Team Russia

[Melodie]

42 minutes ago, sallycinnamon said:

My bet was more on Ignatov because of his international experience in seniors, strong tech content if he delivers + his experience at Nebelhorn where he already won a gold) or Samarin (Europeans silver medalist, international experience), but Kondratyuk is not a bad choice eithe though he doesn't have much experience in senior competitions so far, but hopefully it won't affect him too much

 

Makar usually runs out of steam in the FS. Mark, less so. 

 

The kid also needs exposure to the international scene. He might be Team Russia's dark horse from now on, I feel. Of course, not to count out Evgeni Semenenko and Petr Gumenik. Daniil Samsonov too, if he can recover from whatever mysterious medical conditions he has been having for so long now. 

[Melodie]

So....

 

- Alexandra Stepanova fell ill with a viral sore throat and high temperature a few days before test skates.

- Arina Ushakova has been ill with covid for most of the summer and only began training in August.  

- Sofia Shevchenko was seriously ill from covid in June and is currently unable to skate the whole program.

https://twitter.com/AnythingGOE/status/1437356864094810117?s=20

 

 

Team Russia continues to NOT have it easy. 

 

Edit: Johnathan Guererrio just had Covid for the second time this summer too. Hoh boy...

 

[sallycinnamon]

4 hours ago, Melodie said:

Makar usually runs out of steam in the FS. Mark, less so. 

 

The kid also needs exposure to the international scene. He might be Team Russia's dark horse from now on, I feel. Of course, not to count out Evgeni Semenenko and Petr Gumenik. Daniil Samsonov too, if he can recover from whatever mysterious medical conditions he has been having for so long now. 

 

Makar really runs out of stream, even though potentially he can have one of the highest BV. I forgot that he did only 1 combo because all the landings on his quads were messy (except the 4Lo).

Mark looks in better shape and he backloaded quite a lot of difficult jumps in the second half. He also did two quad Salchows.

 

Semenenko looks consistent and he already has experience of competing at Worlds, where he also did well.

I hope Gumennik hasn't injured himself yesterday because those falls looked bad. When he is on, his skating is good.

And I don't know about Samsonov, if he'll be able to be back in great form. He only did one competition last season, Russian junior Nationals where he finished 7th...

 

[EisElle]

11 hours ago, Melodie said:

So....

 

- Alexandra Stepanova fell ill with a viral sore throat and high temperature a few days before test skates.

- Arina Ushakova has been ill with covid for most of the summer and only began training in August.  

- Sofia Shevchenko was seriously ill from covid in June and is currently unable to skate the whole program.

https://twitter.com/AnythingGOE/status/1437356864094810117?s=20

 

 

Team Russia continues to NOT have it easy. 

 

Edit: Johnathan Guererrio just had Covid for the second time this summer too. Hoh boy...

 

I thought that Sasha Stepanova's recurring back problems were the reason for S/B skipping, but now.... and viral stuff sound suspicious.

So sad to see again so many young skaters suffer quite harsly because of covid. Second infections too, delta is really nasty

I'm especially bummed for Sofia, I was missing S/E and now I know it will take long for a come back. Whishing her full recovery!

I wonder if it this second round contributed to persuade skaters to vaccinate even before they realized it would be helpful to manage to compete abroad...

 

 

re: Misha interview about his SP, I haven't seen the vid, but I assumed it had been done in the usual Misha style, joking and gently trolling. Though, being the SP to Caruso, I feel personally offended that he probably didn't even care to google the lyrics once  Skaters skating to music they don't know is something that always puzzles me (I know I couldn't do that, also, you're spending months of your life on it, shouldn't you wish to know more?). And Caruso isn't exaclty an obscure piece you find it hard to dig info about (it has its own russian Wiki even). Even if the program was only 1 week old (why did they even change it this late?), googling takes a few minutes at most. I'm not demanding full analysis of the piece and its history, but the general gist of the lyrics...

then again, Misha also got identical stsq for different programs and was fine with that, so maybe I'm expecting too much. Anyway, they should have really kept the White Crow FS. I don't understand what Mishin is trying to do...

 

re: Daniil Samsonov, sadly I don't have much expectations about his swift comeback.

He's probably still growing (he had some serious pain due to growth last season, and intensive training certainly doesn't help) and IMO if he wants to have some kind of senior career (not to speak of lasting health) he shouldn't rush now and instead focus on getting stronger and aim for next quad. It's very unlikely that by December he'll be in a position to grab an oly spot (even with russian Men's field being notoriously very volatile).

