Alina Zagitova, the Greatest?

nussnacker said:

Well, Mathman, can we say Usain Bolt isn't the greatest sprinter because of the improvement in training methods, running surface, clothing/shoes, time measurements took place? ...

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I think that the issue is somewhat different. In track and field, the criterion is clear. You are the best 100-meter guy if you run faster than anyone else in the race, and you are the GOAT if you run faster than anyone else in history.

In figure skating, Alina is the GOAT of backloading. She is the greatest backloader in history. This is a title that will never be in jeopardy, since the rules have now changed. She is also right up there for the title of "most transitions." She skates fast. Good for her.

Is she the best jumper of all time? No triple Axel. No quad.

Is she the best spinner, the best at moves in the field? Is she the all-time Interpreter of Music?

Things start to get a little trickier, in my opinion.

No I don't believe so. It's way too soon to call her the "greatest of all time." Her record is surpassed by Yuna Kim by quite a bit and as others have mentioned, by figure skaters back in the 1920s. Just the start of this past season, people were calling her done and loosing her jumps. She was surpassed during every major competition this year except for the World Championship. She was surpassed during her National as well.

I agree with everyone that we can discuss if she continues the entire quad and remain competitive. There's a lot to be commended about her, and a lot of room for improvement. She could be a GOAT. She's just not there yet in my opinion.

Sam L said:

At 17, she already has the Grand Slam: Olympics, Worlds, Europeans and GPF. I have respect for past greats but the competition is much tougher these days and the skaters are pushing the boundaries with quads, so it's amazing that she's achieved all that with this level of competition. She still has many years left in her career including a possible second Olympic gold but even with what she has I'm ready to call it for now. What do you guys think?

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That in a subjective, judged, sport, how many titles someone has won, without more, isn’t an adequate measure of greatness?

No, not until she skates at least one program that shows great choreography and interpretation, and delivers it well. I think she's capable. Whether she ever will while she's with her camp is a different matter.

I think Alina has earned her place in history already, not only because of the stamina, transitions and backloading, but because she is the true ballerina on the ice. It is a very rare quality, difficult to achieve, but exceptionally beautiful. I can‘t think of another skater who does ballet so breathtakingly well, with such attention to detail. I know that many people criticize Daniil, but his experience with ballet and Alina‘s rare qualities resulted in exquisite, memorable performances. Correct me if I am wrong, but I can’t think of another lady who manages to transfer ballet on ice. So, despite the short time, I think Alina carved herself a place among the greatest. The fact that she won everything just helps.

^ There's nothing balletic about Zagitova's skating. That's hardly a knock on her, but to claim that she somehow translates ballet to the ice is false.

Translating ballet to the ice is a strange accolade, anyway. Is it equal to, inferior to, or better than someone translating Lindy Hop to skating?

Gleikhengauz's ability being praised in this regard is laughable as well.

Autumn Leaves said:

I think Alina has earned her place in history already, not only because of the stamina, transitions and backloading, but because she is the true ballerina on the ice. It is a very rare quality, difficult to achieve, but exceptionally beautiful. I can‘t think of another skater who does ballet so breathtakingly well, with such attention to detail. I know that many people criticize Daniil, but his experience with ballet and Alina‘s rare qualities resulted in exquisite, memorable performances. Correct me if I am wrong, but I can’t think of another lady who manages to transfer ballet on ice. So, despite the short time, I think Alina carved herself a place among the greatest. The fact that she won everything just helps.

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Umm...I take it you’ve never watched John Curry?

Mathman said:

Is she the best jumper of all time? No triple Axel. No quad.

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Interesting criterion. Something different than the so discussed "correct technique".
The difficulty of jumps should matters.

Mathman said:

I think that the issue is somewhat different. In track and field, the criterion is clear. You are the best 100-meter guy if you run faster than anyone else in the race, and you are the GOAT if you run faster than anyone else in history.

In figure skating, Alina is the GOAT of backloading. She is the greatest backloader in history. This is a title that will never be in jeopardy, since the rules have now changed. She is also right up there for the title of "most transitions." She skates fast. Good for her.

Is she the best jumper of all time? No triple Axel. No quad.

