Alina Zagitova, the Greatest? | Page 4 | Golden Skate

Alina Zagitova, the Greatest?

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badknees

Medalist
Joined
Jan 5, 2008
For me, great skating is much more than racking up points in whatever way you can. Silliest thing they ever did was to get rid of figures. True skating skills are becoming a thing of the past. There are a few left, Brown, Hanyu to name a few.

Quoted here from Wiki:

"Kwan was known for her unrivaled consistency in delivering clean programs,[52] as well as her strong skating skills and deep, quiet edges that have been described as "silent blades"[53] that "barely whispered".[54]

Although not of the greatest height nor explosive spring nor sustained landing, Kwan, for most of her career, included all of the triples (except for the axel) in her programs, including two lutzes (the most difficult jump after the axel). She landed the triple toe-triple toe combination cleanly eleven times in competition, including at her 2000 and 2001 world championship victories.[55] During the 2004–2005 season, she debuted a triple flip-double toe-double loop combination.[56]

Beginning in the 1996–1997 season, Kwan debuted a change of edge spiral that soon became her signature move.[57] Kwan's spiral was famed by commentators not only for its great extension and line, but also its speed, the strength and security of the edge, the deep lean and the easy smoothness of the change of edge.[58] In the 1998–1999 season, Kwan revived a variation of the Charlotte spiral, a move innovated by German skater Charlotte Oelschlägel which had not been performed in decades.[59]

Kwan's split falling leaf was praised by skating legends Dick Button and Peggy Fleming during competitions for its effortlessness and perfect split position in the air. Kwan has done multiple split falling leaves in immediate succession (without any turns or steps in between) while maintaining a split position on both.[60]

Another of her trademark moves is a Y-spin done consecutively on both feet. Kwan is also one of the few skaters who can spin in both directions.[61]"

"Kwan won five World Championships (1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003), tying her with Carol Heiss (1956–1960) for the most world titles by an American. Kwan's nine world medals overall is the all-time record for an American skater in any discipline. The only ladies' singles skater with more world titles or medals is Sonia Henie of Norway. Kwan won nine U.S. Championships (1996, 1998–2005), tying the record for most wins set by Maribel Vinson-Owen (1928–1933, 1935–1937). She holds the record for the most consecutive U.S. titles (eight) and most consecutive U.S. Championship medals (twelve). She also earned the silver medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and the bronze medal in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Kwan has received a combined total of 57 perfect marks (6.0s) at major competitions, the singles record under the former 6.0 judging system.[3]"
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
mrrice said:
I think that following 97/98 some people thought Tara would take over skating for the next 5 years.

Saying that we had Evgeniya Medvedeva who was the undoubted leader for 2 seasons. And then Alina beat her when it mattered most.

I think this is the right way to look at it. I am pretty sure that two years ago Golden Skate had threads titled, "Is Medvedeva the greatest of all time?" It was inconceivable in 2017 that anyone would ever beat her, A couple of years before that, poeple were predicting that Julia Lipnitskia would be unstoppable for the next two Olympic games.

Now Alina is the GOAT. Two years from now we will have a thread, "Is Alexandra Trusova the best ever?" People will post, "Well of course she is -- you can't possibly consider anyone who doesn't have a quad!!!"
 
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theharleyquinn

Medalist
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Katarina Witt has two OGMs and I don't hear her mentioned in GOAT conversations as often as some other skaters that have one or none. There are deficiencies in the quality of her skating that have made her less favored in these discussions. OGMs can be correlative but it they are not definitive. Plus, there's always a "yes, but..." when it comes to medal counts. For example, Alina won several gold medals this season with not very good skates. People argue that Yuna didn't compete long enough or wasn't against as deep of a competitive field. Etc. Etc.

It feels more appropriate to make the arguments by era. Or, to split it up by technical prowess and artistry. There's also the interesting discussion (to me anyways) of who is/was the most well-rounded and undeniably strong to excellent at almost every aspect of the sport, and that doesn't always match up with "dominance" or medal count.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
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She may not be my favorite skater but I have a ton of respect for her. She works so hard and carries a huge load of stress and expectation. She’s definitely one of the Greatest ;)
 

Tere19

Rinkside
Joined
Jun 23, 2019
Its true i still remember about medvedeva because lets be honest is VERY hard to be unbeatable for 2 years senior even my baby Alina could not do it .If med have not had that injury and could have upgrade and win gold there (olympics )will she be call the greatest of all times ??? What do you think ?
 

bramweld

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2012
Fair. But even at the tender age of 16 Alina was already one of the GOATS due to the fact she won all major competitions as a Junior and senior by age 16. Completely unprecedented to do it by that age. But yes she still has more to give as long as that tricky left knee of hers holds up.

