2017-2018 State of Russian Ice Dance

Nightcrawler · Mar 1, 2018

gmyers said:
Russia could have made i/k Russian champions going into Sochi but they didn’t! And then I/k didn’t even win euros that year either because b/s was number one! Euros 2014 very interesting because no hint at all I/k would win Olympic bronze at all! That didn’t develop until team trophy in Sochi. At the Olympics!

I&K didn't win Euros in 2014 because Elena fell on the twizzles, not because B&S were propped up by the Federation (which they were, but they were also the most consistent competitors). Besides, B&S didn't even compete in Budapest!
Elena&Nikita would've easily won gold at Euros and Worlds that year had they stayed on their feet (strangely enough, C&L benefitted on both occasions!). In fact, the three times they didn't mess up that season, they beat V&M's TES at the Trophée Eric Bombard, won bronze in Sochi and the FD in Saitama.

I don't know about the 2014 Nationals because although they fell on the straight-line lift and took -3 in deductions, their score might not have been high enough for gold even if they had skated clean.

One of the biggest problems with Russian ID during this quad was keeping their teams together. On one hand, you can't force people to skate together if they hate each other, but losing 3 teams with potential in 2 years is too much. (I know Monko&Khalyavin split because of injury, but still).

coldblueeyes · Mar 1, 2018

It's the story of B/S' life, though. Picking up the slack when no other team can do it. They aren't the best, but they do know how to show up and compete - which I think was beneficial for I/K back in 2014, and it might prove again for S/B now.

Nightcrawler · Mar 1, 2018

coldblueeyes said:
It's the story of B/S' life, though. Picking up the slack when no other team can do it. They aren't the best, but they do know how to show up and compete - which I think was beneficial for I/K back in 2014, and it might prove again for S/B now.

Agreed. I don't dislike them nearly as much as it is suggested on this board. Their FD this year was surprisingly pleasing to me (which is telling, because I usually hate Zhulin's music choices). Russia was lucky to have them as a solid back-up and it's a shame they won't compete in Milan. Along with S&B, they could've realistically secured 3 spots for next year.

bramweld · Mar 1, 2018

charlotte14 said:
Are we sure Vika and Nikita are still a team... just saw his photo with Elena again...

They are very much a team. Nikita was just assisting with the master class held by the Academy of Champions.

Why else would Navka be spending so much time helping them with the Romantic Tango?

gmyers · Mar 1, 2018

Nightcrawler said:
Agreed. I don't dislike them nearly as much as it is suggested on this board. Their FD this year was surprisingly pleasing to me (which is telling, because I usually hate Zhulin's music choices). Russia was lucky to have them as a solid back-up and it's a shame they won't compete in Milan. Along with S&B, they could've realistically secured 3 spots for next year.

If Russia wanted 3 spots or thought 3 spots were possible b/s would be going! They would have been greatly incentivized to! If b/s had belief they could help their fellow ice dancers maximize their spots they would have gone! But now there is no belief. And even if they had belief at 2019 worlds Russia goes down to 2 spots again so what’s the point?

Mattieu said:
Psst gmyers, the Spanish train in Moscow!
If I am not mistaken, they are on their way to the top too!

Maybe teams should be following their lead as they are looking mighty successful to me.

That's 2 of my favourite teams on the rise who don't train in North America, H/K and S/B, so I think Russia is doing just fine!

Smart Díaz are Spanish champions. Smart Díaz are probably the future. Plus I was careful in my comment! I said no non Russian team wants to train in Russia.

Nightcrawler said:
I&K didn't win Euros in 2014 because Elena fell on the twizzles, not because B&S were propped up by the Federation (which they were, but they were also the most consistent competitors). Besides, B&S didn't even compete in Budapest!
Elena&Nikita would've easily won gold at Euros and Worlds that year had they stayed on their feet (strangely enough, C&L benefitted on both occasions!). In fact, the three times they didn't mess up that season, they beat V&M's TES at the Trophée Eric Bombard, won bronze in Sochi and the FD in Saitama.

I don't know about the 2014 Nationals because although they fell on the straight-line lift and took -3 in deductions, their score might not have been high enough for gold even if they had skated clean.

