2019-20 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

Happy Skates said:

I agree on the first part, but I was saying their intentions for originally giving her the event may not have been to "help Eteri skaters". They only had one substitute which supports the theory that Sinitsyna and Tarakanova were given the assignment because they had US Visas. They wouldn't just have one (injured) substitute for no reason. Even if your reason were true, they would have put the other non-Eteri skaters (Vasilieva, Frolova) as subs.

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If Panova didn’t appeal this it was really stupid. But it wouldn’t have been the only thing her camp didn’t have their ducks in a row on.

Why wasn’t Maya’s second assignment Chelyabinsk if she was to receive one? What about Daria? 10th at nationals but yes lets make #4 and 6 eat each other.

nussnacker said:

Logic and common sense isnÂ’t the thing that conspiracy theorists use youÂ’re having too much hope in some people
Listen, Sinitsina was entered there, because federation hates her, and she was not allowed to enter the US because US government personally interfered no other way, clearly!

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I'm not a theorist, just wonder why Eteri junior skaters rarely face each other before the finals.

And that is indeed a fact, it happened like only two-three times in 5 years.

2014: Medvedeva and Sakhanovich never faced each other before the finals.

2015: She only had Polina Tsurskaya

2016: Zagitova never faced Tsurskaya in the JGP.

2017: only happened once between Panenkova and Kostornaya, Trusova and Tarakanova never faced each other.
BTW It wasn't supposed to happen since i remember clearly Kostornaya got her assignment last minute after skating well at a cup event. (she joined the team later)

2018: Shchebakova, Trusova and Kostornaya never faced each other

2019: a bit of an exception, it happened twice, although some may argue Khromykh was the weaker one of the three. (personally i prefer her over Usacheva anyway)

Yeah let's pretend this is a conspiracy theory sure.

Also i don't buy that theory about Sinitsyna: she would have been allowed with a valid visa and she would have likely finished second or third.

*~RussianBleux~* said:

Sinitsyna is better than Vasilieva and getting more consistent. I am not trying to argue Vasilieva is #1 or anything but RusFed’s first concern should be getting as many Russian skaters as possible to the final because this is what drives the sport forward in Russia.

The reason I keep saying consistency matters is because when assessing skaters like Vasilieva, Sinitsyna, Khromykh, and Usacheva to determine who should skate where to maximize the number of skaters you have to consider the full package including consistency. It counts! Because you cannot say transitions, posture, line, skating skills, any of that when the skater is prone to multiple errors. You are risking a really good Japanese or Korean skater coming in and taking the medal. In Maya’s case it happened and Daria’s case it was so very close. Yet Vasilieva very clearly beats Matsuike there. Which is consistent with what we have seen from Vasilieva in the past year yet what RusFed must’ve chosen not to take into consideration when determining the assignments.

Vika best some pretty big names at the Cup Final too from what I remember.

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Oh for sure consistency helps a lot, i mean look at Samodurova, not many people believed in her at first but she kept skating clean over and over and it definitely paid off in the past 2 seasons.

If you stop to think, Rusfed tends to spread their skaters trying to maximize chances etc etc etc

Conspiracy theory people - Eteri has no leverage other than coaching top skaters. She is not some evil genius behind all rusfed decisions.

moriel said:

If you stop to think, Rusfed tends to spread their skaters trying to maximize chances etc etc etc

Conspiracy theory people - Eteri has no leverage other than coaching top skaters. She is not some evil genius behind all rusfed decisions.

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Btw i'm not blaming this, RusFed is smart: Eteri skaters statistically tend to get better results, they proved it so they are not wrong on betting on the winning team (and they tend to do the same for other disciplines too, like Irina Zhuk group in Ice Dance, so this is nothing new)

Pretending Federations don't play such strategies is silly then believe what you want.

Tolstoj said:

What a contrast from last season where the russian girls in juniors won all the events and most of the silvers, this season only Valieva so far has won a gold medal among them.

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Well I think we should all realize that Shcherbakova/Kostornaia/Trusova were/are a unique group of skaters in the junior ranks. I feel this year the Russian Junior ladies is filled with more 'rookies' in terms of competing internationally than last season, and lets not panic yet - this group has managed 11 of the 18 available medals on the JGP this year.

