Will Zagitova return?

TallyT · Jun 3, 2020

Gabby30 said:
Who did vote in those popularity ranking? Just because 100 or 1000 people are voting, their opinion doesn't represent the opinion of other 1000 people who didn't vote ( since not everyone is on Reddit or on other social media platforms. ) These kind of results are not accurate and doesn't say anything about the general popularity of a person.
It's like those people on twitter, who think they proved a point because their post got 1K + likes/retweets, yet in reality they only reached the people who are on twitter. There are over 7 billion people on this planet, what about their opinion?

Wikipedia stats on Langviews Analysis. Not voting, just the raw figures of how many times the skaters' individual wiki pages were looked at in the period in question. Sure, it's nothing to write a dissertation on, being only one incomplete factor - no way to estimate how much people looked at pages linked to the skater - and no hard and fast proof (which is pretty well impossible, as ESPN acknowledged in their Fame list last year when trying to crunch numbers. And they actually had Yuzuru in their top 100 even though alone among the 100 he uses no social media at all). Plus it doesn't include the fact that Japan, Korea and China use different platforms, but it's something more than hearsay and trying to compare endorsement appeal. People who are interested in a celebrity/sports star will very often head to wikipedia.

I looked them up out of interest as the reddit one was for the last five years and I thought something more recent would show how the newbies were doing as well.

Scott512 · Jun 3, 2020

drivingmissdaisy said:
I agree. I think it's likely that at least one of the three will see a decline in consistency such that a peak form Alina can sneak in there. Sasha was already scoring low enough to be caught by Alina towards the end of the season, although Sasha could have made modifications to her programs to remove risk if she sought just to medal instead of win. Anna does the two toughest quads, so it's not hard to imagine the extended break giving her problems on the timing of those jumps. Aliona is, for me, the best woman skater who has ever come out of Russia and would be tough to beat even if she lost the 3A. The hard thing for Alina is that much of it is out of her hands, but a scenario in which one (or more) of those ahead of her struggles next season is not at all implausible.

the top girls with the toughest jumps always make mistakes they never skate completely clean even aliona. Sometimes they even make multiple mistakes and if they do a clean Alina can beat them.

Amei · Jun 3, 2020

Scott512 said:
the top girls with the toughest jumps always make mistakes they never skate completely clean even aliona. Sometimes they even make multiple mistakes and if they do a clean Alina can beat them.

If she doesn't increase her technical content, she would need skaters with triple axels and/or quads to make more than a few mistakes to beat them even if she's clean as a whistle. At the GPF Kostornaia skated completely clean with 3 triple axels, no negative GOE - she won the overall competition, but Shcherbakova still won the FS with a fall on her 4F and an under-rotation call on her second 4Lz. So Shcherbakova had multiple flaws in her FS but was able to beat a skater with 2 triple axels who got higher PCS than her in the FS. Additionally, Kostornaia wasn't exactly a skater making a lot of mistakes that would allow a skater with less difficult technical content beat her, Zagitova's PCS advantage over her was less than a point by the GPF SP.

So I don't get your confidence that a clean Zagitova (which I assume you are speaking about Zagitova with the technical content we've seen her compete and not a triple axel or quad which we have yet to see any evidence that she can do cleanly with any consistency that indicates she has them competition ready) will beat Kostornaia - who was consistently clean with her triple axels and nearly matching Zagitova on PCS in her first season on the senior circuit or a semi-clean Shcherbakova that was able to beat someone that has harder technical elements than Zagitova and nearly equal PCS as Zagitova in the FS portion of the competition. I mean I guess if Zagitova gets 10 PCS across the board and +5 GOE on every single element than perhaps she beats those 2....

Scott512 · Jun 3, 2020

Amei said:
If she doesn't increase her technical content, she would need skaters with triple axels and/or quads to make more than a few mistakes to beat them even if she's clean as a whistle. At the GPF Kostornaia skated completely clean with 3 triple axels, no negative GOE - she won the overall competition, but Shcherbakova still won the FS with a fall on her 4F and an under-rotation call on her second 4Lz. So Shcherbakova had multiple flaws in her FS but was able to beat a skater with 2 triple axels who got higher PCS than her in the FS. Additionally, Kostornaia wasn't exactly a skater making a lot of mistakes that would allow a skater with less difficult technical content beat her, Zagitova's PCS advantage over her was less than a point by the GPF SP.

So I don't get your confidence that a clean Zagitova (which I assume you are speaking about Zagitova with the technical content we've seen her compete and not a triple axel or quad which we have yet to see any evidence that she can do cleanly with any consistency that indicates she has them competition ready) will beat Kostornaia - who was consistently clean with her triple axels and nearly matching Zagitova on PCS in her first season on the senior circuit or a semi-clean Shcherbakova that was able to beat someone that has harder technical elements than Zagitova and nearly equal PCS as Zagitova in the FS portion of the competition. I mean I guess if Zagitova gets 10 PCS across the board and +5 GOE on every single element than perhaps she beats those 2....