Is she the best spinner, the best at moves in the field? Is she the all-time Interpreter of Music?

Things start to get a little trickier, in my opinion.

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Well that referred to you saying: we can’t compare anyone to Ulrich Salchow.

I was giving that example to say that all athletes benefit from technical advancements.
So Usain benefited from the fact that he’s not running on sand anymore, that he has better shoes and clothes that help him to go faster, that he has new training methods that weren’t available 100 years ago.
All of those things helped him to achieve what he achieved and be faster than his predecessors, who didn’t have those things.
And of course his natural talent and hard work as well.
What you’re saying, we can’t say Usain is the goat, since he had better conditions compared to people 100 years ago, same with Ulrich being compared to athletes of today.
You’re right that they do have better conditions, but this happens in all disciplines and shouldn’t take away from the fact that nevertheless athletes achieve more.
I understand that Coco thing was a snark, but what I meant was a little different. It’s like saying Serena Williams can’t be compared to athletes of the past, because she has better racket, training facility etc. She does, this shouldn’t take away from her achievements.


Ultimately, the sport is about being the best competitor at the right time, at the time of the competition. Sure there are athletes with 3A, and those were there since 90s in ladies, but they never were good enough when they needed to.

Usain was the fastest one at the time of the competition, he did it when it mattered.

With Alina, she has won all titles with the most technically difficult program to this date.
Other people with more difficult technical programs (which exist now, but they aren’t winning all those medals yet) haven’t won everything yet, so when they do, they can overtake that title easily.

But why when there are two parts to skating? Maybe she has won everything with the most technically difficult program of all time (ignoring technique on spins, spirals, footwork, and basic skating... Even her jumps for that matter outside of difficulty and some arm positions had little to give), but, no matter what the judges said, none of her programs deserved particularly high PCS.

The most technically difficult performances belonged to Asada in her 2007-08 LP for me if we consider difficulty and quality of all the elements attempted, and she also had interesting movement and interpretation in it. Or maybe we should consider Kim's 2006-07 LP which had good technical difficulty, appreciable quality, and amazing choreography and interpretation. Or Asada's 2013-14 programs, which won everything outside of the Olympics, and had excellent quality overall in the SP, or 8 triples in the LP along with amazingly hard footwork.

Mathman said:

I think that the issue is somewhat different. In track and field, the criterion is clear. You are the best 100-meter guy if you run faster than anyone else in the race, and you are the GOAT if you run faster than anyone else in history.

In figure skating, Alina is the GOAT of backloading. She is the greatest backloader in history. This is a title that will never be in jeopardy, since the rules have now changed. She is also right up there for the title of "most transitions." She skates fast. Good for her.

Is she the best jumper of all time? No triple Axel. No quad.

Is she the best spinner, the best at moves in the field? Is she the all-time Interpreter of Music?

Things start to get a little trickier, in my opinion.

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Figure skating has the rules about the number of particular jumps used in one program. Because to be great, you can't rely just on one jump, but your total jumping ability is what must surpass the others. As I've already pointed out, in Olympics Alina skated against Mirai who had 3A. Yet in team competition Alina received 83.03 for TES (highest in the +3/-3 system ever), while Mirai received 73.38 even when her 3A was clean. BV was only about 2 points higher for Alina and if we exclude backloading advantage, it would be more or less the same. But Alina received about 20 points for GOE, Mirai about 9. Because all Alina's jumps were clean and close to perfection, she did not depend only on one or two elements. That should be also an argument for a quality of a skater, I think, not just one element per se.

platypus said:

But why when there are two parts to skating? Maybe she has won everything with the most technically difficult program of all time (ignoring technique on spins, spirals, footwork, and basic skating... Even her jumps for that matter outside of difficulty and some arm positions had little to give), but, no matter what the judges said, none of her programs deserved particularly high PCS.

The most technically difficult performances belonged to Asada in her 2007-08 LP for me if we consider difficulty and quality of all the elements attempted, and she also had interesting movement and interpretation in it. Or maybe we should consider Kim's 2006-07 LP which had good technical difficulty, appreciable quality, and amazing choreography and interpretation. Or Asada's 2013-14 programs, which won everything outside of the Olympics, and had excellent quality overall in the SP, or 8 triples in the LP along with amazingly hard footwork.