I think RusFed probably cares more about how many Russian skaters get into the final, not how many Eteri skaters. Or else why would Khromykh have to face her two training mates? She’s weaker than them (in terms of consistency) so of course that makes sense. And also it makes sense for RusFed not to send their strongest skater (Valieva) against somehow who has potential to beat her.

moriel said:

If you stop to think, Rusfed tends to spread their skaters trying to maximize chances etc etc etc

Conspiracy theory people - Eteri has no leverage other than coaching top skaters. She is not some evil genius behind all rusfed decisions.

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I’m not saying Eteri asked for this. She doesn’t need to ask anyone for anything. I think they wanted another 3A and bit off more they could chew assuming that every skater coming from that camp automatically would come with that kind of talent and mental strength. Now they know but I’m just saying they could and should have known this earlier from National results and test skates (isn’t that what this is supposed to be for).

To have a skater who is capable of scoring over 130 in the free miss the final for a skater from another Federation with scores around 125 is some pretty poor planning.

Also can we address the elephant in the room?

With all this talk about quads, why Valieva and Khromykh (to some extent Usacheva too) haven't attempted triple axel yet? Their 2a is soo big and long, they are clearly ready for 3,5 revolutions.

Are they keeping this as a tech upgrade for next season? what's deal? cause certainly Khromykh would have benefited having a 3a or two to get the points she couldn't get from the combos.

TripleAxelQueens3 said:

I think RusFed probably cares more about how many Russian skaters get into the final, not how many Eteri skaters. Or else why would Khromykh have to face her two training mates? She’s weaker than them (in terms of consistency) so of course that makes sense. And also it makes sense for RusFed not to send their strongest skater (Valieva) against somehow who has potential to beat her.

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That’s the whole point. Rus Fed knows two silvers is generally enough. So yes she was facing her training mates but she wasn’t put in a situation where she was basically guaranteed bronze like the Panova and Davydov skaters were. She easily could have come in second in France, and won Riga. Daria easily could have won her events but didn’t. They were all ready to hand it to both of them over Haein! Now not only does Haein coast to the final but there is perhaps some political shifting in her favor.

Tolstoj said:

Also can we address the elephant in the room?

With all this talk about quads, why Valieva and Khromykh (to some extent Usacheva too) haven't attempted triple axel yet? Their 2a is soo big and long, they are clearly ready for 3,5 revolutions.

Are they keeping this as a tech upgrade for next season? what's deal? cause certainly Khromykh would have benefited having a 3a or two to get the points she couldn't get from the combos.

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Because it takes a lot of time and work to learn a 3A? Because height and distance aren't all that's required? Alena has the biggest 2A but hasn't stabilized a 3A. Polina Tsurskaya had some of the biggest jumps in ladies and didn't have any 3A/quads. Pretty sure you have to be able to rotate fast enough, have the require air position, timing, etc.

Tolstoj said:

I'm not a theorist, just wonder why Eteri junior skaters rarely face each other before the finals.

And that is indeed a fact, it happened like only two-three times in 5 years.

2014: Medvedeva and Sakhanovich never faced each other before the finals.

2015: She only had Polina Tsurskaya

2016: Zagitova never faced Tsurskaya in the JGP.

2017: only happened once between Panenkova and Kostornaya, Trusova and Tarakanova never faced each other.
BTW It wasn't supposed to happen since i remember clearly Kostornaya got her assignment last minute after skating well at a cup event. (she joined the team later)

2018: Shchebakova, Trusova and Kostornaya never faced each other

2019: a bit of an exception, it happened twice, although some may argue Khromykh was the weaker one of the three. (personally i prefer her over Usacheva anyway)

Yeah let's pretend this is a conspiracy theory sure.

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Buahahahhaha No jokes, Sherlock!
Why stop there though?
Shelepen and Yulia also never met on jgp stages in 2012! The Eteri powah from day 1! I’m pretty sure if we’d dig deeper, we’d find out that before that Yulia and Yevgeniya never met on junior Russian cup stages!
But what happened this year though? Why send injured Maya to events that soon with stronger competitors and not give her time to recover, like it was allowed to some other skaters? Why send an injured skater on a very short notice the second time? Is she losing da powah?