Having a smart coach do the math for you and having the ability to jump and having the Russian Fed politic for you does not make you a GOAT. LOL.
 

Scott512

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2014
Having a smart coach do the math for you and having the ability to jump and having the Russian Fed politic for you does not make you a GOAT. LOL.
Politics? Lol. None of her major gold medals as a junior or senior are in question. All deserved and I am harsh critic of everyone. Even Zhenya said Alina deserved Olympic gold.

When you have won every major medal as a junior and senior by the age of 16 you are a GOAT! Her resume is GOAT. Alina is a junior GOAT and a senior GOAT! :) What other girl / lady can say that?

Now on to the rest of her career and everything is icing on the cake. Chocolate cake of course. ;)
 

Tere19

Rinkside
Joined
Jun 23, 2019
Because she had the highest tech in sp and lp too .Not everybody has the luxury to become senior in olympic season and in fs the older you get the titles the harder...i makes wonder what Eteri is going to do with this 3 girls that turn senior just in olympic season just like zagitova .
 

mrrice

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 9, 2014
Politics? Lol. None of her major gold medals as a junior or senior are in question. All deserved and I am harsh critic of everyone. Even Zhenya said Alina deserved Olympic gold.

When you have won every major medal as a junior and senior by the age of 16 you are a GOAT! Her resume is GOAT. Alina is a junior GOAT and a senior GOAT! :) What other girl / lady can say that?

Now on to the rest of her career and everything is icing on the cake. Chocolate cake of course. ;)

Look up Katarina Witt's career. I don't know much about her Junior career but her Senior career includes 4 World Titles and 2 OMG's. I love Alina but....She's got a ways to go to reach "GOAT" status.
 

TA91

Rinkside
Joined
Dec 29, 2018
My criteria for a great is accumulative like the GOE bullets, all four equal legend status IMO.

1. Number of championships they won over the course of their career

2. Statistics they put up over the course of their career (WR, WS)

3. How influential their presence was on the sport

4. Do their programs have the ability to transcend time

I think the combination of these four is the best way to determine greatness because if you just pick them apart there would be several exceptions to the rule. For example, no one can deny Tonya Harding had an influence on the sport of figure skating or that some of her programs transcend time due to their technical content, but not many would consider her a great. While Alina has done some pretty impressive things at such a young age, I don't really think she can be considered a legend just yet due to her age. However, she has the highest chance to become a great from my penultimate tier which includes Evgenia, Tonya, Tara, Oksana and etc.

All the people that are in my great section from the 90's onward seem to be universally recognized and are very easy for me to explain why if necessary. They include Midori Ito, Kristi Yamuguchi, Michelle Kwan, Irina Slutskaya, Mao Asada, Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner.
 

StephenGfan

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
I don't think so. While having a grand slam in skating, which, is an impressive feat and nothing to sneeze at! she most likely won't win another major title ever again. Shes not as consistent as she used to be. even last season without the amazing trio of Russian juniors present she still Lost to sofia at europeans and lost the GPF to rika paired with a handfull of shaky performances. She also doesn't have the tech to compete against Sasha and anna, and doesn't have the components/presentation/interpretation skills to compete against alena and her and Evgenia will be buried by them unless she suddenly has amazing artistry or two quads by the end of the summer. She might win a GP next season and make one more worlds/euros team but thats it. Is she legendary? perhaps in some ways, but no where near the greatest especially when you compare her to likes yuna, mao and Kwan and even a few other ladies skaters with their achievements and their skating.
 

Tere19

Rinkside
Joined
Jun 23, 2019
But Alina was says that she wants to go to bejing 2022 and win there too 💪will she be able...in 2018 it was her first senior year and she did very good and in her second senior year she did good too ....med ...did very very good the first 2 seniors years under Eteri too ....maybe now Sasha will do very good her first 2 senior years
 

flanker

Record Breaker
Joined
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Country
Czech-Republic
Having a smart coach do the math(1) for you and having the ability to jump(2) and having the Russian Fed politic(3) for you does not make you a GOAT. LOL.