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There are two parts in FS and Alina was winning all titles, whilst doing more than her predecessors who achieved the same collection of titles.
Agree or disagree with the judges, they are the ones who possess the decision-making power, not me, not you and not some random farmer from Alabama or even Donald Trump.
It is a subjective sport in which people who were responsible for decision making have made a decision to award Alina with the placements she got, and we can argue their decisions as much as we want, we're not the ones deciding the winner, the judges are.

Sure Mao-chan was able to deliver performances with 3A, she just didn't do 2 clean performances at Olympics.
Sport is about showing that performance at the right time.
aka there might be people who are faster than Olympic sprinters on their home training facility, who were beating WR times when practicing, they just didn't run fast enough when they needed to, at the Olympics.
There could be people better then Serena Williams, they just didn't play at their full force when they had to. They might have been sick, nervous, injured, whatever.
It doesn't matter, you need to show your best when people are taking it into official records, not any other time.
Sure as hell Rika could've won worlds if she did 2 clean performances and thus deprived Alina form the grand slam. But Rika didn't go clean and Alina did, and the rest is history.


This is the Jacobellis case for me. She could've been the greatest snowboarder, but she made a stupid mistake and she lost at Olympics, so it doesn't matter that she was winning all the time before Olympics and has won against her competitors from Olympics at preceding competitions, she lost when it mattered and she didn't earn the title.

You can be the better athlete, but you need to demonstrate it at the time of the competition. And Midori Ito didn't, Mao Asada didn't.
If Rika wins it all with her 3A and quads she will be the greatest one. But if she'll fall or have a pop at the olympics, she's not going to win and that's that.
Show what you got at the competition, the rest doesn't matter.


Here's what I also wanted to add. Sport isn't just about breaking records, but more so earning titles.
There were people who swam faster than Michael Phelps, who were beating his WR and winning over him when competing against him. Joseph Schooling for example, who beat Phelps at Olympics with a new WR.
Michael still is considered to be a goat because he was the winner more times, than those who beat him. Joseph might have beat him in 1 distance, but Michael has gold medals from that distance from before and he also has a bunch of other medals, that Joseph doesn't have and probably will never have, since he's the strongest at that particular distance/style.
So until someone will achieve the full collection of gold Michael has with updating his records, he'll be the goat.


There might be better skaters that people personally enjoy. Sport isn't about spectator's personal enjoyment.
Sport is about marks, records and showing your best in competitions.
Alina did it enough times to win all there is to win, so whether you want it or not, she's got the full collection of that gold.
She's the best athlete to this date, and I'm sure in 4 years someone might take over.
Until then, she's the one who has all the gold whilst doing more than people with grand slam before her.

If figure skating was about 'being the best performer', then it would've been a TLC show, not an Olympic sport.
Figure skating is about being the best in a combination of factors, and delivering them at the right time, not in your practice rink or senior B competition, but at the Olympics, Worlds, GPF.




And a finishing note. Is Alina my favorite skater of all time? She's not the #1 on my personal preference list, but she's still one of the athletes I like watching.
But my personal preference or my assessment of her skating doesn't matter when deciding who's the greatest. The titles and the records decide that, not my taste or preference.

nussnacker said:

There are two parts in FS and Alina was winning all titles, whilst doing more than her predecessors who achieved the same collection of titles.

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How? Can you say, definitively, that her technical quality was better than Yuna Kim's at Vancouver, for instance? Or how her PCS should compare? Remember, Kim had an entire spiral sequence in those performances.

Yes, there ARE two parts to the sport. If you judge half of the sport to be worthless to consider, well, it hardly forwards the conversation.

Agree or disagree with the judges, they are the ones who possess the decision-making power, not me, not you and not some random farmer from Alabama or even Donald Trump.

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This is relevant... How exactly? To argue "GOAT" one would have to consider more things than what medal was wrapped around whose neck. Judges hardly determine quality. Or maybe Medvedeva has one of the best lutzes of all time.