[rockstaryuzu]

16 hours ago, Melodie said:

So....

 

- Alexandra Stepanova fell ill with a viral sore throat and high temperature a few days before test skates.

- Arina Ushakova has been ill with covid for most of the summer and only began training in August.  

- Sofia Shevchenko was seriously ill from covid in June and is currently unable to skate the whole program.

https://twitter.com/AnythingGOE/status/1437356864094810117?s=20

 

 

Team Russia continues to NOT have it easy. 

 

Edit: Johnathan Guererrio just had Covid for the second time this summer too. Hoh boy...

 

Holy cannoli! Will there be any healthy Russians left by the time the Olympics roll around?

[Melodie]

1 hour ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Holy cannoli! Will there be any healthy Russians left by the time the Olympics roll around?

Well, that's a good question.

 

Can we ask the mysterious FS tarots lady to give us some rough ideas? 

 

But also, isn't it scary that they struggled just the same the second time around?

[Melodie]

5 hours ago, LadyLou said:

I thought that Sasha Stepanova's recurring back problems were the reason for S/B skipping, but now.... and viral stuff sound suspicious.

So sad to see again so many young skaters suffer quite harsly because of covid. Second infections too, delta is really nasty

I'm especially bummed for Sofia, I was missing S/E and now I know it will take long for a come back. Whishing her full recovery!

I wonder if it this second round contributed to persuade skaters to vaccinate even before they realized it would be helpful to manage to compete abroad...

 

 

re: Misha interview about his SP, I haven't seen the vid, but I assumed it had been done in the usual Misha style, joking and gently trolling. Though, being the SP to Caruso, I feel personally offended that he probably didn't even care to google the lyrics once  Skaters skating to music they don't know is something that always puzzles me (I know I couldn't do that, also, you're spending months of your life on it, shouldn't you wish to know more?). And Caruso isn't exaclty an obscure piece you find it hard to dig info about (it has its own russian Wiki even). Even if the program was only 1 week old (why did they even change it this late?), googling takes a few minutes at most. I'm not demanding full analysis of the piece and its history, but the general gist of the lyrics...

then again, Misha also got identical stsq for different programs and was fine with that, so maybe I'm expecting too much. Anyway, they should have really kept the White Crow FS. I don't understand what Mishin is trying to do...

 

re: Daniil Samsonov, sadly I don't have much expectations about his swift comeback.

He's probably still growing (he had some serious pain due to growth last season, and intensive training certainly doesn't help) and IMO if he wants to have some kind of senior career (not to speak of lasting health) he shouldn't rush now and instead focus on getting stronger and aim for next quad. It's very unlikely that by December he'll be in a position to grab an oly spot (even with russian Men's field being notoriously very volatile).

For your first question, I'm not so sure.... Pray that there won't be a chain of supersreader events just because some skaters believe they are superhuman.

 

Re: Misha, pretty sure he is joking 😂 But that's a good way to shoo the journalists away when you are not in the mood 🤣 

 

Re: Daniil, I don't even know what to expect. We will need him to show up at any comps first before we can even come to any conclusions. Maybe he will be sent to a Challenger or maybe we will have to wait until the GP? I don't know...

[Melodie]

On 9/12/2021 at 12:25 AM, NILI N said:

i loved both his progs last yr

they were simply exquisite

shame he ditched them

the free was so balletic one could see Nur hiself there

 

for me its such a shame if they dont come

i was looking forward to dasha, misha n daniil- this kid we can so rarely see him

 

i might just cancel y trip to the US if they cant make it

will think of rostelecom instead

and/or russian nats [if i can get a ticket]

 

 

Unpopular opinion but I don't like his Nureyev FS.

 

However, I love his Carmen. That has got to be one of the best Carmen numbers I have ever seen, so if anything, I wish he would bring that back. 

 

Maybe a Nureyev SP + Carmen FS? That would be my dream combo for Mikhail.

 

PS: Nureyev SP just so that Benoit can realize how much he SUCKS. May be...

[Melodie]

Speaking of recycling...

 

 

 

[NILI N]

10 hours ago, LadyLou said:

I thought that Sasha Stepanova's recurring back problems were the reason for S/B skipping, but now.... and viral stuff sound suspicious.

