2018 Rostelecom Cup live reports

[Fluture]

Wow, never thought I‘d say that but Gracie‘s skating really touches me now. I don‘t know what it is but to me it feels like every movement has a purpose now. Solely from how she skates, it‘s clear that this is what she wants, what she loves. The jumps were... not there yet at all and she didn‘t attempt many but everything else was great. I wish her all the best.

Eunsoo: :luv17: Just that Salchow, come on, girl!! It looks really beautiful in the air, you just have to land it.

Lil‘Bet... hm, didn‘t look too promising. She‘ll be better in the actual competition, she has good nerves.

Alina: :luv17: as usually. Go, my girl!!!

Polina: Oh, darling, why does it seem like you always rock your jumps in practice and then bomb in competition? :sad21: Come on now, those jumps are a thing of true beauty, be confident!! I‘m having my fingers crossed.

For everyone. Looked like an interesting practice for the ladies. Will catch up now with the men. Thanks for the videos/reports to everyone.

 

[shine]

Got a little teary eyed watching Gracie. How she has transformed.

 

[[email protected]]

Alina's practice session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1242&v=Yv1P9v2gcNw

Look at 3Lz-3T-3Lo at 20:25

Amazing....

 

[TallyT]

I'm not into the womens' skating, but will throw my small weight of crossed fingers for Gracie to do well, it's been a hard row and would be lovely to see it rewarded.

According to a Russian tweet, 2000 people turned up to see the men practice and yes, we know who inflated the number, but some would definitely have been the Russians there for their boys, and I'm glad for all of them, it would have made the practice that bit more exciting, I hope.

 

[figurefan0726]

Any streams for Friday’s practices?

 

[Seruleane]

I got chills watching Gracie. It's the perfect song to announce her comeback. I hope she pulls a Mirai and has her greatest next 4 years.
I am hoping nothing's wrong with Alina. She looked exhausted on the ice to me. Maybe she is just nervous because she's skating on home ice, but I hope she paces herself. She needs to peak at GPF and Worlds, not now.
Anyway, I'll be cheering hardest for Alina, Gracie and Lil Bet!! :luv17:

 

[Interspectator]

Watching the stream, which was blurry so I had a hard time making out who was who, I had no trouble finding Polina. I LOVE the way she skates and jumps. I rooting for her and Gracie especially to have good luck and good feelings about their skates.

 

[Interspectator]

I'm seeing twitter reports that everyone is lined up at the arena but the gates have not been opened to let in the audience. --Reports from practice this morning may not be in time for the first practice group.

Update: The waiting line is starting to move. :thumbsup:

 

[Interspectator]

Periscope stream for first group of Men. https://twitter.com/skating_cat_A/status/1063303401193263104

 

[Interspectator]

Second Group stream, Yuzu-centric. https://twitter.com/skating_cat_A/status/1063310586799374336

 

[Seruleane]

Need live reports! Yuzu and Alina just slayed. So happy for them both, and envious of those who got to see it live! Hoping the skaters who didn't have such good outings today redeem themselves tomorrow.

 

[LadyB]

Any Gracie citing would be appreciated. I assume she would be checking in to hotel on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Gracie used the same lift as me in the hotel A few hours ago it was Mishin. Not the same mingling at breakfast with the skaters as usual, due to Hanyu Mania. It's a question of crowd control. Mere mortals are having a separate breakfast room. Nevertheless, still loving every second of it.

If you get a chance, watch the tribute to Denis Ten as part of the Opening Ceremony on video (I'm sure there is one). It was beautifully done!

 

[[email protected]]

We just returned from Megasport. Well, there is something to think about.

This time I decided not to feed resellers any more and bought whatever best offer I could find on the official site. It is not outstanding but still quite OK. The view from my seat:

http://uploads.ru/y1vXV.jpg

By the way, we will not go to gala. Our seats are still available, as no one has responded yet.

The first change we noticed since last year is that they expanded the dining area (it was just impossible to find either a seat or a high table before). Another novelty is an "Asian food corner". The key feature there is huge dumplings with different fillings:

http://uploads.ru/gw725.jpg

I took 2 with meat and for some hours felt the influence of those on my being.