It is a subjective sport in which people who were responsible for decision making have made a decision to award Alina with the placements she got, and we can argue their decisions as much as we want, we're not the ones deciding the winner, the judges are.

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But I don't argue at all that Zagitova doesn't deserve her Grand Slam since you are saying she has the most technically difficult programs and has won everything with them, I'm reminding you there is more to the sport than a jump layout. If you want to ignore quality, well, so be it. None outside of the ones who are arguing such a thing on this thread or her ardent fans agree, nor will they.

ETA: Although, well, if we were to look at her titles closely, I don't believe she deserved her GPF 17 victory. Every other major title I'd give her.

Sport is about showing that performance at the right time.

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Sure. So Yuna Kim is the greatest.

Until then, she's the one who has all the gold whilst doing more than people with grand slam before her.

If figure skating was about 'being the best performer', then it would've been a TLC show, not an Olympic sport.
Figure skating is about being the best in a combination of factors, and delivering them at the right time, not in your practice rink or senior B competition, but at the Olympics, Worlds, GPF.

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Then I'm grief-stricken that your view of the sport isn't being made available for all the athletes who are constantly trying to perfect an art. I do think the judges agree though. Why else would we see skaters like Medvedeva get 78 PCS for her wonderful 9/11 program?

nussnacker said:

There are two parts in FS and Alina was winning all titles, whilst doing more than her predecessors who achieved the same collection of titles.
Agree or disagree with the judges, they are the ones who possess the decision-making power, not me, not you and not some random farmer from Alabama or even Donald Trump.
It is a subjective sport in which people who were responsible for decision making have made a decision to award Alina with the placements she got, and we can argue their decisions as much as we want, we're not the ones deciding the winner, the judges are.

Sure Mao-chan was able to deliver performances with 3A, she just didn't do 2 clean performances at Olympics.
Sport is about showing that performance at the right time.
aka there might be people who are faster than Olympic sprinters on their home training facility, who were beating WR times when practicing, they just didn't run fast enough when they needed to, at the Olympics.
There could be people better then Serena Williams, they just didn't play at their full force when they had to. They might have been sick, nervous, injured, whatever.
It doesn't matter, you need to show your best when people are taking it into official records, not any other time.
Sure as hell Rika could've won worlds if she did 2 clean performances and thus deprived Alina form the grand slam. But Rika didn't go clean and Alina did, and the rest is history.


This is the Jacobellis case for me. She could've been the greatest snowboarder, but she made a stupid mistake and she lost at Olympics, so it doesn't matter that she was winning all the time before Olympics and has won against her competitors from Olympics at preceding competitions, she lost when it mattered and she didn't earn the title.

You can be the better athlete, but you need to demonstrate it at the time of the competition. And Midori Ito didn't, Mao Asada didn't.
If Rika wins it all with her 3A and quads she will be the greatest one. But if she'll fall or have a pop at the olympics, she's not going to win and that's that.
Show what you got at the competition, the rest doesn't matter.


Here's what I also wanted to add. Sport isn't just about breaking records, but more so earning titles.
There were people who swam faster than Michael Phelps, who were beating his WR and winning over him when competing against him. Joseph Schooling for example, who beat Phelps at Olympics with a new WR.
Michael still is considered to be a goat because he was the winner more times, than those who beat him. Joseph might have beat him in 1 distance, but Michael has gold medals from that distance from before and he also has a bunch of other medals, that Joseph doesn't have and probably will never have, since he's the strongest at that particular distance/style.
So until someone will achieve the full collection of gold Michael has with updating his records, he'll be the goat.


There might be better skaters that people personally enjoy. Sport isn't about spectator's personal enjoyment.
Sport is about marks, records and showing your best in competitions.
Alina did it enough times to win all there is to win, so whether you want it or not, she's got the full collection of that gold.
She's the best athlete to this date, and I'm sure in 4 years someone might take over.
Until then, she's the one who has all the gold whilst doing more than people with grand slam before her.

If figure skating was about 'being the best performer', then it would've been a TLC show, not an Olympic sport.
Figure skating is about being the best in a combination of factors, and delivering them at the right time, not in your practice rink or senior B competition, but at the Olympics, Worlds, GPF.




