2019 Europeans: Ladies FS

In her debut at this event, Russia's Sofia Samodurova captured her the Ladies' title at the 2019 European Figure Skating Championships on Friday in Minsk, Belarus. Teammate Alina Zagitova had a sub-par performance to slip to second for the silver, while Viveca Lindfors of Finland won the bronze.

“I am overwhelmed by emotions now,” admitted 16-year-old Samodurova. “I can’t find words to describe what I am feeling now. I am European Champion and that’s so awesome! My coach told me to stop crying, but I can’t. These are just my sincere emotions. Probably I am more happy about the fact that my coach is pleased with me.”

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Lots of surprises here! What are your thoughts on the Ladies FS?

Nicely done, Sofya!

Zagi: Hope she gets her issues in line for worlds.

Thrilled for Sofia! She's been consistent and unflappable all season and she absolutely deserved the win.

A little suspicious about the PCS marks, not necessarily because I think Sofia's should be higher, but because (as much as I love Alina) that skate was not deserving of 70+ PCS.

Happy for Viveca as well - what a great skate for her! And I'm a little biased because I adore Les Mis programs but truly it was lovely.

"I expect to be proven wrong, but I also see Zagitova giving away precious points in the FS and Sofia pulling ahead. But I'd love for Alina to just skate her best and gain some confidence back."

I wasn't wrong. And Alina needs to get her head back in the game, though I'm not confident in it.

I secretly hoped that Sofia would win and Viveca would win a medal and here we go. Congrats

This shows us that it's not over until it's over.

Well I guess the Russian World team is very clear now: Sofia, Alina, Elizaveta

Big congrats to Sofia for skating well yet again! Her consistency is really helping her this season and I love the improvements she made to her program. Really sad to see that Alina is continuing to struggle...

I figured based on their personal bests that Viveca had the better chance at bronze compared to Alexia, which turned out to be the case.

Alina’s jump technique is declining with alarming speed. Six months ago I thought she’d have one more season at the top before the usual Sambo 70 issues began to take her down.

Thrilled for Sofia.

Firstly, Sofia, while not skating as well as she usually does, really held it together and I think that at the end of this she really is the most deserving winner and I'm so happy that her consistency paid off for her. Of course, I'd love to see if she and Mishin can work on increasing the height in her jumps because they do look really small, but overall I'm so happy for her!

Secondly, I'm so happy for Stanislava for being able to give a skate that she was happy with and end with the 2nd highest score of the night! I hope this encourages her to work more and help her regain her confidence as much as possible after what would've been a rough short program.

Third, I'm so happy for Viveca that she managed to get a medal at Europeans! I hope that the medal encourages her to work harder and tighten everything else up in her programs as well.

And lastly, to discuss the elephant in the room, Alina. I'm honestly so upset because this girl is such a fighter and seems like such a hard worker but I feel like she's not getting the guidance she deserves to get through puberty. I saw how hard Alina was fighting to try and save some of those jumps and salvage something but her technique is just falling apart and Eteri doesn't seem to be working on it much at all, considering its getting worse as the season continues. And to find out that Eteri has this poor girl, who is struggling to get her triples around, practicing a 4 Flip doesn't make me feel optimistic at all. More than that, I feel that attention isn't being paid to her basic skating skills that are also becoming progressively worse. I really hope Alina finds the help that she needs to get through this because this girl is an Olympic Champion who is capable of so much and I really hope that Alina isn't falling out of love with the sport because of this season. I hope that we can just see Alina happy and smiling once more while realising her potential like she did last season.

Colonel Green said:

Alina’s jump technique is declining with alarming speed. Six months ago I thought she’d have one more season at the top before the usual Sambo 70 issues began to take her down.

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After all those years Eteri is still yet to deliver a SINGLE skater who survives the puberty.
I start to wonder if Eteri is not actually doing damage to figure skating. And figure skaters.

Manitou said:

After all those years Eteri is still yet to deliver a SINGLE skater who survives the puberty.

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I doubt she ever will. She doesnt care to focus on skills that will create longevity, why would she when she always has another batch to replace those in decline.

I would bet big money that Kostornia leaves Eteri isn’t he next two seasons.

So happy for Viveca! She’s really working it this year. I hope she can place top 10 at worlds and get a second slot for Finland.

Good for Sofia and her championship, she truly capitalized on her opportunities this season.

