quad throw with an ugly landing before that didn't help her to win over Savchenko or Sui/Han. But judging by her twitter activities, losing to Russians for the entire career hurt her the most. It was her who implied that Russian Fed devalued quad throws, which is stupid since Russians alone cannot do anything. Devaluing quad throw is a part of a general ISU stupid tendency to simplify figure skating. The new rules from the coming season, that reduced the number of jumps and leveled elements, were made in 2024 when Russians were not around at all.
In their events Russians on the contrary increase the level of difficulty because of the fierce competition. They allowed quads in Women SP in team event. In the Jumping Championship the relay didn't allow skaters top skip the uncomfortable jumps. That is why Dikidzhi had to land 4T and 4Lo that he doesn't do in competitions, Mozalev revived 4F and Danielian learned 4F overnight.
Russian senior pairs are the only ones now who land quad throws in competitions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MnDsMKHJTQ&t=95s
https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkat..._throws_by_mishinagalliamov_boykovakozlovsky/
In the interview they want to keep going with it. So, your math doesn't add up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N491yyR0NJA

 

[SakuraHere]

Meanwhile Russians keep the figure skating party going. They can afford it. This weekend it was a mega gala competition that has nothing to do with the ISU scoring system. The audience made the significant difference. It was them who decided the winner (judges had another one) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHR-w63WHpc and them who chose the bronze winner (judges had them 5th) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CqWQdTIzy0 Kamila god a prize as the best female skater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGK_b8d2_yc Vetlugin god a special prize for the program about Russian Paralympians. Using this opportunity I wish to congratulate them with the unique record that will never be beaten: 6 athletes won 12 medals, 8 of which gold. That brought them to Kremlin to champagne with Putin. Those 12 medals with 8 golds cold go to someone else. We will never know how many medals someone else got for 4 years of Russian skaters banning.

 

[Ka3sha]

Oh good to know that they have uploaded individual videos on their YouTube

Liza Tuktamysheva (skating to 'Berghain' by Rosalia )

- YouTube

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When I heard Rosalía's new album, especially the track "Berghain," I immediately decided I had to create a performance to this music. The vocals are incredibly powerful, and the song is deeply moving.

When I listened more closely to the lyrics, I came up with the concept for the piece: I decided to address the issue of domestic violence. The song speaks about love through pain (listen carefully to one of the lines, in the original, it’s quite harsh: “I’ll f**k you till you love me”). Those words really stayed with me. I approached Ilya Averbukh with the idea of creating a social performance on a topic that is usually left unspoken.

On air, the piece was introduced as being about toxic relationships, but domestic violence is a much more serious issue. Not everyone understands the difference, but it exists, and it’s huge.

We still don’t have a law on domestic violence, and that deeply concerns me…

Believe me, far more women suffer from this than we think. It’s a global problem. Around the world, women are afraid to speak about it because they understand how futile it can feel. It’s as if this issue doesn’t exist—people turn a blind eye—and that feels profoundly unfair.

I want victims of domestic violence to stop being invisible. They have the right to be heard—and the right to protection.

Of course, I understood that this topic doesn’t quite fit the style of a show tournament. But this issue feels truly important to me, so I decided to use this as my chance to draw attention to it.

It was important for me to speak about it in the way I know how.
We need to talk about difficult issues. It’s the least we can do to help.

 

[Ka3sha]

Some quotes from the recent Adeliya Petrosyan interview with Okko

I showed what I had managed to train, the form I was in at that moment – that’s what I showed at the Olympics. There were many things I didn’t have time to recover, so that’s the performance I gave. In principle, there’s nothing to complain about – what I had worked on is what came out.

The first week in Moscow was tough; I needed time to recover. I think I went through all the stages of disappointment and acceptance; it was all there.
Right after the free skate, I felt emptiness, then anger, then hurt, and tears. Later, I calmed down, and a feeling of excitement came over me during the gala. Then I immediately withdrew into myself. And in this way, in waves, I reached the stage of acceptance and calmness

On quads

With the triples, it was mentally easier to skate; the program would have been more emotional, and I would have been more confident. But since I was going straight to the Olympics, it was clear that without the quad, there wouldn’t have been any chance of a medal at all – I wouldn’t even have a chance at it. So you either take the risk, or you skate cleanly with triples, and I think that’s more or less the approach I ended up taking. There really wasn’t an option to go without attempting the quads. Still, there was hope that it might work out.

Even in Moscow, it was unstable; I didn’t really have time to fully recover. Sometimes I managed to skate the program cleanly, but often I didn’t. I was still going in a bit by chance. Of course, I was happy when I managed to put it together during training or in a run-through – I even got it twice. But still, that uncertainty was there.

