Russian figure skating news & updates in 2022

[angi]

Trusova would have skated the same even if she was still with Eteri, she's clearly not ready, her programs are new, stamina is not there, and injury is still impacting judging by how it looks. Can we stop pretending staying with Eteri would have somehow changed this reality for the better instead of making it much worse?
Petrosyan is still at the point where she can sustain the bad technique and the drilling and repetitions, we all know where she'll be in 2-3 seasons at best.

 

[Lilia A]

I don't think the move to Sokolovskaya had benefited Trusova. At. All. She just doubled and stepped out of the 2nd jump on her combo. Then to add insult to injury Petrosyan followed with a gorgeous 3A and is ahead by almost 9 points. And she sings along to the music in French for the entire skate.

Going to be some reflection going on here.

Aww come on, give the girl a break. She's skating on an injured back. I'm surprised she's even competing today. I just watched her program from today and I'd say she looks in better shape than she did at the test event. Not great but she can get there. You can't compare her to Petrosyan. She's 15 and 4'7" and AFAIK relatively healthy so far. Still young and small enough to avoid being broken by LaTutka.

 

[hanca]

The Russian pairs are stronger than ever. Usually there is perhaps one decent junior pair than moves to seniors; in this season there have been several of them and there are also newly created pairs of decent level, so that makes it more exciting. Even if the first four spots in Russian pairs ranking order are taken (Mishina/Galliamov, Tarasova/Morozov, Boikova/Kozlovski, Pavliuschenko/Khodykin), there will be quite a fight for the places after that. Akopova/Rakhmanin made a very strong impression last season and I thought they would easily claim the next spot in ranking, but it seems that the pairs that transferred from juniors are having comparable results. Mukhortova/Evgenyev, Chikmareva/Yanchenkov and Artemeva/Briukhanov all seem quite strong. I thought that Khabibullina/Kniazhuk may not have such a great transition to seniors because her height would hinder what they can do, but they won the previous event, beating Tarasova/Morozov. I quite enjoyed Geinish/Chigiriev too. I am not that impressed by Kadyrova/Kolesov. I think they are doing ok, but I expected more. If Artemeva/Briukhanov could gel together much faster, why is Kadyrova/Kolesov having much slower progress? They are all experienced pair skaters. Boyarintseva/Pleshkov were also marked quite well at the last event although I can’t see them having any decent results long-term because neither of them is particularly stable jumper.

 

[rfisher]

Aww come on, give the girl a break. She's skating on an injured back. I'm surprised she's even competing today. I just watched her program from today and I'd say she looks in better shape than she did at the test event. Not great but she can get there. You can't compare her to Petrosyan. She's 15 and 4'7" and AFAIK relatively healthy so far. Still young and small enough to avoid being broken by LaTutka.

Oh, she's my favorite, but you know it had to hurt with Petrosyan skating right after her. And Adelia's 3A was a thing of beauty. I do agree that she looks like she's progressing. She'd have been 2nd even if she hadn't made the error, but unless she's squeaky clean and Adelia makes a lot of mistakes, there's no way for her to win. But, she'll be at Nationals so it's more a matter of prize money and bragging rights for her.

 

[On My Own]

Lindsay van Zundert is skating to Pirates of the Caribbean.

 

[caseyedwards]

After watching ladies free skate of skate Canada missing Russian ladies a lot so much huge huge missing! After that going to watch some zagitova

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Delete, wrong thread

 

[Lilia A]

Oh, she's my favorite, but you know it had to hurt with Petrosyan skating right after her. And Adelia's 3A was a thing of beauty. I do agree that she looks like she's progressing. She'd have been 2nd even if she hadn't made the error, but unless she's squeaky clean and Adelia makes a lot of mistakes, there's no way for her to win. But, she'll be at Nationals so it's more a matter of prize money and bragging rights for her.