One of the biggest problems with Russian ID during this quad was keeping their teams together. On one hand, you can't force people to skate together if they hate each other, but losing 3 teams with potential in 2 years is too much. (I know Monko&Khalyavin split because of injury, but still).

Ilinykh fell on the twizzles in one segment of the competition. They lost both SD and FD! They lost both because all the political support was for B/S and not I/K. It’s the same at Russian nationals. Just because I/k would make a mistake in one segment doesn’t explain why if they were Russia’s number one team why they never beat b/s in either a SD or FD. So because b/s were always russia number one no matter how well I/k skated they never beat b/s in either a sd or fd in Russian nationals.

Russia focus was on other disciplines the past four years. No one really cared about ice dance other than keeping one team in top 10 and that’s it.

Nightcrawler · Mar 1, 2018

gmyers said:
Russia focus was on other disciplines the past four years. No one really cared about ice dance other than keeping one team in top 10 and that’s it.

I'm afraid the crisis goes deeper. Russia has never managed to produce decent teams under the IJS, full stop. I'm not counting Navka&Kostomarov because ice dance was transitioning and was almost at an infantile state, but since 2007 Russia has medalled exactly 3 times at Worlds (only one gold and quite controversial IIRC) and twice at the Olympics. That's 5 medals in 11 years (assuming no medals will be won in Milan), occasional medals being the exception rather than the rule. They need to learn how to teach modern ice dance and ditch the 6.0 system. The other countries have.

gmyers · Mar 1, 2018

Nightcrawler said:
I'm afraid the crisis goes deeper. Russia has never managed to produce decent teams under the IJS, full stop. I'm not counting Navka&Kostomarov because ice dance was transitioning and was almost at an infantile state, but since 2007 Russia has medalled exactly 3 times at Worlds (only one gold and quite controversial IIRC) and twice at the Olympics. That's 5 medals in 11 years (assuming no medals will be won in Milan), occasional medals being the exception rather than the rule. They need to learn how to teach modern ice dance and ditch the 6.0 system. The other countries have.

You are 100% right in all aspects!! It was so crazy when s/K’s temporary coach was Tchaikovskaya! Someone with no success in ijs at all and who taught 6.0 to tarasova! Yikes! That’s how far back their thinking is! It’s so crazy. Why can’t the federation learn ijs and not think tarasova and know everything???

charlotte14 · Mar 1, 2018

bramweld said:
They are very much a team. Nikita was just assisting with the master class held by the Academy of Champions.

Why else would Navka be spending so much time helping them with the Romantic Tango?

Well did you see the photos...

yeah it's good if Nikita still works with Vika as a team. Just saying in some of the photos it's... :drama:

starla16 · Mar 2, 2018

C'mon everyone knows gmyers has a love/hate relationship with russian ice dance.

Nightcrawler · Mar 2, 2018

starla16 said:
C'mon everyone knows gmyers has a love/hate relationship with russian ice dance.

I might be wrong but I detect a mixture of crushed hopes and frustration that I can relate to. I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in figure skating (my all time favourite skater retired last year and she never won the OGM), but I've been a fan of Russian gymnastics for years. The 2005-2009 quad was not a particularly happy one for me, right after Khorkina retired until Aleksandrov came back; competition after competition where the team would either get back empty-handed or with a minor medal, a tiny ray of hope and then a splat of Kovtun proportions, not unlike the state of Russian ice dance (or men for that matter).

gmyers · Mar 2, 2018

Nightcrawler said:
I might be wrong but I detect a mixture of crushed hopes and frustration that I can relate to. I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in figure skating (my all time favourite skater retired last year and she never won the OGM), but I've been a fan of Russian gymnastics for years. The 2005-2009 quad was not a particularly happy one for me, right after Khorkina retired until Aleksandrov came back; competition after competition where the team would either get back empty-handed or with a minor medal, a tiny ray of hope and then a splat of Kovtun proportions, not unlike the state of Russian ice dance (or men for that matter).

Yes- that’s totally correct! Why is it no one in Russia cares that their ice dance program no longer has any success or prospects for success and it’s is collapsing so horribly?!

