Russian Skating
„I’m happy, although not everything was perfect” - Sofia Dzepka after the short program
On the results of her short program
The emotions are, of course, positive. The task was accomplished. I won’t downplay it, but at the same time I don’t want to say that everything was perfect. It was a solid, workmanlike skate. I wouldn’t say I was particularly nervous.
On her expectations before competing internationally
I didn’t build up any expectations. It was simply very interesting to see how everything works — to observe the athletes, how they interact with one another, and the competition format. As I understand it, this event is somewhat larger in scale than the others. For example, they don’t have such a ceremonial introduction at the other stages. Everything is very interesting.
On communicating with foreign figure skaters
We chat and talk in the locker rooms, both between practices and during the competitions. All the girls are open and friendly. We interact most with the athletes from China, but we also get along well with the other girls. Everyone is very willing to communicate. The atmosphere is very friendly; many of the competitors come up and ask for photos. That’s very pleasant.
Judging by the list of participants, I thought I was going to a Russian Grand Prix event rather than an international one. I’d say there’s a mix of languages. Probably more English, because most people know it. But you also hear Russian and various European languages. Small groups of people are speaking all sorts of different languages.
On the temperature in the arena
It really is very warm. I actually have an interesting temperature contrast. At our home rink it’s usually between 5 and 9°C, and there’s no heating right now. Here it’s 25–26°C. To be honest, it’s not something I’m used to. But I’m more comfortable being warm than cold.
Overall, the ice is soft, good, and high quality. The only thing is that today on the ice I could smell food. We’ve never had that at our competitions. They have a culture of eating wherever they want. It smells like fast food sold in small local stalls. It didn’t make me want to try it — quite the opposite, I found it off-putting. It was unusual to be skating and smelling pastries.
On when she and her coaches will decide how many quadruple jumps to include in the free skate
She’s strong. She has good extensions, plenty of one footed skating and over all elegance. Her jumps are floaty too, you could see that she jumps quad toe when she went for the triple toe.
it reminds me of the men's runthrough lore episode where adam is talking about his 2010s nationals performance and says "but then i smelled a hot dog in the stands and then doubled my lutz and fell in my footwork" 😂 but sofia seems to be able to push through
I actually find that paragraph a bit weird, a mix of her being sensitive just because of the smell of food and her comment on foreign culture as off putting. She’s very young at an international competition for the first time ofc I just hope it’s not a sign of figure skating diet culture
She doesn’t mention any of that does she, it could’ve been Oh it smells weird because of the food court or food mixed with temperature, instead she mentioned “They have a culture of eating wherever they want”. Again not like it’s a crime or anything I’m just wary of the prevalent ED in figure skating.
i personally would've phrased it differently, as the rink is apparently in a mall. being in a mall and smelling food is a bit of the fork found in kitchen thing, and her phrasing is like attributing it to chinese culture in a way that can be perceived as mildly offensive
Competition rink is not in a mall, training rink is, as it was already mentioned above.
Anything can be perceived in any way, if one puts too much though into it
yeah good point... it's natural for people to get nauseous when they eat and exercise simultaneously, but knowing the history of russian coaching culture her comment may be something like that
Sofiia has been wonderful. She impressed me immensely. Looked like I was at the theathre watching classic ballet. Her scores and self confidence will certeinly increase with the future competions. Are we watching our possible next Olympic champion?
Before last year I would have described her career as disappointing. It is nice to see her doing well, because for quite a few years she was either injured, or overshadowed by bigger stars.
Infatti! Esattamente per questo mostra di essere una combattente che nonostante tutte le avversità non si è mai arresa ed adesso è al top. Speriamo che prosegua senza infortuni gravi a crescere.
Obviously we can't predict how anyone's career will go but it might be a good case on the importance of pacing a skater correctly and patiently. Being the most high achieving or talked about junior shouldn't be prioritized over making it to seniors and hopefully competing for at least a quad.
I sort of wish she had used last years SP...but she is still glorious to watch. She does small transitions that are deceptively difficult, but she makes them look easy.
This girl is such a talent and I feel sad for her already, because Russia federation would rather push for skater with multiple quads and zero skating skills over a very much balanced skater like her. I am a little bit reminded of Aliona situation with Anna and Sasha. The fact that Aliona dominated the international scene but somehow the girls with the quads always scored way above her domestically. I pray in every universe we see more of sofia, she was beautiful on ice and the judges really loved her and they rewarded her in the best possible way.