Oh I'm sure it must have hurt, just like it hurts anytime anyone is not in first. But what does that have to do with Tutberidze? Her injury is clearly reflected in her performance, so how would QueenTut have made that better? A magic potion? I thought we were trying to move away from questionable potions in the sport. If she moved because Eteri's now well known pounding training methods were aggravating the injury then she made the right call.

 

[rfisher]

Well, it doesn't have anything to do with Tutberidze per se, but Sokolovskaya's skaters aren't all that great. I love her and she seems to have a good relationship with her students, but I really don't think she'll help Sasha. I get why she chose her, she's in Moscow and Mark is her student. Plushenko wasn't an option, Buyanova hasn't had a top skater since Sotnikova and there were reasons Danialian left for Rukavitsin, and I don't think she wants to move across the country to St. Petersburg. Not that I think Rukavitsin would help at all, leaving only Mishin. I'd love to see what he could do with her technique, but he's very selective. From a pure skating perspective, Tutberidze is the best coach to get you to the top. But, she had her reasons. I hope they work for her because I don't think she's come close to reaching her potential. She's fearless and she's tired of being 2nd or 3rd. Of course, this year is the year to try new things. Maybe Sokolovskaya can pull a rabbit out of her hat and work some magic.

 

[rfisher]

Women's FS thoughts: this is the first time I've translated the comments and the various Russian skater fan factions are brutal to the others Amusing, but scary. With the exception of Morosova, the last group skated very well.

Victoria Fedyanina: excellent FS. She's not doing 3A or quads yet, but everything was very good. She's from Perm and will probably have to move to Moscow or St. Petersburg at some point, but she's a skater to watch. And she gets interviewed by Trankov!
Samodelkina: Another excellent FS. She's grown taller. Opened with a 4S. All her jumps are so straight in the air. She reminds me of Valieva in so many ways. Her mistake in the SP was a fluke. And she's very happy with a huge score. Well deserved. She's with Sokolovskaya as well.
Zakharova: Good skate, but she doesn't have an IT factor to set her apart from the other "good" skaters, but she and her coach are happy.
Yametova: Tiny little sprite. Another good skate. Another happy skater.
Trusova skating to I Believe I Can Fly, except she didn't believe today. Hard fall on the opening 4Lz and the program just fell apart. She rallied, but clearly she's not recovered from the injury. Behind Samodelkina.
Petrosyan: Nerves, but she'll win easily. Step out on opening 4T, fall on the 4Lo, but rallied with a 4T-2A combo and the rest of the skate was excellent. She had a huge lead in the SP. But as for the best skate of the day, I'd have to give that to Samodelkina.

Petrosyan, Samodelkina and Akatieva are the new generation.

 

[rfisher]

Pair FS
Chikmareva/Yanchenkov A couple of mistakes, but some really good elements. Interesting really young pair. And they finish 3rd!
Akopova/Rahmanin: she had a really hard and awkward fall on her hip on the Th. He had to help her up, but she finished the program. Not the skate she wanted and she's limping. The crowd is giving her a standing O. She's in tears in the KnC. Poor girl. On the replay, she was really twisted in the air and basically landed on the side of her skate causing her leg to buckle under her. There was no way she was going to land the jump.
Mukhortova/Evgeniev: I like him better than her, but they skated well and finish 2nd
Boikova/Kozlovsky: I never understand the programs Moskvina gives them. But, they won, so I guess they'll be happy.

 

[TAHbKA]

Boikova in the interview about the dress: ... we then go to the shop and look for the fabrics, now the choice of the fabrics is rather limited because of the certain problems...

