2018-19 State of European Men's skating

Ice Dance said:

Gee, and I was under the impression that Deniss defeated Aliev at Worlds.

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icetug said:

As lavenderblossom said above, Daniel Grassl and Jonathan Hess are promising juniors. Luc Economides from France did well at JGP, also Basar Oktar from Turkey. As Bychenko retires, we probably will see Mark Gorodnitsky as a second Israeli skater. Hope that one of Belohradsky brothers shows up as a strong contender on side of Brezina. I remember quite good juniors from Sweden so Majorov will have a successor when he retires (his brother?). The second Latvian spot is waiting for the best junior (till now only Kims Georgs Pavlovs has TES high enough). Last but not least, believe that Kornel Witkowski from Poland joins the best European juniors soon.

And there is one more skater who I always considered a junior, but who is 20 now (and competed in EC five times ): Sondre Oddvoll Boe. Hope he reached his height finally and is able to improve significantly (despite his vegan diet )

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lavenderblossom said:

What a great idea for a thread

As far as retirements go:
I heard Javi plans to semi-retire in that he will still do Senior Bs and Europeans, but not GPs or Worlds.
Bychenko said after Worlds that he plans to retire.
Brezina said he wants to go for another season.
According to Jackie Wong Majorov is retiring.
I think Chafik Besseghier might be retiring but I'm not sure.

The top men after them in order of PBs are: Deniss Vasiljevs, Jorik Hendrickx, Daniel Samohin, Moris Kvitelashvili, Yaroslav Paniot, Matteo Rizzo, Paul Fentz, Romain Ponsart, Kevin Aymoz, and Ivan Pavlov. All of them have PBs between 210-260.
- Deniss saved his best skates for Worlds to earn that PB. (2 factoids - 6th is the highest Latvia has ever placed in any discipline at Worlds ever; Deniss is the youngest on this list and still junior eligible for another year lol) However, 2 spin levels aside, he was pristine clean, so he's gone about as high as is possible without quads.
- Jorik got his PB from Nebelhorn this season, and as far as I know he's continuing, so although I don't think he'll ever get a quad, the judges like him and he's a fairly reliable skater.
- Daniel has bags of potential (and plenty of quads), but every competition besides Olympics was a disaster. Which is a great time to peak, but if he'd had those skates at Euros he would've been 4th, and at Worlds he would have made the top 10
- Moris is a similar story, had his best skates at Rostelecom Cup and everything after was a mess
- Paniot has 4F and 4T, but... ehhh, is there something in the water in Europe? Quadsters are only allowed 1 good skate per season?
- Matteo did pretty well for himself! JW medal and a vast improvement in his overall skating. He's working on a 4T, I hope he can get it down by next season (he landed it at Worlds but it was UR.)
- Fentz had a Boyang-level disaster at Euros, but he's normally a bit better than that and he showed it at Worlds and Olympics. His Worlds score of 230.92 was a PB.
- Ponsart kind of made a breakthrough this season, his 4T is lovely. Onwards and upwards!
- Aymoz and Pavlov have some potential. Unfortunately, Aymoz wasn't allowed to go to Euros because he didn't have a quad, though he's working on 4T and 4S. (I think he put up a video of him landing them on instagram but I don't have it saved.) Pavlov has quads and his skating is not bad, but apparently the rink he trains at always closes over the summer so he doesn't have anywhere to train half the year round .

So the forecast seems a bit gloomy but on the positive side most of them are fairly young. In juniors Daniel Grassl from Italy has a 4Lz, he is 16 so that is something to look forward to. I think they all just need time to develop. I don't think we can pin any of them as European #1 just yet.

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Skater Boy said:

We shouldn't discount the Russians. They aren't consistent but they have threats. Probably two have shots at WBM and could all podium at Euros.

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lavenderblossom said:

Stephane Walker may be switching to ice dance with Giada Russo :reye:
His instagram post (note the tags).
Who will be his successor? :think:

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Tutto said:

It's a joke right?

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lavenderblossom said:

I sure hope so, but I'm really not sure because he made that instagram post hinting at it as well.
One would think it's too late in their respective careers to be switching disciplines.

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lavenderblossom said:

http://icepartnersearch.com/showbio.php?i=6295

He must be serious. Aww, I liked his skating... in his earlier ig stories, he posted videos of his program from Euros this year...

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fourthdimension said:

The next best Swiss skater is Nurullah Sahaka, who was 16th at junior worlds with a PB of 177.75. He’s 18, and I don’t know if he’ll be senior next year, but I’d guess so

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lavenderblossom said:

Bumping this thread since it's been a while

Euro Men GP assignments
Skate America: Jorik Hendrickx, Michal Brezina, Romain Ponsart, Moris Kvitelashvili, Alexei Bychenko, Matteo Rizzo, Sergei Voronov
Skate Canada: Kevin Aymoz, Daniel Samohin, Alexander Samarin, Alexander Majorov
Finland GP: Jorik Hendrickx, Michal Brezina, Alexei Bychenko, Alexey Erokhov, Mikhail Kolyada, Andrei Lazukin
NHK Trophy: Matteo Rizzo, Deniss Vasiljevs, Dmitri Aliev, Sergei Voronov, Yaroslav Paniot
Rostelecom Cup: Moris Kvitelashvili, Paul Fentz, Maurizio Zandron, Artur Dmitriev, Alexey Erokhov, Mikhail Kolyada, Alexander Majorov
Internationaux de France: Romain Ponsart, Chafik Besseghier, Deniss Vasiljevs, Dmitri Aliev, Alexander Samarin

Alexei Bychenko is listed therefore I assume he's not retiring after all! Hendrickx, Brezina, Fentz and Besseghier are also continuing.
Maurizio Zandron decided to skate for Austria so he will be giving up his spot at Rostelecom. https://www.zazoom.it/2018-07-16/pa...ale-azzurra-sara-un-atleta-austriaco/4457338/ Sad since this was to be his GP debut.

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plushyfan said:

Only one assignment for Samohin?

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lavenderblossom said:

Maurizio Zandron decided to skate for Austria so he will be giving up his spot at Rostelecom. https://www.zazoom.it/2018-07-16/pa...ale-azzurra-sara-un-atleta-austriaco/4457338/ Sad since this was to be his GP debut.

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sweetice said:

Whaaaaat ?

Why doing that and giving up a chance to be at Grand Prix ? Is already 25 years old...

Who goes there now ? Righini ? Can Grassl skate both two JGP and one senior GP ?

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