2019-20 Russian Men's figure skating

Artemisa said:

They fall and fall ... they need to practice with the girls ...

They have good programs, good skating skills, they know how to jump ... why they can't skate clean??

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Tolstoj said:

Here's an interesting fact:

Andrei Mozalev who won the last JGP has been landing quad toes and 3a in his programs since last year when he was 15.

While if we look at the senior russians:

Alexander Samarin according to his wikipedia landed his first 3A at the age of 15-16 at Russian Nationals 2014 and started to land quad toe in the season 2015-16 when he was 17-18.

I remember the first quad toe landed by Mikhail Kolyada in 2015-16 when he was 20-21, before that he had to deal with injuries skipping seasons, etc.

Andrei Lazukin started to land quad toes in competition in 2016-2017 at the age of 19-20.

So perhaps one reason is that a lot of these skaters started to work on these big elements later (and always only quad toe, never the other quads) and as of result they're still not comfortable with them.

The only exception is Dmitri Aliev who had the quad toe since his first year in juniors grand prix at the age of 15, and in the junior days he was on par with Nathan Chen, then something happened in the transition into seniors.

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Artemisa said:

I don't think that's the problem ... they can land then and very well ... but when things go wrong in one jump is like they give up ... I don't know if is the pressure ...

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Holy Headband said:

I don't think when a skater started landing quads in competition has anything to do with their overall consistency later in their career. Once you've mastered a jump, you've mastered it. Sure, you can lose it because of changing physiological realities like rapid growth or injury, but a skater who is currently deemed to 'have' a jump doesn't have more or less of it depending on how many seasons ago they first included it in their program.

However, there might be a tendency among Russian men to attempt jumps in competition that they don't land frequently in practice, due to the potential reward of a successful try, whereas top male skaters in other countries could typically weigh the risk of a fall/unsuccessful attempt more heavily and only include jumps in their programs that they feel secure in. In other words, the consistency threshold above which a jump becomes competition-worthy might be lower among Russian male skaters because of coaching style/federation pressure/inflated prestige of quads domestically (I totally buy the last one, given how common it is for Russian men to overemphasise jumps at the expense of skating skills, choreo, spins, etc. in their programs--you see this fixation on difficult jumps in female skaters like Tuk and Trusova as well) or whatever. But this is pure speculation based on your premise that Russian men are more inconsistent than others on average, which could just as well be incorrect or down to pure chance, I don't know.

In any case, as I said, I don't think mastering quads at 18 vs 15 should make a difference at, say, 23 if the technique is correct and the body stays healthy.

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readernick said:

Ayaka Hosada (sp?)just learned a 3A at 22/23 and it seems to be a consistent jump for her. I don’t think learning a jump at a younger age necessarily makes it more consistent. So, I agree.

I do think you are right that Russian men are under a lot of pressure to include quad jumps in their programs when they aren’t landing them consistently due to the belief voiced by Tat that a skater like Jason Brown ( great SS, 3 jumps, spins—- frequently beating Russian men “with quads”) skates like a girl.

It leads to inconsistency.

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Holy Headband said:

I don't think when a skater started landing quads in competition has anything to do with their overall consistency later in their career. Once you've mastered a jump, you've mastered it. Sure, you can lose it because of changing physiological realities like rapid growth or injury, but a skater who is currently deemed to 'have' a jump doesn't have more or less of it depending on how many seasons ago they first included it in their program.

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Kittosuni said:

i really like Ignatov and happy that he seem confident with his quads. His spins are also an improvement but still need to make them consistent. My biggest issue is his step sequence. its pretty empty especially the FS. The lack of transition i can forgive but boy that StSq needs to beef up because its level 2 at best and the worst is there is no emphasis/distinction or even a cue/highlight from his music that he was doing it. i was shocked that after he finished his program I couldnt recognize when he did his stsq. This can also be said to his teammate Aliev.

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RemyRose said:

Assignment changes

Makar has been added to Nebelhorn
Samsonov to JGP Poland, Rukhin out
Mozalev to JGP Croatia in place of Samsonov
Yablokov to JGP Italy in place of Mozalev

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invisiblespiral said:

Not sure what I think about the JGPs. :scratch:

Also, does Gleb Lutfullin have a second event?

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invisiblespiral said:

Not sure what I think about the JGPs. :scratch:

Also, does Gleb Lutfullin have a second event?

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Tolstoj said:

So no second event for Andrei Kutovoi?

I get why (3A is unstable, no quads) but he's much more interesting to watch as a skater than Gleb Lutfullin or Ilya Yablokov

Also can we talk about Petr Gumennik's reaction after the score in the SP? I don't want to be that annoying person, but someone should tell him to tone it down a little.

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