1. They are focused on ladies first, pairs and then men with dance last.
2. The program is too far gone to be helped so better it wither on the vine until new generation
3. What’s successful is too distastefully anti Russian style to try to emulate in any way so it’s better to fail
4. No one in Russia knows how to figure out how to maximize ijs for dance- it’s too difficult! In other words it’s too difficult to do Russian style ice dance in the ijs of 2018
5. Internal power dynamics make it so that no one is allowed to accept help from external ijs experts like Canadians because that will hurt them as they are betraying Russia and therefore teams would fail at nationals.

I don’t believe there is no talent among Russian dancers anymore! The talent is there but they are being trained Russian style! It’s like having great students in a bad school run by incompetent people! If roots are poisoned the fruit will be poison!

Mattieu · Mar 2, 2018

Gmyers, you will eat your words next season when my babies S/B medal everywhere ha ha

So Russians don't understand IJS Gmyers?
So how come a RUSSIAN team can get the 4th highest TES base value in the world? (See Bobrova's scores)

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1718/owg2018/OWG2018_IceDance_FD_Scores.pdf

And yet another Russian team with an extremely high base value! (See S/B's scores)
Just half a point less then the Olympic Vice champions....
But of course Russia doesn't understand IJS, so how can this be possible Gymyers? Were the judges all blind?

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1718/ec2018/ec2018_IceDance_SD_Scores.pdf

coldblueeyes · Mar 2, 2018

Also, putting Hurtado/Khaliavin down compared to S/D just because they train in Russia seems very silly to me. It's like putting aside reason just because you have a hatred for the russian system. :rolleye:

Mattieu · Mar 2, 2018

coldblueeyes said:
Also, putting Hurtado/Khaliavin down compared to S/D just because they train in Russia seems very silly to me. It's like putting aside reason just because you have a hatred for the russian system.

Yes, totally, H/K are a much stronger team than S/D, which will be obvious at Worlds, as I cannot see S/D occupying the 10th spot that H/K would most likely have taken now that the British and VM are out.

Bluediamonds09 · Mar 2, 2018

Is there a thread for talk of how the Russian ice dancers will fare in the coming season?
Their only contender is the team that was banned from the Olympics. I’m dying for a strong Russian dance team! Are there any juniors to watch out for? Is a Russian team expected to win junior worlds next week?

Marta25 · Mar 2, 2018

Bluediamonds09 said:
Is there a thread for talk of how the Russian ice dancers will fare in the coming season?
Their only contender is the team that was banned from the Olympics. I’m dying for a strong Russian dance team! Are there any juniors to watch out for? Is a Russian team expected to win junior worlds next week?

Anastasia Skoptcova/Kirill Aleshin won JGPF in December and are together with Carreira/Ponomarenko the favorites for the Gold. Then there are Shevchenko/Eremenko and Ushakova/Nekrasov who were 4th and 5th at JGPF. They both have chances to win the Bronze. Ushakova/Nekrasov are very young, only 15/17 and already one of the best teams in Juniors. If we are talking about the future, I think they are the one of the teams to watch.

gmyers · Mar 2, 2018

Mattieu said:
Gmyers, you will eat your words next season when my babies S/B medal everywhere ha ha

So Russians don't understand IJS Gmyers?
So how come a RUSSIAN team can get the 4th highest TES base value in the world? (See Bobrova's scores)

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1718/owg2018/OWG2018_IceDance_FD_Scores.pdf

And yet another Russian team with an extremely high base value! (See S/B's scores)
Just half a point less then the Olympic Vice champions....
But of course Russia doesn't understand IJS, so how can this be possible Gymyers? Were the judges all blind?

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1718/ec2018/ec2018_IceDance_SD_Scores.pdf

Ijs is more than TES! I said Russia is trying to do 6.0 with ijs elements! But it’s more than meeting a level it’s geting goe on the element and having a program to get near 10 in PCs. PCs and goe is very important of course. B/s did a level 4 lift all season! But the knee lift with bobrova upside down was so wobbly and poorly executed most times it didn’t maximize goe. Zhulin said He feels they needed to focus on wow factor first, level second and goe last if at all! While other teams focus on simplicity in getting the level 4 and maximizing goe. Look at the goe for stli! Three ones? That’s a enormous gigantic failure. Then you have PCs. Russians want to do programs with extreme drama and symbolism and characters going through huge arcs and blindless being cured by love or whatever and then the program is all a dream and there’s huge depression at the end. How about just dancing to music? No of course not! Dancing? Lol!!

coldblueeyes said:
Also, putting Hurtado/Khaliavin down compared to S/D just because they train in Russia seems very silly to me. It's like putting aside reason just because you have a hatred for the russian system.