And a finishing note. Is Alina my favorite skater of all time? She's not the #1 on my personal preference list, but she's still one of the athletes I like watching.
But my personal preference or my assessment of her skating doesn't matter when deciding who's the greatest. The titles and the records decide that, not my taste or preference.

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Joseph Schooling has the Olympic record not the world record in the 100 meter butterfly, and Caeleb Dressel actually has the second fastest time of all time now.

If we decide that current skaters benefit from technical advancements, then Midori Ito is the greatest jumper

Mathman said:

I think that the issue is somewhat different. In track and field, the criterion is clear. You are the best 100-meter guy if you run faster than anyone else in the race, and you are the GOAT if you run faster than anyone else in history.

In figure skating, Alina is the GOAT of backloading. She is the greatest backloader in history. This is a title that will never be in jeopardy, since the rules have now changed. She is also right up there for the title of "most transitions." She skates fast. Good for her.

Is she the best jumper of all time? No triple Axel. No quad.

Is she the best spinner, the best at moves in the field? Is she the all-time Interpreter of Music?

Things start to get a little trickier, in my opinion.

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Perhaps it's easier to separate categories. Best spinner would likely technically be Lucinda Ruh, but what's a spin without good choreography and interpretation of the music? So overall, I think such separation into simple categories, while useful to an extent, doesn't give an overall view of skating greatness.

yume said:

If we decide that current skaters benefit from technical advancements, then Midori Ito is the greatest jumper

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No one should be denying this, even in an overall scheme of things. Woman even trained quads, 30+ years before the current skaters.

platypus said:

How? Can you say, definitively, that her technical quality was better than Yuna Kim's at Vancouver, for instance? Or how her PCS should compare? Remember, Kim had an entire spiral sequence in those performances.

Yes, there ARE two parts to the sport. If you judge half of the sport to be worthless to consider, well, it hardly forwards the conversation.

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Please read carefully. I will just copy the same thing from above:
Figure skating is about being the best in a combination of factors, and delivering them at the right time, not in your practice rink or senior B competition, but at the Olympics, Worlds, GPF.
I certainly don't think artistry is worthless, but I don't think it is absolutely everything either, it's just a part of the evaluation, and not even the half of it, since PCS has some technical part in it too, and 'artistic' part in 2/5 or 3/5 of PCS at most. And that artistry component also isn't strictly about 'having the performance that people enjoy the most', it's about skating to the music, portraying a character convincingly etc.

platypus said:

But I don't argue at all that Zagitova doesn't deserve her Grand Slam since you are saying she has the most technically difficult programs and has won everything with them, I'm reminding you there is more to the sport than a jump layout. If you want to ignore quality, well, so be it. None outside of the ones who are arguing such a thing on this thread or her ardent fans agree, nor will they.

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See, the rules change, a lot of things change as the sport goes forward.
In running or swimming the rules also changed. So in running, the first person is usually the one who has his body first across the finish line, not his foot.
As those things changed, athletes also changed, and now they throw their torso to just have their torso across the finish line first.
It wasn't like that all the time, but athletes adapted to new requirements with the invention of photo finish.

And so do rules in figure skating, they change. As you noted, there was mandatory spiral sequence before, but the rule changed and to maximize the points, athletes abandoned doing it.

If textbook jumping was enforced by the judges as much as we want to enforce it, probably Alexia Paganini would be placing higher than Sofia Samodurova.
It's not done yet, but I'm sure it will be done at some point. Until then, by the rules we are following and that are being enforced as of now, it's not a punished.
Back in the day flutzes weren't punished, but the rules changed as time went on and it became more enforced. Although we all knew all along that it's not good to flutz, but back in the day, the enforcement of those rules was a little different.
Now you can flutz as much as you want as long as the judges don't see it.
I do believe that in the future it will become automatic and things will change. It is what it is for now though.

It's not that I don't care about the quality, I certainly do. I personally do want to see everyone jump like Yuzuru or Yuna or Carolina :agree2:
It will take some time before ISU comes to that. It is what it is though for now.
(But to be fair, there were times were Yuzu and Yuna lipped and it was overlooked, but that's a different topic to discuss.)

platypus said:

Sure. So Yuna Kim is the greatest.