LOL, I’m surprized people are thinking Rusfed is playing some elaborate mind games for some placements on junior level. Rusfed surely cares about jgp more than some other federations, who are much weaker at strategizing. But you’re bringing it too far. They probably had people with valid us visas and thought it was an easy decision to send them to US, since obtaining US visas is notably quite hard right now, as applications are getting stuck for several months. Everyone has been discussing that, when proving conspiracy theorists how Sinitsina’s rejection was not an inquiry from the White House, but now we’re ignoring that fact yet again. Panova Team had them due their trip to Raf.

Tolstoj said:

I'm not a theorist, just wonder why Eteri junior skaters rarely face each other before the finals.

And that is indeed a fact, it happened like only two-three times in 5 years.

2014: Medvedeva and Sakhanovich never faced each other before the finals.

2015: She only had Polina Tsurskaya

2016: Zagitova never faced Tsurskaya in the JGP.

2017: only happened once between Panenkova and Kostornaya, Trusova and Tarakanova never faced each other.
BTW It wasn't supposed to happen since i remember clearly Kostornaya got her assignment last minute after skating well at a cup event. (she joined the team later)

2018: Shchebakova, Trusova and Kostornaya never faced each other

2019: a bit of an exception, it happened twice, although some may argue Khromykh was the weaker one of the three. (personally i prefer her over Usacheva anyway)

Yeah let's pretend this is a conspiracy theory sure.

Also i don't buy that theory about Sinitsyna: she would have been allowed with a valid visa and she would have likely finished second or third.



Oh for sure consistency helps a lot, i mean look at Samodurova, not many people believed in her at first but she kept skating clean over and over and it definitely paid off in the past 2 seasons.

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Panova skaters didn't meet each other last year... and neither did Dayvdov's. Don't you think its more likely that RusFed just likes to spread students from different schools around the assignments? And this year, they initially had Kanysheva and Usacheva, both strong Eteri skaters, set to meet each other. That kind of derails your theory about Khromykh just being assigned against another Eteri skater because she's "weaker".

As far as I can tell, RusFed usually sends one stronger skater and one weaker skater to each event to balance things out, so let's see how the test skating ranks affected the assignments.

Test skates:

(1) Valieva - Clean SP, Clean FS (with quad).
(2) Sinitsyna - Clean SP, Clean FS (with backloaded combos).
(3) Kanysheva - Clean SP, Clean FS (but with shaky landings).
(4) Usacheva - Clean SP, 1 Fall in FS.
(5) Tarakanova - Clean SP, 1 Fall and Missing Jump in FS.
(6) Frolova - Clean SP, 1 Fall and 2 Missing Jumps in FS.
(7) Khromykh - Clean SP, 1 Fall and 2 Missing Jumps in FS (I put her below Frolova because of shaky landings).
(8) Vasilieva - 1 Fall in SP, WD from FS.
(9) Tarusina - Missed Test Skates (injured).

So for assignments, we have:

Courchevel: Valieva + Khromykh. 1+7.
That's one stronger skater and one weaker skater (if we assume strong/weak entirely on test skates, of course).

Lake Placid: (Sinitsyna) + Tarakanova. 2+5.
This event was more of an exception because of how hard it is to get a US visa, so they assigned those with visas to Lake Placid. You can see this from them having only Tarusina as a sub for this event - unlike all the other events, the other skaters simply weren't options for Lake Placid. No visas, after all. But technically speaking, they still did assign one skater from the top half of the list, and one skater from the bottom half of the list (if we delete Tarusina, who didn't compete on the JGP, then Tarakanova's 5th technically does fall in the bottom half, even if she's the highest skater there).

Riga: Usacheva + Khromykh. 4+7.
This one is more questionable. Technically Usacheva's 4th does fall in the top half of the skaters, but she's at the bottom of the top half. But still, it's one skater from the stronger half and one skater from the weaker half.

Chelyabinsk: Valieva + Sinitsyna + Vasilieva. 1+2+8.
If I'm remembering correctly, Sinitsyna's place was originally either Tarusina's or Frolova's. She got subbed in after Lake Placid's mishap. So that would make it 1+8+9, or 1+7+8. One skater from the top half and two from the bottom half. There's really nothing questionable about that if we're going off the results of test skates. Unless the argument is that test skates shouldn't matter and the fed should only be looking at skates from the previous season, then I don't see how anyone (the Davydov skaters) were unfairly screwed over at Chelyabinsk. (Sinitsyna was only there as a sub.)