Alina is a technical wizard and always does tough routines with high scoring potential. The other top skaters have major inconsistencies. Sasha anybody? Rika? If Alina wins her way that's great if she doesn't that's fine too. I see her contending for Metals at every event she enters. This isn't like men's figure skating ladies figure skating is very deep at the top.

TallyT · Jun 3, 2020

Scott512 said:
This isn't like men's figure skating ladies figure skating is very deep at the top.

Though do remember, things can change, even if when looking at the Russian and Japanese girls we can't right now see how. Just two years ago, at Pyeongchang, the men's field was such that about six were spoken of as possibly being in the running for the gold....

drivingmissdaisy · Jun 3, 2020

Scott512 said:
Alina is a technical wizard and always does tough routines with high scoring potential. The other top skaters have major inconsistencies.

Alina can still win events, but I don't think implying that she'll do so because she's more consistent than Aliona (or even Anna) is very convincing. That could obviously change over time, but it wasn't the case at any point last season.

Scott512 · Jun 3, 2020

TallyT said:
Though do remember, things can change, even if when looking at the Russian and Japanese girls we can't right now see how. Just two years ago, at Pyeongchang, the men's field was such that about six were spoken of as possibly being in the running for the gold....

Things can change fast . =drivingmissdaisy;2607032]Alina can still win events, but I don't think implying that she'll do so because she's more consistent than Aliona (or even Anna) is very convincing. That could obviously change over time, but it wasn't the case at any point last season.[/QUOTE]

I expect to see a better Alina this year than last year year. She can take a step back and do her saying and do her best I'm not worried about the medals and that will be to her advantage. 3A you're so used to be used to be known have to deal with puberty now.

Amei · Jun 3, 2020

Scott512 said:
Alina is a technical wizard and always does tough routines with high scoring potential. The other top skaters have major inconsistencies. Sasha anybody? Rika? If Alina wins her way that's great if she doesn't that's fine too. I see her contending for Metals at every event she enters. This isn't like men's figure skating ladies figure skating is very deep at the top.

Alina does do tough routines with high scoring potential - outside of Russia. It's a bit baffling that you are willing to write of Kihara and Trusova for their inconsistencies last season, but willing to ignore that Zagitova was inconsistent as well, and she competing much easier content than the other 2. Based on her own words, she doesn't want to contend for medals but be on top; based on last season and the talent pool in her country the content that won her the Olympics in 2018 and Worlds in 2019 is more likely to have her sitting at home for those competitions in the upcoming seasons than skating at them.

eterislouisvuitton · Jun 3, 2020

Scott512 said:
You thought wrong. Muwahhhhhhhh!

Seriously though at this point I think the reigning and defending olympic and world champion can pretty much coach herself. Eteri Will be there to motivate her when she needs it and push her hard when she needs it. I still see medals in Alinas future. She does too.

Scott I understand that with Eteri there are two definite sides, some love her some hate her and both can get quite annoying and frankly disrespectful. But nobody is wishing ill on her skaters (well that hate account on instagram but yeah) and we all said that we would love to see Alina back in competition. Nobody really knows what goes on in Etericamp, so it's all just speculation. Of course some are harsh on her because of her success and others praise because of her success but neither merits the "YOU WERE WRONG MWAHAHAHAH" type of thing.

And here this article: https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/s..._na_occontent-news_spredfast_na&sf234687386=1

I think she will do a comeback this fall, beyond that we don't know. But I'm excited!

flanker · Jun 4, 2020

eterislouisvuitton said:
Scott I understand that with Eteri there are two definite sides, some love her some hate her and both can get quite annoying and frankly disrespectful. But nobody is wishing ill on her skaters (well that hate account on instagram but yeah) and we all said that we would love to see Alina back in competition. Nobody really knows what goes on in Etericamp, so it's all just speculation. Of course some are harsh on her because of her success and others praise because of her success but neither merits the "YOU WERE WRONG MWAHAHAHAH" type of thing.

And here this article: https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/s..._na_occontent-news_spredfast_na&sf234687386=1

I think she will do a comeback this fall, beyond that we don't know. But I'm excited!

Sometimes it's hard to believe as there is hardly any other skater whose possibility of success would be disputed so often and so loud. Like why all the other russian skaters don't retire when they have, to be honest, even much less chance than Alina. I've said it several times and I will say it again, e.g. Liza is praised by many for trying 4S and hardly anybody says "her chances are minimal". With Evgenia, people say what could have happened if it weren't for her problems with skates at russian nationals. Only with Alina there are still "it would be reasonable to retire" talks.