I'm so thrilled for Sofia. She totally deserved to get that gold medal and I'm so so so happy for Sofia. :hap57: From the start of this season I'd always root for her because she has perfect artistry and very good technique. I hope she performs as well as today in Worlds. Well done Sofia

About Alina, she really didn't deserve 70+ PCS for her skating. Judges should have given those points to Sofia instead of Alina. Also, after today I highly doubt she can get back to her amazing performances because as much as I love her, sadly her technique is falling apart and she is having really hard times while skating.

I'm glad that Viveca managed to get a medal. I hope she keeps getting them. :thumbsup:

Congrats to Sofia! I mean I’m pleasantly surprised but far from shocked by her defying the expectations that the gold is somehow guaranteed to a fellow competitor. Her win is merited and can’t be disputed. Sofia and Liza have both shown that they are reliable competitors with a strong competitive mindset this season, and have the momentum. Mishin must be so proud.

As already noted by some, Alina’s team unfortunately seems to be looking the other way by having her practice a 4Flip rather than work on her existing jumps that have largely regressed, along with her skating skills, and seemingly continuing to do so with subsequent competitions. I stand by what I said about her best hope this season for a World medal is a bronze, if her team is still relying on the judges to still score her based on reputation (which they still do, 70+ PCS for that subpar skate??) and ignore the issues. However, the technical panel has shown that they won’t give her obvious UR’s (also a DG here) a pass anymore. It’s best for her to find other mentors.

And good for Viveca. Defying the expectatiions of a Russian sweep and getting a medal for Finland, the first to do so since Kiira Korpi in 2012.

Sofia skated well so good for her and congrats. I really wonder how Alina got those marks with that skate. But most of all, this was really great for Viveca. A lovely FS and a medal well deserved. And 3 spots for Finland next year, well done ladies.

After the 1-2 punch of quotes from Eteri “she survives on protein shakes thank God”(about yulia) and “once a girl turns 18 she gets a mother’s body” I didnt think there can be any questions of how equipped she is to deal with puberty and growth spurts in skaters. She isn’t. It’s really sad to see it play out in real time in front of all our faces with Alina though. It seems with every competition she becomes more and more unstable. I expected some jump mistakes today but I was surprised to see just how rough her basic skating looked. She’s living on borrowed time unfortunately and I hope next year she can find a new coaching situation because she is talented. It would be such a waste.

Quietly thrilled that both Mae and Laurine have worked their way up the ranks again to place high. And get three spots for France next year! There's going to be a battle for who gets that one.

And Viveca is all sorts of talented and charming. Can't wait to see where she goes next.

But I did miss Loena.

On a related note, can we please get the tech panel who judged here or at least Mr. Sandor Galambos of Switzerland to be the technical specialist at more events? Not only did they call UR's that were previously often overlooked but they were not afraid to call <<'s, even if a competitor is from a big Fed with reputation. Refreshing to see calls made based on rotation rather than politics, which is not only fairer for competitors that fully rotate their jumps but also motivates those competitors who do (and should) get calls for their UR's to improve their jumps. A win-win for the sport :agree:.

Alina told to practice 4f instead of working on her deteriorating triples? This is coaching?

It now becomes quite clear why Evgenia Medvedeva left Eteri and moved to a coach who isn't afraid to deal with (physically) developing skaters.

Harriet said:

But I did miss Loena.

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I did too. One of my pre-season wishes was her medaling at Europeans; very possible there'll never be a better chance for her than there was here.

Colonel Green said:

I did too. One of my pre-season wishes was her medaling at Europeans; very possible there'll never be a better chance for her than there was here.

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never say never. if you ask skating fans a year ago who whould say Sofia Samodurova who placed last in JGPF will won Euros? Leona has a good chance to be sent to European consistently for few years in the future since there is not yet Belgium skater that senior eligible and better than her.

Both Sofia and Viveca were great! I really enjoyed the last two groups.

What I personally don't get is why they make Alina do all those stupid transitions at this point in her career. She's grown a lot, she has knee pain, she's done an incredible amount of competitons in the last years and she's still doing quite well considering all that.
That's what Mishin is good at (apart from many other things of course), making programs less complicated, so that the skater can actually handle it under pressure. Seeing Alina struggle like that is not funny. And I'm not even a huge fan of her. It's almost as if her team wants to see her fail. One or two additional crossovers here and there, a couple of breathing points and she would still win and she could feel confident and not overwhelmed by all that she has to do in this overstuffed FS.
What I mean to say is - I don't think that, at this point, her jumping technique is the real problem, the choreography is. And it's not even good, it's just overstuffed for the sake of being overstuffed. Her team really failed her imho.