Russian Hegemony in Ladies Ice Skating

For many years now, Russia and in particular the Tutberidze team has dominated the women's circuit. In your opinion how long will such domination exist ? What are the limits ? Soon all 4 jumps will be acquired except 4 Axel. What new technical advances can come about ?

I think it's cyclic... there was a Witt era, a Yamaguchi, a Kwan ... a Kim era... etc

now it's a Eteri era... the major difference though, as I pointed out without trying to point out is that Eteri's skaters will do well for a couple years and then, they are surpassed by younger, "better" skaters.... injuries may hinder some as well for doing so many quads, so young.

At one point, things will evolve again... As we see some other skaters trying quads and/or 3a. Longevity will also become a factor... Medvedeva is a good example. She is getting better and better IMHO ... perhaps we will see her on top again.......or it could be a Japanese lady getting better and better

cycles

4everchan said:

I think it's cyclic... there was a Witt era, a Yamaguchi, a Kwan ... a Kim era... etc

now it's a Eteri era... the major difference though, as I pointed out without trying to point out is that Eteri's skaters will do well for a couple years and then, they are surpassed by younger, "better" skaters.... injuries may hinder some as well for doing so many quads, so young.

At one point, things will evolve again... As we see some other skaters trying quads and/or 3a. Longevity will also become a factor... Medvedeva is a good example. She is getting better and better IMHO ... perhaps we will see her on top again.......or it could be a Japanese lady getting better and better

cycles

Click to expand...

These are not cycles. This is a free skating rink and a free trainer for young children in every large and even average city in Russia.

Therefore, Sonya Akatieva will jump 5T or 4A in a year or two)))

This is not a cycle with Eteti. This is dominance this is a strong team that only gets better year after year with no end in sight.

It’s a cycle.

Just like USA in ladies before. Just like Russian men before.

Girls will eventually get discouraged about prospects, others will catch up technically and a new coach will learn to play the game better than Eteri.

People will get tired to Eteri style programs and the skaters will stop being rewarded.

US ladies stayed in power from 1996 to 2006 taking 7/11 world titles and 15/33 medals.

If we look to 2009-2019 Russian only has 9/33 medals and only 4/11 titles. Sure they can catch up in a couple years, but they still don’t reign supreme yet.

Russian ladies domination began only in 2014, and since then they got 8/18 world medals, 4/6 titles and 2/2 olympic titles.

It's more obvious with the European's situation : from 1996 to 2006 Russian got 10/11 medals, with 4 consecutive full podiums from 1999 to 2002. Then 6 year's blackout without any medals, and since 2013 a come-back with 16/21 medals.

Until now Russia had many ladies capable to perform all 5 triples including 3F/Lz+3T/Lo combinations, but top skaters from other countries were able to do it too. Now Russia has some ladies capable to regularly perform 3A and quads, and more to come. Maybe in 2 or 3 years we'll see some US or Japanese girls able to do the same (some of them are already trying it, but with a lower regularity than the Russian). I just doubt to see European ladies trying a 3A or a quad in the near future, as quite none of them have a reliable 3Lz+3T combination, and the one who could have it (Hendrickx, Lindfors, Lecavelier...) are continuously fighting with injuries...

This too shall pass. Yes, it's a cycle. It will either turn naturally or the scoring will be tweaked when too many powers that be get tired of prepubescent girls (from whatever country) ice jumping. Trends always look inevitable and unstoppable when they are developing, but next thing you know something else is trending :handw: and what seemed unstoppable is old news.

How long depends on a number of factors:

- RusFed keeps favouring Eteri's skaters even when they make mistakes, that discourages other coaches to even try to compete -> the pool of talents starts to reduce in size, and ultimately that will affect Sambo70 too with less gifted skaters. We've already seen coaches like Veronika Daineko dropping female skaters because there are more opportunities to succeed with the boys in Russia (and she is not wrong) Down the line you'll see more coaches making that switch.

- How motivated is this team to keep the momentum going. On that regard i wouldn't be that worried, they seem focused to continue for many years to come.

- WADA straight up banning russian skaters from competitions -> that something Eteri cannot control, if they can't compete, someone else will win. (note that i'd be against this as it feels incredibly shady and unfair) On that regard they could still keep Tursynbaeva around just in case.

- Rules changes, according to rumors ISU will make big changes in 2020. That's an area where you have to put some disclaimer, as you still have to ensure the competition is fair for everyone, and not a change made up only to favor a particular skater over another.

What i personally wish:

Currently we are in the 90s again, when ladies triples used to be a new thing, so seeing Yamaguchi or Tara Lipinski landing those jumps or even Tonya Harding attempting the triple axel was impressive just for the effort and nobody cared that those jumps weren't actually clean. Now it's the same for the quads: judges don't care about the quality of those elements because it is impressive to see them and that's enough to justify high GOE.

Going forward i wish judges start to scrutinize more those quads as it becomes more normal, checking the actual edges, the full rotation, the body position from toe pick to landing, etc. That also applies to men's quads. Exactly what they did with the triples especially when we started using the IJS.

But probably they won't do it for a while cause quads from non-Eteri girls are coming and they are much worse, and since ISU would like to pretend that there is an actual competition for the other athletes, they will keep things as they are technically, while maybe changing some of the rules for the components.