 

[rfisher]

Men: Never heard of the first 3. They are really young and didn't do anything worth commenting on, but you never know when an unknown kid will surprise everyone
Except Varakin's music made me laugh. "I wish I was special. I don't belong here"...sort of prophetic. I was imaging @Andrey aka Pushkin's comments. He's crying in the KnC. Hope he doesn't speak English and know what his music is telling him every day in practice.
Gumennik: He's one of my favs. 4 quads, landed 3, 2 3A, landed 1 clean. The rest was fine. I always wonder if Moskvina is secretly having him try out with pair girls, but he'd really need to bulk up his upper body. Dramatic music is totally in his wheelhouse.
Anisimov: Decent skate but you'll forget it by the next skater. Landed 2/3 quad attempts. the rest was fine, but forgettable. Typical Volchkova skater. You can spot them a mile away. It does amuse me that her school translates to "Legend"
Kovalen: Not his day. Skating to Remember Me. I don't think he'll want to do that today. But, thanks to he and Anisimov, Gumennik will medal.
Erokhov: Wow. Anisimov, Kovalen and Erokhov must owe Gumennik money, but his SP kept him on the podium much to my surprise. Never underestimate the SP.
Kondratyuk: Much improved from the test skate, but he ran out of energy. Very dramatic and clear winner of the comp even if I'm not sure that should have beaten Gumennik's FS. And, if nobody knew he and Trusova were an item, they do now since the commentators told the audience about 20 times.

 

[TAHbKA]

3rd fakeGP list:
Valivea, Sinitsina, Ksenia Guschina, Sofia Kochanova, Anastasia Morozova, Viktoria Nesterova, Maria Paramonova, Maria Rebrova, Polina Sviridenko, Anastasia Hahurtdinova, Klara Svetsova

Aliev, Danielian, Mozalev, Artyom Aleinikov, Roman Atoyar, Evgenii Zenkin, Vladislav Katichev, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Vladimir Oschepkov

TarMor, Artemieva/Brukhanov, Kadurova/Kolesov (that's it???)

Shanaeva/Drozd, Morozov/Narizhny, Pasechnik/Nekrasov, Elizaveta Kirillova/Mark Chegodaev, Aleksandra Kravchenko/Aleksandr Shustitskii, Yana Matveishina/Timofei Subbotin, Ekaterina Mirovona/Evgenii Ustenko


Guess they decided not to let any other pairs participate in fear TarMor will lose again? And Valieva has a clear field with no Akatieva/Petrosian/Samodelkina/Tuktamysheva (is Muravieva in the seniors or the juniors this year?) and all the above + Trusova will be in the other 3 GP events against each other.

One of the telegram channels writes Tutktamysheva, Kolyada and Ignatiev are scheduled to participate the Moscow event and at the same time Pluschenko's show in Moscow. While in theory Tuktamusheva could jump to the show between her PS and LP for the men the show and the competition would collide in time.

 

[On My Own]

Zhulin belongs in a zoo, that is all.

 

[Bigbird]

Zhulin belongs in a zoo, that is all.

Who'd he trash now? Did he wax philosophical about the female form? Again?

 

[soogar]

I don't think the move to Sokolovskaya had benefited Trusova. At. All. She just doubled and stepped out of the 2nd jump on her combo. Then to add insult to injury Petrosyan followed with a gorgeous 3A and is ahead by almost 9 points. And she sings along to the music in French for the entire skate.

Going to be some reflection going on here.

I think that Sasha is making an adjustment. It's clear that she hasn't really been training after the Olympics and it shows. She also got new programs as well. The other girls are hungrier for recognition. Sasha herself said that she didn't want to skate in Moscow but preferred two other locations. Probably because she isn't really ready to compete and deal with hometown pressures/expectations. Looking at her jumps, she still has it and unlike Petrosyan, is dealing with a grown up body. She gets decent height on her jumps. Petrosyan whips around on that triple axel.

I noticed that Mark's quad lutz looked pretty good and was straight in the air. He might be benfitting from Sasha being in the group.

 

[Ananas Astra]

4 years after Alexei Vasilevski and his wife Yulia Lavrenchuk left "Angels of Plushenko", the great maestro has felt the urge to tell the world about Vasilevski's "treason".