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Yuna sure is greatest of all time in my eyes to this point, I'm a big big fan of hers. She's probably my personal #1 of all time.
But isn't it fair to say Alina achieved as much as Yuna (the grand slam that is), whilst pushing a sport a little further (7 triples, 2 lutzes, 2 flips, lutz-loop in the short)?

platypus said:

Then I'm grief-stricken that your view of the sport isn't being made available for all the athletes who are constantly trying to perfect an art. I do think the judges agree though. Why else would we see skaters like Medvedeva get 78 PCS for her wonderful 9/11 program?

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Well, here's where misunderstanding of skating fans takes place. You might not enjoy that program, and judges quite frankly might dislike it too.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't think Bradie is an artist, people say that she's stiff etc.
But her stiffness or her angular movement Richaud programs, or Medvedeva's programs and whether people actually like them or not have little to do with the marks.

If they're doing enough one foot skating, multidirectional skating with minimal crossovers and great speed, if they do enough transitions, if their programs have a clear purpose, pattern/ice coverage, if they move to the music and portray the character, it doesn't matter if you actually enjoyed that performance or not or "the art factor in it", since they might have satisfied enough factors to account for higher pcs =)
And by the way, some people might have actually enjoyed those programs too, I kinda started liking Bradie's unique style after this season.

Like, Bradie's skating sure isn't everyone's taste. It doesn't mean she can't get higher PCS though.

nussnacker said:

Well that referred to you saying: we can’t compare anyone to Ulrich Salchow.

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Did I say that? Maybe in the sense that it is difficult to compare skaters of one era with another. But surely not in the sense that Salchow is above everyone else in history.

What you’re saying, we can’t say Usain is the goat, since he had better conditions compared to people 100 years ago, same with Ulrich being compared to athletes of today.

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I don't recall saying anything of the sort. (?)

... they do have better conditions, but this happens in all disciplines and shouldn’t take away from the fact that nevertheless athletes achieve more.

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I don't see how this is relevant to the question of "All-Time Greatest." The athletes of today have advantages that their predecessors did not. Good for them. We should honor their amazing accomplishments. We should also honor the achievements of skating pioneers long past.

Ultimately, the sport is about being the best competitor at the right time, at the time of the competition.

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Speaking of Salchow, he was the best competitor at the right time in ten World Championships. Does this make him the GOAT?

It seems like our criteria for GOAThood shifts back and forth among many factors. :yes:

platypus said:

Translating ballet to the ice is a strange accolade, anyway. Is it equal to, inferior to, or better than someone translating Lindy Hop to skating?

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IIRC Oksana Baiul was known for being the premier Jiverina on ice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKYZAmMj_G0&t=0m48s

I see Alina's "grand slam" referenced here pretty often and I was not aware figure skating had a grand slam, so I googled it. Here is the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_(figure_skating)#Ladies'_singles

It appears as though OGM does not count for a Grand Slam. And Alina does not have one, though she does have a "Career Grand Slam" (as do many other ladies).

OGM counts for a "Golden Slam," but Alina does not have a Golden Slam. Only one skater in ANY discipline has one, and it's Yagudin. But Alina does have a Career Golden Slam. The only other lady with a career Golden Slam is Yuna Kim.

A Super Slam includes junior titles. Alina has a Super Slam, as does Yuna.

The "slam" measurement for greatness generally seems unfair to Asian/North American skaters because of the inclusion of 4CCs. 4CCs is less prestigious than Europeans and more difficult to peak at due to it being so close to Worlds. In addition, for many years, some countries did not send their top skaters to 4CCs. For example, Michelle Kwan never competed at 4CCs.

I also see many say that Alina is a GOAT because she the youngest to have completed a "slam" (whichever kind - but it's not a "Grand Slam"). However, being the youngest to accomplish something doesn't make you the greatest. Age is arbitrary when discussing "greatness." Though perhaps the OLDEST person to complete a slam would be worthy of honor, considering how much more difficult skating becomes as you age.