1: Can we call Eteri GOAT then? Or maybe GOATM (greatest of all in math)?:laugh2: Now seriously, this is not space ingeneering to count how to make such layout of the program, but you need the essential abilities for it. This is where we get to...

2: Yes, the ability to jump, such a redundant, useless ability for a skater, right? The fact that no other senior skater (we should not forget Aliona Kostornaia, who had also fully backloaded programs during 2017-18 season) had fully backloaded programs was not because they didn't want it, but because they were not able to do it. Everybody backloaded as many jumps as he could. After the 2017-18 season even several skaters announced thay are working on fully backloaded programs before the rule change. But back to Alina's jumping abilities, they are amazing and admiration-worthy. As well as other skills, Alina's spins are also best in the bussiness, she is not one-dimensional skater even if people like you try to suggest that.

3: What politics? You mean that politics which nearly cost Alina start on world championship? She definitely wasn't "sweetheart" of those who are making important decisions, if she gained some respect from them, it was through her work ethics and the results. Also, whatever rusfed politics is or allegedly is, it would not ensure Alina's international results.

Conclusion: I don't say whether Alina is GOAT or not, she is the one I admire most.
 

StephenGfan

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Katarina Witt has two OGMs and I don't hear her mentioned in GOAT conversations as often as some other skaters that have one or none. There are deficiencies in the quality of her skating that have made her less favored in these discussions. OGMs can be correlative but it they are not definitive. Plus, there's always a "yes, but..." when it comes to medal counts. For example, Alina won several gold medals this season with not very good skates. People argue that Yuna didn't compete long enough or wasn't against as deep of a competitive field. Etc. Etc.

It feels more appropriate to make the arguments by era. Or, to split it up by technical prowess and artistry. There's also the interesting discussion (to me anyways) of who is/was the most well-rounded and undeniably strong to excellent at almost every aspect of the sport, and that doesn't always match up with "dominance" or medal count.

because despite her medal accomplishments, Witt didn't really change the sport (Well except for the Katarina rule lol) or had groundbreaking tech or artistry she was just super consistent, Really good at figures and competed at a time where ladies skating was a very shallow field and easy to stay on top for a skater like herself with only Debbie Thomas beating her overall once.
 

flanker

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
I don't think so. While having a grand slam in skating, which, is an impressive feat and nothing to sneeze at! she most likely won't win another major title ever again. Shes not as consistent as she used to be. even last season without the amazing trio of Russian juniors present she still Lost to sofia at europeans and lost the GPF to rika paired with a handfull of shaky performances. She also doesn't have the tech to compete against Sasha and anna, and doesn't have the components/presentation/interpretation skills to compete against alena and her and Evgenia will be buried by them unless she suddenly has amazing artistry or two quads by the end of the summer. She might win a GP next season and make one more worlds/euros team but thats it. Is she legendary? perhaps in some ways, but no where near the greatest especially when you compare her to likes yuna, mao and Kwan and even a few other ladies skaters with their achievements and their skating.

There is again the question of comparing different eras. While we can talk about how Alina will be succesful in the future (and I would like to remind that all prophets from crystall spheres who were swearing on her career end and how Rika is the new queen were proven blatantly wrong), I say that she is definitely much stronger than those from the past. Maybe nostalgic people like the "old times" more, but just like I made the comparison with ice hockey recently: I liked more how the ice hockey looked like 20 years ago, but no one should fool himself: with today's styles and strength of the players the old style would have only little chance. The same it is with today's top skaters, of whom ALina is the queen. Technical difficulty now is much higher, every little mistake can be decisive and while some protest that it is now more "athletical" ans less "artistgic", I wouldn't agree on the second objection.

I say it is not completely fair to compare skaters from different eras, but when somebody makes such suggestions than I say all those who are suggested as better would be eaten for breakfast by Alina.
 

Scott512

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2014
Because she had the highest tech in sp and lp too .Not everybody has the luxury to become senior in olympic season and in fs the older you get the titles the harder...i makes wonder what Eteri is going to do with this 3 girls that turn senior just in olympic season just like zagitova .

It will be intriguing to see how the great coach handles's having her top three Juniors turn senior this year and with Alina as the reigning defending undisputed Olympic and World champion! It will be fascinating to see unfold.

no question Alina is the greatest ladies technician of all time. to do what she does into score so high without doing quads and triple axles is incredible. There's a reason why no one can do her kind of intricate programs with all the transitions and technical difficulties. It's hard to do.
 
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