Плющенко обвинил коллегу в предательстве

Двукратный олимпийский чемпион по фигурному катанию Евгений Плющенко заявил в интервью РИА Новости, что бывший тренер его академии Алексей Василевский предал... РИА Новости Спорт, 31.10.2022

rsport.ria.ru

 

[TAHbKA]

I think Trusova made a super smart move going to Sokolovskaya. By the time Russia is back to the international competitions she'll be too old (by the Russian standards) and not good enough. This year she gets a chance to earn money in the fakeGP without working too hard, without being humilliated and without injuring herself. Am a bit surprised she didn't go back to Pluschenko, but perhaps he was just not interested working with a skater whose competitive days are over.
Also note Sokolovskaya is usually the last stop for the skaters (Sotskova, Samarin, now Trusova (there were more, can't remember now)

 

[On My Own]

Am a bit surprised she didn't go back to Pluschenko, but perhaps he was just not interested working with a skater whose competitive days are over.

Well maybe he threatened to perform Sex Bomb at the rink

 

[rfisher]

I think Trusova made a super smart move going to Sokolovskaya. By the time Russia is back to the international competitions she'll be too old (by the Russian standards) and not good enough. This year she gets a chance to earn money in the fakeGP without working too hard, without being humilliated and without injuring herself. Am a bit surprised she didn't go back to Pluschenko, but perhaps he was just not interested working with a skater whose competitive days are over.
Also note Sokolovskaya is usually the last stop for the skaters (Sotskova, Samarin, now Trusova (there were more, can't remember now)

True, which is surprising that Samodelkina left Davydov for Sokolovskaya, but his junior level skaters do seem to leave for a different coach when they turn senior.

 

[Yuri]

Who'd he trash now? Did he wax philosophical about the female form? Again?

In the past week alone, Zhulin has suggested that both Kaitlyn Hawayek and Sasha Trusova could stand to lose some weight, respectively, in response to Hawayek's Instagram post and Trusova's poor performance in the Fake GP.

Zhulin eloquently distinguished his remarks by saying that at least the person didn't call Kaitlyn a "fat cow" or something, just suggesting a loss of a lot of weight to help Jean-Luc lift her could be helpful to them. The Russian paper for the Trusova weight gain cover story even included before and after pictures, but suggested it was normal bone growth in response to those like Zhulin criticizing her larger appearance and poor jumping.

 

[TAHbKA]

True, which is surprising that Samodelkina left Davydov for Sokolovskaya, but his junior level skaters do seem to leave for a different coach when they turn senior.

It could be a reasourses thing: Sokolovskaya has 2 skaters from the main team (now 3), Davydov has 0.

 

[irenemulindwairen]

In the past week alone, Zhulin has suggested that both Kaitlyn Hawayek and Sasha Trusova could stand to lose some weight, respectively, in response to Hawayek's Instagram post and Trusova's poor performance in the Fake GP.

Zhulin eloquently distinguished his remarks by saying that at least the person didn't call Kaitlyn a "fat cow" or something, just suggesting a loss of a lot of weight to help Jean-Luc lift her could be helpful to them. The Russian paper for the Trusova weight gain cover story even included before and after pictures, but suggested it was normal bone growth in response to those like Zhulin criticizing her larger appearance and poor jumping.

What a douche!

 

[Lilia A]

One of the telegram channels writes Tutktamysheva, Kolyada and Ignatiev are scheduled to participate the Moscow event and at the same time Pluschenko's show in Moscow. While in theory Tuktamusheva could jump to the show between her PS and LP for the men the show and the competition would collide in time.

The most recent ads I've seen for the show have adjusted the roster. Tuktamysheva and Ignatov are removed from the Moscow show while Aliev was removed from the Saint Petersburg show this Sunday. Kolyada is still listed for the Moscow show and for some reason, Semenenko was never removed from this weekend's show (and we now know he's not competing in Kazan). Either they knew/know something we didn't/don't or the Mishin camp is really bad at communicating their boys' schedules with show organizers lol. Anyway, updates are usually only done to the online promo stuff posted on IG but anything that was already printed and posted on the streets would have the original photo and roster, which can be confusing.