I was generally more even-tempered and calm about everything; there were no strong emotional reactions to what was happening. Everything was perceived somewhat more mutedly, and the training sessions were calmer as well. The only moment was the practice before the free program, when spectators were present – it was a little uncomfortable. At that moment, the quad wasn’t working, and since there were many spectators from Russia and Russian-speaking countries, I heard: 'Adelia, go!' You go into the quad and think, 'Ugh, I just want to land it already,' but you keep falling, and you want to show that you can actually do it. (smiles) I finally landed the last one. The audience started cheering and supporting me. I thought: 'Kind of embarrassing, I only managed one.' (smiles)

Injuries and off-season

I quickly got everything back – the axel and the quad toe – in the first two days after the break. And then my groin started hurting. It was probably something acute, because I ended up missing about a month and a half of everything, and it took a lot of effort to recover it. Everything was very stressful.

As soon as I started getting the triples back and trying to skate the program in any way, a part of my leg started hurting – around where the boot sits, some subcutaneous tissue that was really painful from the skate. No matter what I did, I couldn’t even get into the boot; as soon as anything touched that area, it was very painful. This was probably in August. We changed boots several times, and eventually switched to black ones and did a block injection. Five days before Beijing, when we were in Krasnoyarsk, the pain in my leg finally stopped. In the end, I managed to get the program with triples back on track.

From September to December, it was basically the off-season – I had to start rebuilding everything from scratch. I recovered, got the axel and the quad toe together, and started training them. By the Russian Championship, I began skating three ultra-C elements in the free program – two quads and an Axel, plus an Axel in the short program. I switched to new white boots, and then my back got locked.

This was literally just before the New Year. Since the doctors weren’t working over the holidays, there was an ordeal to find a specialist who could help. At one point, a vertebra had shifted and pressed on a nerve, so I couldn’t twist in any direction. My back hurt badly, and the pain radiated to my leg. It was the full package of injuries. Alexander Ilyich [Kogan] helped a lot – he managed to find a specialist who did another block injection. There were no other options; the pain didn’t subside for about two weeks. I went out to skate, but I couldn’t twist at all in that condition.

And then a bit of a drama happened. I was confident that I’d recover quickly, as I usually did. At least the triples always came back quickly for me. I went out, and… nothing. No triples, and the quads were out of the question. This process took a very long time, and I probably couldn’t accept for a while that I had no form at all before the Olympics. When Eteri Georgievna left for the Olympics, I had only just begun skating the program with triples, and there were mistakes. Everything was extremely tight.

On Alysa Liu’s approach to training and performance

Probably, I don’t yet understand the widespread admiration for the way she can approach things so lightly, simply, and with enjoyment, taking pleasure in it. For me, the emphasis is more on the athlete’s skating mastery.
When Alexei Yagudin skated Winter, or Yuzuru Hanyu, or Kim Yu-Na, Aliona Savchenko, Tatiana Volosozhar, and many others whom I admire, I didn’t care whether they were enjoying themselves on the ice, whether they showed it, or talked about it. What interested me was watching their skating and their programs, because those programs literally left me with a lump in my throat – from the beauty and mastery. That is what moves me more.
Alysa is interesting now because of her approach; she has opened something new, which is why the focus is on that. But I can’t say that I personally admire this approach.

I originally rooted for Kaori [Sakamoto]. I really like her skating, her presentation, and her huge flying jumps. I thought she could do it, and I hoped she would.

On watching the Prague Worlds

Basically, I was following many skaters, including Guillaume Cizeron [the question was formulated in that way]. I didn’t manage to watch the ice dance live because it was pretty late. I’m happy for Yuma Kagiyama because he delivered an excellent free skate; I’m glad he didn’t fall again on the axel. Ilya did really well – he recovered after the Olympics and once again showed that he is the best, delivering the performance that earned him the gold medal.

What she has learned from this season

Probably, I won’t be fixating on the ultra-C elements moving forward. Of course, I’ll still jump them, train them, but I’ll also focus on other aspects of skating. After all, I’m not just a quad jump – I’m also about interesting programs, different performances… I want to show something new and beautiful. Sometimes, you skate a program so fully immersed that you don’t even notice what’s happening around you.

Only at the final position do you realise the program is over and that there’s an audience. That happened to me in Interlude, last year’s short program, and in Voila. I felt every emotion, every step, and I want to get back to that. This year, after falling on the toe loop, I felt so bad that I forgot there was a program to present. I want to get back to that feeling

https://www.championat.com/figuresk...oj-tulup-alisa-lyu-kaori-sakamoto-emocii.html

 

[Wyliefan]

Poor kid. Not surprising the concept of taking pleasure in skating is utterly foreign to an Eteri student.

 

[Rob]

Poor kid. Not surprising the concept of taking pleasure in skating is utterly foreign to an Eteri student.

Even Eteri said so - and that they have no gratitude.

 

[Amy L]

There was a video of Adelia as a novice making some mistakes and starting to cry before she even finished skating with Dudakov being snippy with her while waiting for the results.

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I remember there was a video that went semi-viral several years ago of a female coach (not Eteri) grabbing and shaking a skater, I believe Adelia was the skater but I can't find that video anymore. No wonder she doesn't understand skaters enjoying themselves. She's in the middle of the Eteri girl eat powder and don't be a ingrate era.