So, the men were first. I realized that with 2 main stars the organizers intentionally moved them to different corners. But I will tell more about this later ....

A usual disclaimer: all my impressions and views are just my personal impressions and views. My apologies to all who will feel offended by my remarks about certain skaters....

Men. We were late as usual and started with a guy from Malaysia. It's good that there are skaters in Malaysia.

Mayorov was a pleasant surprise. I remember the last time when he was nose bleeding. This was an ordeal to watch. Today he was completely different Mayorov. It looked as if he was having good fun skating at Rostelecom. A lot of energy and passion. And the score was good....

....Another deviation. I think that today's competition was one of the best-judged events ever. I play the game with my wife predicting the scores. Well, in singles only. Today I missed just once saying 65 for Yuna S with the actual score of 60. All other times it was not more than +-2 points, in half of the cases +-1 point. So much for "It's Russia" talks.....

....Kazuki was not bad. But he skated small may be because he is little. He somehow reminded me of Satoko although, I bet, he would rather be compared with Shoma.

Keagan had a day off. May be a jet lag. It was not only about jumps. His usual charisma somehow faded today. Moris, on the other hand, got the job done. His skating is quite rough and I am not sure whether this can be cured. Therefore, his task is to keep landing quads. Mikha was one big sigh - I am still emotionally attached to him although I told myself more than once to give up. Yuzuru was sublime. Elegance, artistry, perfection, 6.0 - it cannot be better. The only caveat that we both had with my wife is that we had seen this before. His costumes, his programs look very similar to what he did a year ago, two years ago. May be he just has nowhere to grow?

After Yuzuru half of the Japanese fans in my vicinity and some non-Japanese fans vanished. You call this rude? I call it smart. Dance competition was one big snooze fest. I was literally wrestling with sleep. And I just confirmed to myself that there exist may be a dozen, may be a bit more dance teams in the world which could be interesting to watch not only to experts but to casual fans like myself. There were 2 teams like that in this competition: Stepanova/Bukin and Carreira/Ponomarenko. First 30 seconds or so of S/B program is breathtaking. Power, beauty - I was almost spellbound. They lost some steam towards the end but it was such a striking contrast to everyone before them and the Poles after them. I did not get where they lost 5 points from their SB - there was some awkwardness in the beginning of the second half. May be they lost some levels there. However, everything else including twizzles was just wow! C/P were very impressive. They danced as one whole, very smoothly. I would expect higher score as well. Their twizzles, though, were not as good as S/B's.

Pairs were a breath of fresh air after dance. In the first group, I liked how Cain/Leduc skated. Unfortunately, she fell but they have so much potential and they are good entertainers especially the partner. I-spin was a surprise for me. Pavlyuchenko/Khodykin is a promising team. They have to work on their pcs as their skating looked juniorish. In the second group, Alexandrovskaya/Windsor skated to a song of INXS. My first thought was: "good, an Australian team skates to an Australian band". Then I recollected the video from the 90-s: something bluish in the park with violin players. Then I asked myself how their performance relate to this song. And I answered that it does not relate at all - they could have put any other tune. There were certain elements and there was a song by INXS. Then I told myself how I disagree with those who keep targeting Alina's music cuts. Come on guys - here is a real example of music and performance living 2 independent lives. Then I realized that the singer was more of Joe Cocker than INXS. "I was surprised" is a wrong phrase. I was startled when in 10 minutes I realized that there is one more INXS/Joe Cocker even almost the identical cut. And there are seasoned Italians skating to that. I was so preoccupied with thoughts of what it all means that I paid little attention to skating itself. Nevertheless, I realized that the Italians were quite good. Finally, Tarasova/Morozov. They are the leading Russian team and I hate "I am missing" talks.... well, I hated the choir "I am missing...." when Russian ladies started to rise and several usual suspects finished "I am missing...." line. But boy, I am missing V/T and S/K as the leading Russian pair. My 2 big issues with T/M are the lack of finesse and the lack of dedication to what they skate to. I think that to win over J/C they at least have to start skating flawlessly.