Gdansk: Tarakanova + Vasilieva. 5+8.
This is the only questionable one. It has two skaters from the bottom half of the list. I think the fed might've just decided to sacrifice both to Alysa Liu after both got bronze medals. Or maybe it was a side effect of all the scrambling after Sinitsyna's visa issues and Kanysheva withdrawing from the JGP right around then. The layout clearly wasn't intended because Vasilieva had to compete back to back. I think Sinitsyna was supposed to be there at first? So that does point towards RusFed deciding to sacrifice Vasilieva for her bronze, because they could've had Sinitsyna or Vasilieva compete back-to-back and they chose Vasilieva. Maybe they weren't expecting her to take silver over Tarakanova here.

Zagreb: Usacheva + Frolova. 4+6.
One skater from the lower top half, one skater from the upper bottom half. I think that makes enough sense. Maybe it isn't ideal in terms of consistency, but it does make sense based on test skates.

Egna: Sinitsyna + Frolova. 2+6.
One from the top half and one from the bottom half. It makes sense. The thing that doesn't make sense according to test skates would be the original assignments (Sinitsyna + Kanysheva, 2+3), but that's explainable because they had to push Sinitsyna to the end because of the visa issues, and Kanysheva to the end because of her medical issues.

So in the end there's really no conspiracy theory that I can see. RusFed just put everything down to test skates. Panova's skaters weren't screwed over by having to go to Lake Placid, they were simply the only ones who could get visas on time. (If this wasn't the case then surely the sub list would've been longer). When Sinitsyna's visa issues popped up they scrambled to give her two new assignments with a good period of time in between. Davydov's skaters weren't treated unfairly, they were given bad assignments because they missed test skates. The conspiracy theories are fun, I guess, but at the end of the day, if you look at what happened at test skates then none of what happened was unreasonable. Unless the argument is that test skates shouldn't hold any weight and that we should only be looking at the previous season's results.

Happy Skates said:

Panova skaters didn't meet each other last year... and neither did Dayvdov's. Don't you think its more likely that RusFed just likes to spread students from different schools around the assignments? And this year, they initially had Kanysheva and Usacheva, both strong Eteri skaters, set to meet each other. That kind of derails your theory about Khromykh just being assigned against another Eteri skater because she's "weaker".

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Sheesh... how disrespectful to the tinfoil hat community of the internet

On a serious note, how does giving a skater another spot instantly, although they missed their first outing totally due to their own fault, equals to “treating them like dirt” as some users wrote.

nussnacker said:

The Eteri powah from day 1!

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You shouldn't laugh at this (EDS); it's actually quite sad - some poor souls even believe that Evil Eteri was conjuring some evil voodoo magic while standing at the rinkside at the Test Skates, and that's the only reason why all of the supertalented non-TeamTut skaters failed in one way or another.

JazzUp said:

You shouldn't laugh at this (EDS); it's actually quite sad - some poor souls even believe that Evil Eteri was conjuring some evil voodoo magic while standing at the rinkside at the Test Skates, and that's the only reason why all of the supertalented non-TeamTut skaters failed in one way or another.

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I guess they also believe she got a letter from Hogwarts 30 years ago and the sorting hat put her in Slytherin.

While some believe Eteri is God reincarnated. The individual skaters do not matter as long as they skate under Eteri. Going to another coach is high treason and such skater deserved nothing but misery.

VenusHalley said:

While some believe Eteri is God reincarnated. The individual skaters do not matter as long as they skate under Eteri. Going to another coach is high treason and such skater deserved nothing but misery.

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True, I mean look how Tarakanova is treated, or Yulia, or Voronov, or Daria, or Polina.. oh wait!

Well....this conversation was interesting lol. I finally watched Daria and while I am sad about her not winning, Hae in deserved it. Daria's short program was much stronger than at her previous JGP. Her triple triple combos in the long were also better than at her last JGP. I would say that it was definitely nerves that got to her, unless she has a hidden injury. I think that she might have been a little behind with her music and that's why she rushed the step sequence. If I am correct that was enough to get to the final right? Either way, whether she makes the final or not, she has a long break until the final and junior nationals. Hopefully getting two silvers will give her some confidence and she will gain some consistency at some local russian competitions. :thumbsup: