Ekaterina Kurakova

Ekaterina was as cute as always on the ice. I think that in her SP costume she looks like a strawberry, not in a bad way, but in a sweet way. She has so much natural charm and personality when skating, and her technical score looked really good at the end of her skate, but I suspect she got called on her under rotations, because it dropped right down when the final SP score was given. She is such an enjoyable skater to watch, though, and I am looking forward to her free programme tomorrow!

The TES dropped as I feared but it was a lovely performance It was great to finally see her on the big stage. Good luck in the free!

Took a look at the protocols, and both elements of her combination were called under, but her 2A and her 3Lo were fine. Am also whingeing a bit about the performance score in her PCS, because I think she goes for it when out there, and should get higher scores in that specific category. Marks in the 6.25 to 7.25 range seem a bit stingy for someone who (on the broadcast at least) seems to have pretty good presence and charm, and who definitely performs to the music. But the SP is done, and she has qualified for the FP - best of luck to her tomorrow!

At least she didn't get any 4s and 5s today, which is an improvement from the last competition...

I think she has a good chance of moving up a couple of places if she lands her jumps (even allowing for some URs).

Ekaterina is such a wonderful performer, so vibrant when she skates. All she needs is to sort out her under-rotations, and she should go shooting up the scoreboard. Also, and very superficially, her dress for the free is gorgeous.

That was amazing performance and I'm so happy Katia is consistent and delivers beautifully under pressure.
What's important, she achieved a goal the Polish federation set for her and placed in top 10.
Strongly believe she can fix her urs till Junior Worlds and Worlds.

(Lately there was a short interview with her published - she told she would be able to perform her SP much better as she was in love and finally understood the song well :2thumbs

I only watched two skaters today including Katia because I had to work (ugh!) but what a performance it was I'm really looking forward to rewatching it.

I love that she's gaining more and more fans too

The technical panel was merciless today (see that 3Lz<Eu<<3Fe< call...) but I believe it's the best for her to know where she stands, so that she can put all the effort into getting these jumps all the way around.

It was lovely seeing her interactions with Brian and Sylwia, and of course her greeting Filip, who must have been very proud

Her PCS continue to anger me but she‘s a ray of sunshine. Made my day better. Always love her. :luv17:

Some Katia gifs to brighten up your day:

https://mobile.twitter.com/bonghive/status/1221146655195455488

https://mobile.twitter.com/MB_VMProg/status/1221148039265472512

Katerina is vibrant in her presentation and vivacious in her skating for sure. But #TeamBOrser should work on eradicating her defects for Kurakova to make a real impact score wise.

As was previously announced, Katia will soon compete at the Polish Junior Championships: http://www.pfsa.com.pl/results/1920/MPJ0220/CAT002EN.HTM

Yekaterina Kurakova: I changed citizenship, because I want to skate for a long time

Former Russian figure skater Yekaterina Kurakova made her debut this competitive season under the flag of Poland. The student of Brian Orser told RIA Novosti about life in this country and Canada, how Yevgeniya Medvyedeva, Aleksandra Trusova and even haters can motivate, as well as when to eat chocolate.

Poland has good people, and Canada has squirrels, raccoons and skunks.

-- It has long been a stereotype that the Poles do not like Russians.

- Not true! I was also told about this, but when I came to Poland, still representing Russia, I felt the exact opposite. Once a taxi driver found out that I was Russian, he began to remember the language and tried to speak Russian with me. The past generation of Poles did learn Russian language without fail. Many still remember it, read poetry. And now everyone admires that a Russian girl came to them and learned Polish. Therefore, it seems to me that the dislike for Russians in Poland is nothing but a stereotype and a lie.

-- Have you already learned Polish?

- Yes, especially over the summer I gained lots in the language. I opened a Google translator and went to Starbucks. Soon, I began to speak calmly, without any problems of understanding and intention to express something. An interview has already been given in Polish, even on television. I visited Poland often this year, because the process of applying for a Canadian visa was not fast, so I stayed there for almost three months.

-- What do you like most in this country?

- I really like the city of Torun in which I live. So small, beautiful, European, where it's nice to walk. And I also like the people who surround me. They are all so kind and lovely, they always help and support me.

-- Have you encountered a negative reaction after you decided to compete for a new country?

- There is practically no hate. Sometimes it happens, but I try not to pay attention to it. Everyone makes their choice. And negative in me never settle, because I have a positive attitude towards everything. By the way, when hate comes my way, I treat it with understanding.

-- What is it like?

- Someone will write a lot of bad words and point out a mistake. I skip the vocal abuse, but I can apprehend the specifics quite adequately. Someone may not like that I took few steps during a skating run. I agree, it happens, and together with Brian we begin to fix it all. Sometimes such hate motivates. In general, on Instagram they wrote me a lot of things.

-- Does Toronto always have a positive atmosphere in Cricket Club?

- I think so.

-- Who creates it?

- Us together. All the coaches and athletes on the ice are very friendly. Everyone is sympathetic to each other. We can easily come to the coach and talk not only about sports, but also about life. If something bothers me, I can share it with Brian. True, until I went to him with some kind of depression in my soul. They talked about the weather more often, but somehow he shared with me that his leg hurts. After we talked about age ...

--Are you Russian to him?

- Not. I represent Poland. But we don’t have such a "Hey Japanese!" or "Hey, Russian!". Brian treats every skater as his own child. He knows how to take care.

-- With whom have you developed particularly friendly relations?

- I do not want to brag, but sometimes I am a local psychologist. Friends often come to talk to me, but I can say good words and hug. It happens that someone will come up to me on the ice and say: "Oh, Kat, I'm tired." “Come on, get ready! You're the best!” I say, and he is going to do another five quads. But I'm not talking about Hanyu right now. I communicate well with Yuzuru, but he is not such an open person. He is more in himself. We greet each other, exchange polite questions, but we don’t talk about everyday affairs.

-- Where is it more pleasant for you, in Canada or Poland?

- I don't know. Everywhere its advantages. At Cricket Club, the training process is organized at a high professional level. This is the best option for training. Yes, and with Brian, I have a very warm relationship. And in Poland, I am helped by an excellent technical specialist and trainer of dancers Sylvia Novak-Trebacka, and I also have many friends there, she is closer to Russia and my mother or grandmother comes to me more often. In Canada, I sometimes live alone.

-- Basically, all skaters live with their moms.

- And I am alone for periods of time. If I need advice, I’ll call. But I was never a problem child, mom and dad know what a responsible person I am. I’m seventeen years old on my passport, but morally I feel older. Due to the change of citizenship, I sometimes had to live alone already at fifteen years. These circumstances taught me to take care of myself. The paperwork processing lasted eight months, and at that time I often trained on my own. It was a difficult period, sometimes there was no one with me. But these difficulties only made me stronger. Now, when I feel bad, I remember that time and realize that some current problems are trifles, nonsense.

-- Maxim Trankov told me in an interview that Canada is Russia the other way around. Canadians and I are alike, but only they are more and more friendly.

- I didn’t notice such a difference. Canada for me is when squirrels and chipmunks are everywhere. Skunks and raccoons live near my house. I came from Moscow, where we have only stray cats and dogs. And here the squirrels run quietly, but somehow the skunk came up to me. I had a shock. Wow, I think, and I really liked it.

Medvyedeva is an example for me

-- A number of talented Russian skaters squandered the inability to eat. How are you doing with this?

- For this, I am grateful to all my coaches from Russia, they taught me how not to recover while counting calories. If someone started retraining me now in relation to nutrition, it would have been difficult. I was instilled in this culture from childhood and now it does not cause me any difficulties.

-- What favourite dish do you eat and do not gain from?

- I do not really like to eat. I don't even have a favourite dish. True, I do not enjoy food, with the exception of chocolates. Cakes and pies - no, I don't like them, particularly those with creams. But chocolates and marmalades are my weakness. So, before training, a piece of chocolate will not hurt. On the contrary, it will give energy.

-- Another Orser figure skater Yevgeniya Medvedeva even became partly a vegetarian, but not for ideological reasons, but in order to maintain her form.

- This option does not suit me. I really don’t like the taste. For example, from meat I like only chicken and turkey. I do not like lamb, nor pork, nor fish, and as for seafood, I have an intolerance to its smell. Immediately I become sick. And when I started to chew mutton, pork or beef, then everything climbed straight back.

-- Convenient organism.

- For Sports.

-- Do you communicate with Medvyedeva?

- Yes, it seems to me that we are friends in something. We have a good relationship, and she supports me, and I have her.

-- In Russia, it is very difficult for fans to perceive this, someone loves you, someone hates you.

- All athletes have well-wishers and foes. Anyone on Instagram can post any comment.

-- Do you think Zhenya will achieve her goal and reach some kind of sporting success, where she can tell “I did it”?

- She can already say that. Zhenya is a great athlete who has achieved incredible results. She is a two-time world champion, a two-time European champion, a two-time winner of the Grand Prix Final, a two-time Olympic medalist. What Zhenya did not win ... She is cool not only in medals, but in relation to sports. By the way she trains and how she approaches life, we can say that she is really a person with a capital letter. I take an example from Zhenya.

-- Is it possible to compete with current leaders in modern women's skating without quadruples? Maybe not even right now, but after some time.

- I think yes. Because figure skating consists not only of jumps, but also of spins, paths of steps, the second assessment. It’s important not to get stuck in the jumps, but in any case, when you have quads, it's easier for you. But everyone makes mistakes, and if you skate cleanly with your triples and complex cascades, achieve an interesting image on the ice, you can calmly fight for good places.

-- Do you have the feeling that you are coming to this European Championship and feel addicted to others who have either quadruples or a triple axel?

- I have no such feelings, because I never think of places. I went to the recent Warsaw Cup Challenger and could not even hope that I would win it, because the tournament was incredibly strong with American Brady Tennell. But I skated cleanly and it turned out that I took advantage of her ratings.

-- You have a good cascade of triple Lutz - triple Rittberger.

- Thanks. Yes, it has become better and more stable. If you make this cascade clean, then it will give as much as a quadruple. There is also the Lutz - Euler - Flip program.

Trusova motivates me to develop

-- What are your ambitions?

- The most serious. I will fight to the end, go to my goal and dream.

-- What dream?

- My own. I don’t want to share a specific one, but it is connected with sports, and just with life.

-- Usually such a dream is associated with the Olympics.

- Mine not only with this ...

-- When Sasha Trusova was very small, she already said that she wanted to win the Olympic Games.

- Everybody wants this. But my emphasis is not on the fact that I want to win something, but rather on how to show myself. Prove that I am a strong athlete. And I will show it to everyone.

-- I heard that if an athlete from Estonia falls into the top eight, then everyone is happy. What is required of you in Poland?

- We do not have any kind of pressure, no one has yet told me something in the spirit: "You have to do it!"

-- And when you were called, what wishes were expressed?

- It all started with the fact that the ex-president of the Polish Figure Skating Federation saw me at the home tournament, and he liked me. We exchanged contacts, and when the question arose of introducing another country, we chose Poland. When I arrived in a new status, they greeted me with the words: "You are back!" Everyone was glad to see me as their own.

-- Who of the Russian skaters do you like more?

- That's a kind of provocative question ...

-- Why? The skaters often say: "I really like Carolina Costner."

- Carolina Costner is also very impressive to me. And it seems to me that almost every Russian girl has something for me to learn. I try to take from them what I like. But I don’t try to clickbait and parody anyone. Sasha Trusova, for example, has incredible leaps and when you look at her, she motivates you to develop and try to do quadruples.

-- When Aleksander Zhulin first saw Trusova's quadruple Lutz, he admitted: "At first I thought it was triple, because it was made with such ease." What emotions did you have when you first saw Sasha jumps quadruples?

- When this happened, I also did quad Salchow in Russia, it simply did not matter. I did not perceive this as shock content, because I also worked well at the rink and also made good attempts.

-- Where is your quadruple Salchow now?

- I'm training it, but have not stabilised it yet. We changed the technique a bit and moved a little away from it.

-- With age, it'll be more difficult to execute ...

-- It seems to me that since I am so small (Kurakova’s height is 152 cm - RIA Novosti) that I have no such problems. It happens that over the years it’s harder to force yourself to do it. But I never thought that at seventeen years old, I am aged. Now it all comes down to the fact that at seventeen you can retire. I do not think so. For me, a much greater idol is the same Carolina Costner you mentioned, which has reached thirty-one. There is something to admire. I also want a long career, and this is also one of the reasons for the change of citizenship. I would like to be remembered in figure skating.

(c) Анатолий Самохвалов
-----
From: https://rsport.ria.ru/20200128/1563983015.html

-- It has long been a stereotype that the Poles do not like Russians.

- Not true! I was also told about this, but when I came to Poland, still representing Russia, I felt the exact opposite. Once a taxi driver found out that I was Russian, he began to remember the language and tried to speak Russian with me. The past generation of Poles did learn Russian language without fail. Many still remember it, read poetry. And now everyone admires that a Russian girl came to them and learned Polish. Therefore, it seems to me that the dislike for Russians in Poland is nothing but a stereotype and a lie.

-- Have you already learned Polish?

- Yes, especially over the summer I gained lots in the language. I opened a Google translator and went to Starbucks. Soon, I began to speak calmly, without any problems of understanding and intention to express something. An interview has already been given in Polish, even on television. I visited Poland often this year, because the process of applying for a Canadian visa was not fast, so I stayed there for almost three months.

-- What do you like most in this country?

- I really like the city of Torun in which I live. So small, beautiful, European, where it's nice to walk. And I also like the people who surround me. They are all so kind and lovely, they always help and support me.

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I'm so so happy that she enjoys Poland and loves Toruń (I grew up closely to Toruń so it's sentimental for me). And yay for fighting with stereotype that we don't like each other when it comes to Russians - we have no problems with Russian and actually we have more and more Russian tourists every year. When I visited Moscow and Petersburg I experienced nothing but kindness and some people even expressed they'd love to visit Poland.

Katya is very mature but enjoys her life so so much. Also living at times alone in foreign country a 17... it's hard

Katia is on the entry list for Junior Nationals on Feb. 7-8. I understand she has to win the JWC spot but this makes the time she can work on URs at TCC so much shorter... Great she's so enthusiastic for hardworking .

Edwin said:

Poland has good people, and Canada has squirrels, raccoons and skunks.

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It's one of the most bizarre subheading I've ever read

icetug said:

It's one of the most bizarre subheading I've ever read

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Pretty sure I've seen quite a few squirrels in Poland Haha.

DenissVFan said:

Pretty sure I've seen quite a few squirrels in Poland Haha.

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Not as many as in Canada or UK. And Polish red squirrels usually run away from people and grey squirrels from Canada will run after you xD

Katia with Stephane https://twitter.com/_shtorrrka/status/1222890545850150913

Another, slightly more 'revealing/pretentious' interview with Kurakova: https://www.gazeta.ru/sport/2020/02/04/a_12943117.shtml

I hope she gets to have the long career she dreams of.

DenissVFan said:

I hope she gets to have the long career she dreams of.

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Well, it is in TCC/BOrser's interest she has ;-)