I should remind that Alina's top scores are still higher than e.g. Rika's with three triple axels clean. Yes, if Alina wants to have a big chance of victory through her own performances without relying on big mistakes of her competitors, she needs to improve difficulty, nobody is denying that, but she is obviously working on that.

Everything relies only on whether Alina wants to compete or not.

starlight97 · Jun 4, 2020

I agree that Alina, apart from the other 3 eteri girls, is the most competitive skater out there still.
Liza has nice jumps but sadly that's it. She lacks in all other departments and also it's easy to make a jump look huge and beautiful when you skate into it in a straight line, while Alina has crazy transitions into and out of everything. Her programs are physically way more exhausting.
And Evgenia, I don't see how she can even be compared to Alina as for chances to medal. She gets PCS bonus but her tech can't even be compared. She doesn't do any lutz combo, tends to get edge calls, her 3F-3T has become unstable and in general sadly she has fallen behind. I really can't see how people believe there could be a 4 for her in the future, no way imo.

theharleyquinn · Jun 4, 2020

starlight97 said:
I agree that Alina, apart from the other 3 eteri girls, is the most competitive skater out there still.
Liza has nice jumps but sadly that's it. She lacks in all other departments and also it's easy to make a jump look huge and beautiful when you skate into it in a straight line, while Alina has crazy transitions into and out of everything. Her programs are physically way more exhausting.
And Evgenia, I don't see how she can even be compared to Alina as for chances to medal. She gets PCS bonus but her tech can't even be compared. She doesn't do any lutz combo, tends to get edge calls, her 3F-3T has become unstable and in general sadly she has fallen behind. I really can't see how people believe there could be a 4 for her in the future, no way imo.

Well with the new rules, not having a lutz won't matter as much.

Scott512 · Jun 4, 2020

Amei said:
Alina does do tough routines with high scoring potential - outside of Russia. It's a bit baffling that you are willing to write of Kihara and Trusova for their inconsistencies last season, but willing to ignore that Zagitova was inconsistent as well, and she competing much easier content than the other 2. Based on her own words, she doesn't want to contend for medals but be on top; based on last season and the talent pool in her country the content that won her the Olympics in 2018 and Worlds in 2019 is more likely to have her sitting at home for those competitions in the upcoming seasons than skating at them.

Oh I wouldn't write them off Rika is lovely and beautiful and Sasha is a Supergirl but they aren't exactly consistent in my opinion. Alina can't afford to be inconsistent sometimes because she's won everything. As far as me by feeling you there is a lot of baffling going on here and has been since I joined in I believe February 2014.

eterislouisvuitton said:
Scott I understand that with Eteri there are two definite sides, some love her some hate her and both can get quite annoying and frankly disrespectful. But nobody is wishing ill on her skaters (well that hate account on instagram but yeah) and we all said that we would love to see Alina back in competition. Nobody really knows what goes on in Etericamp, so it's all just speculation. Of course some are harsh on her because of her success and others praise because of her success but neither merits the "YOU WERE WRONG MWAHAHAHAH" type of thing.

And here this article: https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/s..._na_occontent-news_spredfast_na&sf234687386=1

I think she will do a comeback this fall, beyond that we don't know. But I'm excited!

Why would people hate her? There is no reason to hate the great coach. Not liking someone is one thing and there's some skaters I don't like but I would never venture into hating . that is beyond the pale.

Thank you for the article it was a great read. Alina

flanker said:
Sometimes it's hard to believe as there is hardly any other skater whose possibility of success would be disputed so often and so loud. Like why all the other russian skaters don't retire when they have, to be honest, even much less chance than Alina. I've said it several times and I will say it again, e.g. Liza is praised by many for trying 4S and hardly anybody says "her chances are minimal". With Evgenia, people say what could have happened if it weren't for her problems with skates at russian nationals. Only with Alina there are still "it would be reasonable to retire" talks.

I should remind that Alina's top scores are still higher than e.g. Rika's with three triple axels clean. Yes, if Alina wants to have a big chance of victory through her own performances without relying on big mistakes of her competitors, she needs to improve difficulty, nobody is denying that, but she is obviously working on that.

Everything relies only on whether Alina wants to compete or not.