 

[Bigbird]

In the past week alone, Zhulin has suggested that both Kaitlyn Hawayek and Sasha Trusova could stand to lose some weight, respectively, in response to Hawayek's Instagram post and Trusova's poor performance in the Fake GP.

Zhulin eloquently distinguished his remarks by saying that at least the person didn't call Kaitlyn a "fat cow" or something, just suggesting a loss of a lot of weight to help Jean-Luc lift her could be helpful to them. The Russian paper for the Trusova weight gain cover story even included before and after pictures, but suggested it was normal bone growth in response to those like Zhulin criticizing her larger appearance and poor jumping.

It's how he keeps his athletes in check. Period.

 

[hanca]

In the past week alone, Zhulin has suggested that both Kaitlyn Hawayek and Sasha Trusova could stand to lose some weight, respectively, in response to Hawayek's Instagram post and Trusova's poor performance in the Fake GP.

Zhulin eloquently distinguished his remarks by saying that at least the person didn't call Kaitlyn a "fat cow" or something, just suggesting a loss of a lot of weight to help Jean-Luc lift her could be helpful to them. The Russian paper for the Trusova weight gain cover story even included before and after pictures, but suggested it was normal bone growth in response to those like Zhulin criticizing her larger appearance and poor jumping.

Many posters here seem to be ‘shocked’ by the ‘rude and unacceptable’ behaviour that some Russian coaches raise the issue of weight of other people. Yet no one here mentioned that such behaviour seem to be absolutely normal in some countries. My colleague spent a year in France and got a strong impression that it is a part of French culture to be commenting on other people’s size, portions, what they are eating, how much calories it has and giving (unwanted) advice about how to lose these ‘few extra kilos’. It seems it is acceptable in France to comment on weight not only family members and close friends, but also colleagues and people you don’t know that well. So I am wondering, why is it so shocking that in sport where the weight can make a difference, coaches make comments? Especially when they are talking about weight of adults, not underage kids.

 

[cholla]

Many posters here seem to be ‘shocked’ by the ‘rude and unacceptable’ behaviour that some Russian coaches raise the issue of weight of other people. Yet no one here mentioned that such behaviour seem to be absolutely normal in some countries. My colleague spent a year in France and got a strong impression that it is a part of French culture to be commenting on other people’s size, portions, what they are eating, how much calories it has and giving (unwanted) advice about how to lose these ‘few extra kilos’. It seems it is acceptable in France to comment on weight not only family members and close friends, but also colleagues and people you don’t know.

No it is not at all. There are jerks in France like everywhere else who think they are entitled to criticize others' physical appearance but it's not considered acceptable at all and it's certainly not "part of the culture". Including in sports where coaches are now warned against scale obsession.

 

[On My Own]

Many posters here seem to be ‘shocked’ by the ‘rude and unacceptable’ behaviour that some Russian coaches raise the issue of weight of other people. Yet no one here mentioned that such behaviour seem to be absolutely normal in some countries. My colleague spent a year in France and got a strong impression that it is a part of French culture to be commenting on other people’s size, portions, what they are eating, how much calories it has and giving (unwanted) advice about how to lose these ‘few extra kilos’. It seems it is acceptable in France to comment on weight not only family members and close friends, but also colleagues and people you don’t know that well. So I am wondering, why is it so shocking that in sport where the weight can make a difference, coaches make comments? Especially when they are talking about weight of adults, not underage kids.

Even if true, I don't see why we should pretend all cultures are somehow equally valid. I am not looking at the ridiculous dissection of people's looks in east asian idol culture and thinking "hmm yes, that's their culture, so I'll respect it" - mostly I just want to vomit when I see it.

 

[hanca]

No it is not at all. There are jerks in France like everywhere else who think they are entitled to criticize others' physical appearance but it's not considered acceptable at all and it's certainly not "part of the culture". Including in sports where coaches are now warned against scale obsession.

I thought my colleague’s experience was just a one-off, but if you look at YouTube, people from other countries describe their experience of living in France, it is quite a frequent thing that is mentioned, so it is not just a one-off. It seems to be quite frequent.