Well who trains in Russia? Why is North America number one choice. Milan number two choice and Russia seems like desperation where really no success comes from.

Mattieu said:
Yes, totally, H/K are a much stronger team than S/D, which will be obvious at Worlds, as I cannot see S/D occupying the 10th spot that H/K would most likely have taken now that the British and VM are out.

It’s so close. I mean they are equal and smart Diaz have much better coaches.

Bluediamonds09 said:
Is there a thread for talk of how the Russian ice dancers will fare in the coming season?
Their only contender is the team that was banned from the Olympics. I’m dying for a strong Russian dance team! Are there any juniors to watch out for? Is a Russian team expected to win junior worlds next week?

But the 2017-2018 season isn’t over yet!! I wasn’t planning a new thread til late April as per usual.

Russians do have a chance to win junior worlds but it’s meaningless for seniors based on precedent. Russia won jr worlds many times since 2010 and only s/b are still together and can barely make top 10 at worlds after being senior for 4 seasons.

Marta25 said:
Anastasia Skoptcova/Kirill Aleshin won JGPF in December and are together with Carreira/Ponomarenko the favorites for the Gold. Then there are Shevchenko/Eremenko and Ushakova/Nekrasov who were 4th and 5th at JGPF. They both have chances to win the Bronze. Ushakova/Nekrasov are very young, only 15/17 and already one of the best teams in Juniors. If we are talking about the future, I think they are the one of the teams to watch.

If they get good ijs coaching. No one is getting good ijs coaching in Russia. Better to be a team with any style than no style in juniors. That’s why Russians have been successful in juniors. Have the Russian style and do whatever it takes to make the levels no matter what it takes! if it takes bent posture for speed do bent posture!

coldblueeyes · Mar 2, 2018

gmyers said:
B/s did a level 4 lift all season! But the knee lift with bobrova upside down was so wobbly and poorly executed most times it didn’t maximize goe. Zhulin said He feels they needed to focus on wow factor first, level second and goe last if at all! While other teams focus on simplicity in getting the level 4 and maximizing goe. Look at the goe for stli! Three ones? That’s a enormous gigantic failure. Then you have PCs. Russians want to do programs with extreme drama and symbolism and characters going through huge arcs and blindless being cured by love or whatever and then the program is all a dream and there’s huge depression at the end. How about just dancing to music? No of course not! Dancing? Lol!!

Let's be real here for a moment and admit that some teams receive GOEs for name only in elements, especially the lifts. I think the system needs some revamping on that too because some lifts are just completely unecessary. But I won't dispute the score B/S got for the straight line lift, it never received good GOE all season for a reason. In comparison the rotational lift maximized GOE four, five teams this season.

gmyers · Mar 2, 2018

coldblueeyes said:
Let's be real here for a moment and admit that some teams receive GOEs for name only in elements, especially the lifts. I think the system needs some revamping on that too because some lifts are just completely unecessary. But I won't dispute the score B/S got for the straight line lift, it never received good GOE all season for a reason. In comparison the rotational lift maximized GOE four, five teams this season.

I do admit that! But the problem is b/s could have been one of those teams but the horrible decisions made prevented it. Judges are giving guidelines to all teams and Russia is choosing to ignore the guidelines. The roli worked the slli didn’t and never once did they deviate from the failure.

If the rule of +5/-5 passes I think only getting a one out of 5 could’ve changed it. With +5/-5 things with lifts could really change.

madison · Mar 4, 2018

Nikita had again a strange fall during yesterday show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buy6CPHjeEk

2017-2018 State of Russian Ice Dance

Nightcrawler

coldblueeyes

Nightcrawler

bramweld

gmyers

Nightcrawler

gmyers

charlotte14

starla16

Nightcrawler

gmyers

Mattieu

coldblueeyes

Mattieu

Bluediamonds09

Marta25

gmyers

coldblueeyes

gmyers

madison

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