So sad to see again so many young skaters suffer quite harsly because of covid. Second infections too, delta is really nasty

I'm especially bummed for Sofia, I was missing S/E and now I know it will take long for a come back. Whishing her full recovery!

I wonder if it this second round contributed to persuade skaters to vaccinate even before they realized it would be helpful to manage to compete abroad...

 

 

re: Misha interview about his SP, I haven't seen the vid, but I assumed it had been done in the usual Misha style, joking and gently trolling. Though, being the SP to Caruso, I feel personally offended that he probably didn't even care to google the lyrics once  Skaters skating to music they don't know is something that always puzzles me (I know I couldn't do that, also, you're spending months of your life on it, shouldn't you wish to know more?). And Caruso isn't exaclty an obscure piece you find it hard to dig info about (it has its own russian Wiki even). Even if the program was only 1 week old (why did they even change it this late?), googling takes a few minutes at most. I'm not demanding full analysis of the piece and its history, but the general gist of the lyrics...

then again, Misha also got identical stsq for different programs and was fine with that, so maybe I'm expecting too much. Anyway, they should have really kept the White Crow FS. I don't understand what Mishin is trying to do...

 

re: Daniil Samsonov, sadly I don't have much expectations about his swift comeback.

He's probably still growing (he had some serious pain due to growth last season, and intensive training certainly doesn't help) and IMO if he wants to have some kind of senior career (not to speak of lasting health) he shouldn't rush now and instead focus on getting stronger and aim for next quad. It's very unlikely that by December he'll be in a position to grab an oly spot (even with russian Men's field being notoriously very volatile).

from what i read, it's not michin idea to ditch white crow but misha's

he says he cant skate to the same music too much

[rockstaryuzu]

6 hours ago, Melodie said:

But also, isn't it scary that they struggled just the same the second time around?

It's  like they learned nothing from the first wave....

[EisElle]

3 hours ago, NILI N said:

from what i read, it's not michin idea to ditch white crow but misha's

he says he cant skate to the same music too much

he also said he does what his coach tells him. He might have said it a bit tongue in cheek, knowing him, but it feels that he just doesn't have strong opinion one way or the other, so he happily leaves major choices to Mishin:

Quote

Why didn’t I keep the White Crow? Because Alexei Nikolaevich said so. He is my boss, I am a subordinate.

from this interview

https://fs-gossips.com/mikhail-kolyada-the-short-program-is-about-what-pavarotti-is-singing-about-what-is-he-singing-about-look-in-the-internet/

[NILI N]

4 hours ago, LadyLou said:

he also said he does what his coach tells him. He might have said it a bit tongue in cheek, knowing him, but it feels that he just doesn't have strong opinion one way or the other, so he happily leaves major choices to Mishin:

from this interview

https://fs-gossips.com/mikhail-kolyada-the-short-program-is-about-what-pavarotti-is-singing-about-what-is-he-singing-about-look-in-the-internet/

what i read was before test skates. maybe he changed his version a bit.

anyway its a shame he did

[yuzuangel]

On 9/11/2021 at 9:23 AM, sallycinnamon said:

 

That is my guess too.

 

On the other hand Usacheva said she can't say anything about participating in the US (meaning she doesn't have a visa yet?)

 

Kolyada sounds angry about the questions about his new SP. Apparently he has no idea what the program is about:

 

lol, that quote. it's golden.

[sweetwater]

20 hours ago, LadyLou said:

he also said he does what his coach tells him. He might have said it a bit tongue in cheek, knowing him, but it feels that he just doesn't have strong opinion one way or the other, so he happily leaves major choices to Mishin:

from this interview

https://fs-gossips.com/mikhail-kolyada-the-short-program-is-about-what-pavarotti-is-singing-about-what-is-he-singing-about-look-in-the-internet/

It's not surprising if Misha ditched a program according to Mishin's suggestion. Coach Mishin did the same with Plushenko when he was competing. In 2012, Pasquale Camerlengo choreographed Plushenko's SP, and Kenji Miyamoto choreographed R&J as his FP, but we didn't have a chance to see any of them because the coach didn't find them promising. Something similar happened for the next season as well. Some say Plushenko is always Plushenko, but I think it was partly because of coach Mishin's approach. My impression is that the coach has a strong opinion on what is a good program and doesn't sit back and wait for his students to find something new and make it theirs.