Very good points we agree again. I'm very happy Liza and evgenia are still skating competitively and I had a high-level I think it's great for the sport. Now if they could only go by the world rankings and put a lot more skaters in to the major events that deserve it like these great veteran skaters and combine that with a mix of skaters from smaller countries to grow the sport there. But who am I kidding that will never happen and Russian Nationals is really like a mini world championship for the ladies anyway.

eterislouisvuitton · Jun 4, 2020

starlight97 said:
I agree that Alina, apart from the other 3 eteri girls, is the most competitive skater out there still.
Liza has nice jumps but sadly that's it. She lacks in all other departments and also it's easy to make a jump look huge and beautiful when you skate into it in a straight line, while Alina has crazy transitions into and out of everything. Her programs are physically way more exhausting.
And Evgenia, I don't see how she can even be compared to Alina as for chances to medal. She gets PCS bonus but her tech can't even be compared. She doesn't do any lutz combo, tends to get edge calls, her 3F-3T has become unstable and in general sadly she has fallen behind. I really can't see how people believe there could be a 4 for her in the future, no way imo.

Now I'm not trying to hate or anything, but let's be real for a minute here. All the Russian girls, excluding *maybe* the Mishin girls, got very generous marks from the judges this past season.

Now I agree that people are being too hopeful when it comes to Evgenia's future. I think that for her, quad is unlikely. Whenever she has a bad performance people say it was just a fluke, but when an Eteri girl has a bad performance, they're burning out and it's over. Among most fans, they remember Evgenia's season by her best performance at Rostelecom while they remember Sasha's by her worst at Russian nationals.

Skater Boy · Jun 4, 2020

TallyT said:
Though do remember, things can change, even if when looking at the Russian and Japanese girls we can't right now see how. Just two years ago, at Pyeongchang, the men's field was such that about six were spoken of as possibly being in the running for the gold....

I think Rika is the threat and maybe Liu from the US. They are developing nicely and Alina will need to be on her game skating with all her jumps cleanly to even have a remote chance.

drivingmissdaisy · Jun 4, 2020

eterislouisvuitton said:
All the Russian girls, excluding *maybe* the Mishin girls, got very generous marks from the judges this past season.

Generous relative to whom?

Scott512 · Jun 5, 2020

eterislouisvuitton said:
Now I'm not trying to hate or anything, but let's be real for a minute here. All the Russian girls, excluding *maybe* the Mishin girls, got very generous marks from the judges this past season.

Now I agree that people are being too hopeful when it comes to Evgenia's future. I think that for her, quad is unlikely. Whenever she has a bad performance people say it was just a fluke, but when an Eteri girl has a bad performance, they're burning out and it's over. Among most fans, they remember Evgenia's season by her best performance at Rostelecom while they remember Sasha's by her worst at Russian nationals.

The St Petersburg girls got royally screwed last year with scores except for maybe Nastya G2 one of Mishins girls. Liza was scratching her head all season at her scores as were other ladies from Petersburg as the natives say. Do I need to name names? I refuse to for diplomacy reasons.

macy · Jun 5, 2020

Scott512 said:
The St Petersburg girls got royally screwed last year with scores except for maybe Nastya G2 one of Mishins girls. Liza was scratching her head all season at her scores as were other ladies from Petersburg as the natives say. Do I need to name names? I refuse to for diplomacy reasons.

i can't speak for the other girls you named, but Liza scores the way she does for a reason. she has really nice jumps and some pizzazz, but the spins, speed, programs/choreography, transitions and flexibility are not there.

AshWagsFan · Jun 5, 2020

TallyT said:
Though do remember, things can change, even if when looking at the Russian and Japanese girls we can't right now see how. Just two years ago, at Pyeongchang, the men's field was such that about six were spoken of as possibly being in the running for the gold....

Don’t count out the Americans and Koreans! Bradie and Mariah both had very strong seasons, and Alysia Liu is coming up (if she can keep her quads...), and Young You and Haein Lee also had great seasons! I think Alina must stay in front of these skaters at competitions if she wants to really make a statement and get to Euros/Worlds. For example, she lost to Mariah Bell in the free at IDF last season, and she lost to Bradie at GPF. These skaters had not beaten her before that, which doesn’t always leave the greatest impression with the selection committee. Consistency and confidence is key if she wants to contend again.

AshWagsFan · Jun 5, 2020

macy said:
i can't speak for the other girls you named, but Liza scores the way she does for a reason. she has really nice jumps and some pizzazz, but the spins, speed, programs/choreography, transitions and flexibility are not there.

How would you compare her to Trusova? I always felt like they were similar in the aspects of their skating (outside of the jumps, where Sasha has more and better quads). I feel that Tuk May have believed she was undermarked because Sasha was getting better scores than her on spins, steps, components, etc, even though she also had less transitions, didn’t have the strongest step sequences, and had weaker spins than some of the others.

Will Zagitova return?

TallyT

Scott512

Amei

Scott512

TallyT

drivingmissdaisy

Scott512

Amei

eterislouisvuitton

flanker

starlight97

theharleyquinn

Scott512

eterislouisvuitton

Skater Boy

drivingmissdaisy

Scott512

macy

AshWagsFan

Edges for days.

AshWagsFan

Edges for days.

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