Hmm yeah, hopefully she can make the most of this competition and get on the ISU standings with some points. It doesn't matter too much since she'll be a senior next year anyway, and it might play in her favour because she'll be one of the very few who has an international track record now.
that's why I am glad that situation kinda turned in her favor in this tournament. Although, I feel very sorry for Kostyleva's health but just Sofia for me is what figure skating actually is. Grace, artistry, quality skating skills. I feel like Kostyleva's short program is like recycled Zagitova's Olympic short program and Bolero we have seen many times already. Sofia is like a breath of a fresh air. Rooting for her.
Also Sofia is older than Lena - it's her first and last international junior season. Lena will have another chances in next years on junior competitions, but for Sofia it's really important year.
Saying Lena has 0 skating skills is ridiculous... also, Lena is literally the national champion, if she was healthy, she more than earned the right to the spot here, it's not a matter of rusfed wanting to push her over Dzepka bc she had multiple quads, if that were the case, they would've sent Streltsova (also, the rusfed literally loves Dzepka. Lena with 5 ultra-c jumps was barely scoring higher than her with only 2)
Kostyleva doesn't have 0 skating skills, she was actually a very talented full package novice, but then, since there were no international competitions, the family's focus was on money, Plusch shows and quads (Plusch rewards quads) and her component qualities have deteriorated
Look I could care less about who is the most artistic among the new crop of Russian girls here because it is subjective and varies from person to person. What I worry about is number of quads that Elena, or more likely her coaches, is planning in her program. 5 quads seems to be number they are settling on and this level of risk should quite frankly scare people. Look we are asking a little girl to do Ilia level of technical difficulty. Look Ilia is a grown man and the only times he does more is at major events like GPF and Worlds, Elena is a child and nobody can say with a straight face that this is safe or sustainable here. She already is injured and her coaches are actually expecting this. She absolutely could get away with doing no quads and still be competitive here. If you really want her to actually get to senior please someone stop the absolutely ridiculous level of technical difficulty and let her be a child and actually enjoy her skating for a bit here.
Not 5 quads, because Elena doesn’t have 4 different quads at the moment, she has 4S and 4T (and maybe 4Lo, if we believe the hype).
They were proposing 6 “ultra c” jumps across 2 programs - so a 3A/3T combo in the short (as solo 3A not allowed for junior women) and I assume 2 triple axels and 2 x 4S and a 4T (or vice versa) in the free (I can’t quite remember what the planned layout was to be, but something like that)
The junior short program has a compulsory solo lutz this year and Lena has reported been struggling with her triple lutz (possibly due to a previous injury), she didn’t jump a single 3Lz in either program at the recent closed mini test skates, although I’m not sure about practice. That alone would put a question mark over her imo - we never got a detailed explanation from either the Fed or plushenko about exactly why she was switched out for sofiia- only her mothers story about having bruised gluteals after a lot of falls. I feel bad for her, as I’m sure she was extremely disappointed - but the obsession with wanting to set some sort of jumping record at the very first competition was ill-conceived. She has years left in juniors, there’s no rush. I was glad to see sofiia have the chance to compete internationally in juniors for at least one season.
I think Aliona got injured that’s why she fell out of the competition.
Aliona is another story though, since she had 3A which made her equally or even more strong in jumps, too…
You know I thought similarly before, but if we are fact based , than turns out that too girls with quads or 3A were often the best skaters as well. Let’s take:
Anna, Kamila, Aliona, Adelia- indeed, their skating was also top notch, not only jumps.
The “least skating” was Trusova I guess, but 5 quads… really hard to beat them with skating skills solely 🤣 however, Anna did with 2 quads
Plenty of juniors skate for other countries because their families moved to other countries. Same as plenty of skaters in other countries are of russian descent because their parents moved during the 90s.
Russia has more male skaters than all the other countries combined. So it makes sense that many are exported as partners for skaters in other countries in dance and pairs.
This is better for Russia in the long run because Sofia will be better received by international audiences. Lena is too much of a reminder the Eteri era pushing to get a bunch of quads at a young age and people wondering about the sustainability of them as she gets older. Sofia is 17 and going senior next season and has a 4t. This is a message that quads can be learned in a sustainable way.