I think Russia will dominate for a long time, but not forever. S.Korea and Japan will/are catching up. USA will probably catch up eventually too. That may mean training gets organized a little differently in these countries to more closely resemble how Russia does it (aka selecting the proper body types from the very beginning and training them all together in the same method and culling/replacing those who aren't good enough.)
To me that situation would also be easier for a federation to fund via donations/scholarships/fundraisers/etc, if more people are pooled into one or few schools that specialize in being highly competitive and nothing else. Dorm rooms? group homes? if the parents can't move.
If nothing changes and we continue to have this "rich parents only", "every coach has their own personal method" disorganized, loose style of raising skaters, then we will never have anything but ONE rare skater, like Alysa Liu, that has any hope of competing with the Russians. Our talent pool will remain very, very shallow if we don't change some things.
I think the Koreans and Japanese will get their act together quicker than the USA because they're Asian cultures and sending your kid away for success is more normal than in North America. Plus, geographically-speaking Korea and Japan are much smaller countries with denser populations, it's just flippin' easier to get a lot of skaters pooled into one place.

If USA gets their act together, Canada may follow suit on a smaller scale.

I also wonder if China might get their act together some day. They have more potential to closely model the Russian system since they too are state-run. I'm kinda surprised they aren't already better than they are.

I hope to see skating grow in India and other small countries. I kinda wish Russia's deep field could skate for other countries like India, but I'm not sure how much that would encourage skating growth in minority countries. It's probably more exciting to see an actual Indian girl represent your country internationally than have some Russian foreigner do it, who's never even set foot in India.

Tolstoj said:

How long depends on two factors:

- RusFed keeps favouring Eteri's skaters even when they make mistakes, that discourages other coaches to even try to compete -> the pool of talents starts to reduce in size, and ultimately that will affect Sambo70 too with less gifted skaters. We've already seen coaches like Veronika Daineko dropping female skaters because there are more opportunities to succeed with the boys in Russia (and she is not wrong) Down the line you'll see more coaches making that switch.

-

Click to expand...

I think this is the most realistic factor that could stop such domination. I'd also add the lack of motivation for parents and athletes. If I was Russian and really wanted my child to succeed at sports, ladies figure skating would not be my first choice as it is so crowded and there is less possibility to break out to intl competition or at least get state support. There is a limited number spots at Senior National team that guarantee financing and so many candidates for them. Skaters themselves can lose motivation as well. What's the point of trying to land difficult jumps or improve performance if there are a bunch of others who are much better at it and ready to take state money and international competition spots.

Then again, Ladies' FS can become like rhythmic gymnastics, where Russia basically dominates the competition and almost all gold medalists come from the same gym. But I doubt it, as FS is widely popular and has flawed, but still more transparent judging. Not to mention the fact that Eteri or anyone else would need more people to work under rink's roof to achieve that

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I think their dominance will continue mainly because Russian government funds their sports. As long as there is money to assist families in getting kids into skating, their talent pool will be wide. The US middle class has LESS money than they used to. There are far far fewer families that can afford to have their children skate. Unless economically things change for the majority of people, the talent pool will continue to be small. If we had more federal funding for kids doing sports things might change. But ultimately, the countries that throw money at skaters and skating development are going to dominate.

Nimyue said:

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I think their dominance will continue mainly because Russian government funds their sports. As long as there is money to assist families in getting kids into skating, their talent pool will be wide. The US middle class has LESS money than they used to. There are far far fewer families that can afford to have their children skate. Unless economically things change for the majority of people, the talent pool will continue to be small. If we had more federal funding for kids doing sports things might change. But ultimately, the countries that throw money at skaters and skating development are going to dominate.

Click to expand...

this is so true, and a big reason the US doesn't have an abundance of really successful skaters. unless you are one of the 15-20 skaters at the top getting funding (maybe less), everything is out of pocket. in most cases you need to be financially well off to be a competitive skater, which cuts a lot of potential talent out in families that just can't afford it. in Russia with training funded the opportunities are endless since it relieves such a big burden and the talent pool will stay big.

Arwen17 said:

I hope to see skating grow in India and other small countries.

Click to expand...

Sorry, what? Is geography taught that badly in US?

Arwen17 said:

I kinda wish Russia's deep field could skate for other countries like India, but I'm not sure how much that would encourage skating growth in minority countries.

Click to expand...

Again, sorry, what? India a "minority country"?

Nimyue said:

But ultimately, the countries that throw money at skaters and skating development are going to dominate.

Click to expand...

Russia does not "throw money at skaters", that's a popular misconception. The state does support fs (like any other popular sport) at the junior and senior levels, but parents (and later, athletes themselves, if they are successful) bear the brunt of expenses still.

JazzUp said:

Sorry, what? Is geography taught that badly in US?

Again, sorry, what? India a "minority country"?

Click to expand...

Probably minority in the context of figure skating, they have only one skating rink for 1bn+ people after all.

JazzUp said:

Sorry, what? Is geography taught that badly in US?

Again, sorry, what? India a "minority country"?

Click to expand...

I think they meant small and minor in terms of being a small and minor within the sport of figure skating.

ruga said:

Probably minority in the context of figure skating, they have only one skating rink for 1bn+ people after all.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Someone up there was just looking for a reason to get offended instead of using logic and actually reading what I wrote.

Didn't we hear about Russian dominance before, with Lipnitskaia, Radionova, Pogorilaya, Tuktamysheva, Sotnitkova all at the senior level at the same time, and Medvedeva and Sotskova waiting in the wings at the junior level?

macy said:

this is so true, and a big reason the US doesn't have an abundance of really successful skaters. unless you are one of the 15-20 skaters at the top getting funding (maybe less), everything is out of pocket. in most cases you need to be financially well off to be a competitive skater, which cuts a lot of potential talent out in families that just can't afford it. in Russia with training funded the opportunities are endless since it relieves such a big burden and the talent pool will stay big.

Click to expand...

Except that the US has had an abundance of successful skaters in the past under the same system.

Arwen17 said:

Exactly. Someone up there was just looking for a reason to get offended instead of using logic and actually reading what I wrote.

Click to expand...

I was not offended at all, I was just laughing at your ridiculous wording.