Finally, ladies. The organizers, as I said, apparently put men first and ladies last to keep the crowd. It did not quite work but the crowd mostly gathered back. As for the crowd itself, it was supportive to everyone but I have to admit that it was not overly enthusiastic with 2 big exemptions: Yuzuru and Alina. Well....they are the headliners.

In the first group Alexia Paganini showed yet another time that she knows how to skate and, what is even more important, how to jump. She just has to work on her second mark. There was a clear lack of fluidity in her skating. Sofia continues to move up. Slowly but steadily. She is an entertainer. And she has 3-3 now. My major complaint about her skating is the lack of ice coverage. She skated mostly in the center and the right corner from me. She briefly visited the left corner and I am certain that she has to think about that. Polina was not bad but not terrific either. I lost my emotional connection to her skating and I just hope that she will find the force to prove me wrong.

I was sad about Eunsoo Lim. We both: my wife and I exchanged the views on how we like her skating style which is even better live. Too bad about the jumps. Mako looked live even worse than on TV. And it's not only about jumps. Her style - I do not buy the argument about her skating skills. If she were from another federation, come on. She is not fast; her donut spin was a mess. On the other hand, Yuna S was a pleasant surprise. Watching her on TV only, I named her more than once "the embodiment of boring Japanese style". I changed my mind today. She was fast - may be one of the fastest skaters. She was bursting with energy. May be URs or edges but 60 looked a bit low.

I saw Elizabeth in Korea live - I saw her today. These are 2 different skaters. She looked awkward to me before - forever junior. Today I saw familiar traits of feather-like skating....Medvedeva. It seems like Zhenya does not own her previous skating style. It seems like Eteri wants to "recreate" the image. Actually, I like how Lizbet skates now. She just needs to stabilize the jumps before the worlds. Then a miracle can happen.

Finally, Alina. What can I say? There was some hesitation on 3Lz-3Lo. Although they showed slow-mo and I did not see any URs. Everything else was perfect. She feels the choreo now - she was "there" and we were "there" with her. Her 2A is one big masterpiece Bravo!

I could have written more. But we have free program tomorrow so that I shall do it anyway. Let's wish good luck to all skaters!

I shall not write about Gracie - you saw it all yourself.

 

[Interspectator]

https://twitter.com/skating_cat_a/status/1063654246774652929?s=21 Practice stream men G1

 

[Interspectator]

We just returned from Megasport. Well, there is something to think about.

This time I decided not to feed resellers any more and bought whatever best offer I could find on the official site. It is not outstanding but still quite OK. The view from my seat:
....

Thank you so much for sharing your viewing experience with us. :thumbsup:

 

[zebobes]

Yuzu just had a hard fall on the Quad Loop during his run through. He ended up leaving the ice before his music finished. Looking at him moving after the fall, he didn't seem to be favoring either leg... but a little scary. Hope he's okay!

 

[Interspectator]

Yeah, I hope they are just being careful. --Please be ok!

 

[satine]

Yuzu just had a hard fall on the Quad Loop during his run through. He ended up leaving the ice before his music finished. Looking at him moving after the fall, he didn't seem to be favoring either leg... but a little scary. Hope he's okay!

Ouch! Any hard fall (esp on a quad) is worrisome. Hopefully he is ok and can shake that off for today :thumbsup:

 

[LadyB]

Great report, [email protected]! Exactly my sentiment in many respects.
Spot on to call the dance event a snooze fest, even though I still liked S/B and H/K. Pairs was a breath of fresh air indeed. The Russian pairs put the marker down and Della Monica/Guarise are going from strength to strength.

Compared to previous Rostelecom events and Europeans, there were less skaters (past and present) around for autographs/pictures. Well, I didn't stay for ladies as I was meeting a friend in town, so maybe I'll missed the best bit. Let's see what happens today.
samkrut, see you in a few hours!

 

[Interspectator]

Another worrying report from the stadium
https://twitter.com/Skatingpics17/status/1063706464068517888

First Yuzu, now Evgenia Tarasova has taken a bad fall and has left the ice rink. Be safe everyone! Please!