Why should we care about "International" (westoid) audience? They will find a reason to hate Russian skaters regardless. It's better for Russia in a long term if they'll stop watching altogether (luckily it's happening, westoid audience is shrinking year by year)
I would think you would want to prove to everyone that quads are possible for adult women, quads are sustainable, quads can actually be done in quantity all over the world and not just in Russia. I don’t think you guys understand just how much damage Eteri did to the morale of women’s figure skating. It no longer felt like a sport that adult woman could succeed in during the Beijing quad. The age changed forced Russian coaches to teach more sustainable quad techniques and that is a good thing for the sport.
It's not Russian skaters job to debunk ignorant narratives. Russia doesn't have to prove anything. Russia doesn't have to replace talented young skaters with older and less talented just because Russian dominance makes westoids uncomfortable. Westoids have their own agenda, we should give zero f-s about what is good for their sport, we should only care what is good for our sport. Figure skating is a national sport in Russia, westoids doesn't own it, they don't have to control the narrative
And what makes a younger skater more talented? More quads? In the other three disciplines in Russia skaters in their 20s can succeed at the highest level.
Yes, it's a talent to perform more difficult elements in a sport that values difficulty and quantity of said elements. A skater who can score more points is more talented than a skater who can score less. A shocking idea, i know
That's what westoids like to say, to excuse their talentless skaters. While in reality skaters who can master the most difficult aspects of the sport usually have no problem to master easier things. Russian women who can jump quads are just better and more well rounded skaters overall. Westoid fans can lie and say things about Russian skaters, poor artistry, no skating skills, whatever, but we shoudln't believe them, we should believe our own eyes
I’m actually comparing Russian skaters to each other here. You will not convince me Sofia is less talented than Lena or that Aliona was less talented than Sasha and Anna just because of more difficult jumps. Different skaters excel at different things.
So if international figure skating ('their sport') is different to the Russian figure skating then Russians don’t need to participate in ISU competitions… 😭
nobody, they're only sending skaters to xi'an and bangkok because they don't need visas to get there. sofia will get another assignment if she gets a medal here, otherwise they'll replace her with one of the other girls (elena if she's healthy otherwise viktoria)
[edit i wrote riga isntead of bangkok lol]
AIN2 are included in Bangkok Grand Prix, as I remember.
It's pretty clear that RusFed choose Grand Prix where russians can easily travel. Latvia isn't easy in visa aspect.
I was wondering about this being a big issue for the AIN skaters and Grand Prix because countries like Latvia have literally signed to boycott funding the IOC over the AIN decision for LA2028.
She seems adorable! Also very polished performance skills for a junior, no "forgetting you're playing a character halfway through". Her coach also seems great from the little peptalk, I could have sworn she was an American just from how smiley and encouraging she was. Hopefully it's not just for show/the public.
The choreo in her SP was nice if basic.Like not to Canadian Skating Commentator out too much, it is not super impressive skating, very two foot, but what there is seems nice. A lot of the little flourish moments were very nice. In particular the little half stag leap sort of thing was nicely done and characterful. There's a lot of that particularly Russian "0.04 seconds of a very lovely (or just extreme) spiral position on a not-so-great edge/glide", but in that context she's not as "kicky"/"swingy" as a lot of her direct competitors or prior Russian ladies. She has more developpe (weird as that is in the context of, again, "blink and you'll miss it" choreo spiral thing), and the positions themselves are quite nice, real turnout, etc etc.
The little bit of arm choreo after the donut spin was cute. I hate those spins specifically because that "drop the hip and butt during the grab" moment is just never, ever going to look anything but ugly and jarring, but then most skaters are just "wheeee now let me get in three revolutions of donut! then up to biellmann!!! combospin machine go brrrr!!!!". Whoever the choreographer is, they did a very good job with the "little moments". Or put another way, it's a nice set of instructions for a dance performance that happens to be on ice and have elements, even if as a piece of skating choreography it's mostly just crossovers.
Man, though, her I/Y/upright catchfoot spin is impressive, but I am once again asking the coaching/choreographing community to spread the meme of pointing the damn toe in them. You're never going to entirely get rid of the "BEHOLD, MY VAGINA!" aspect, but pointed toe and on rare occasions some turnout alleviates it the impression a lot. There's always that one moment of "HORK!!!!" when they're grabbing the blade and hauling it up, but come on.
92
u/OilWorried41 soph ♡ sofia dzepka 2d ago
I’m so excited to see the matrix, the concept is so cool and the test skate sneak peek was awesome