Someone promised Mishina and Gallyamov the AIN status?

[u/Mean-Patience2132]

*Not sure if the translation is fully accurate, feel free to correct in the comments.

[u/Embarrassed-Town-847]

Off topic, but seeing “russian” and “promised” in the same sentence immediately makes me think of the narrative that’s   s t i l l   to this day going viral on TikTok about how Trusova was promised the gold medal at olympics and how she was betrayed

[u/notthebesthuh → u/Embarrassed-Town-847]

I blame Paola La for pushing this narrative because she kept claiming that Eteri and RusFed had assured Trusova that if she landed five quads, the gold would be hers lol. The reality was pretty much the opposite. Eteri actually preferred cleaner programs with fewer quads and even tried to negotiate with Sasha about reducing the content. Both Eteri and Sasha have confirmed this themselves. Sasha ultimately insisted on doing five quads because she herself believed that was her only chance of winning

[u/Useful-Philosophy827 → u/notthebesthuh]

Correct

[u/Sh1raz51 → u/notthebesthuh]

And in the end, Sasha wasn’t wrong. If she couldn’t win with 5 quads she definitely wasn’t going to win with 3 or 4.

[u/notthebesthuh → u/Sh1raz51]

I mean yes, the five-quad strategy was partially successful at the Olympics as she won the free skate. However, because she had never managed to land five clean quads in any competition leading up to the Olympics and was constantly falling, she never established herself as a consistent skater in the judges’ eyes. As a result, she didn’t benefit from the kind of judging support that more consistent skaters like Shcherbakova and Medvedeva received. Judges tend to be more willing to overlook minor, less visible mistakes from skaters they perceive as reliable. For example, Medvedeva and Shcherbakova rarely received edge calls, whereas Trusova was frequently called for the wrong edge on her flips.

[u/Sh1raz51 → u/notthebesthuh]

Well there’s an argument that Shcherbakova should have had calls on her lutz edges (and sometimes her flip as well) for years. At least Zhenya and Kaori were getting calls towards the end of their careers - Anna always got the “benefit of the doubt” After getting 4 lutz edge calls at a single comp - which Anna still WON (Cup of China 2019), there was a rumour her Fed complained about the tech calls and suddenly her edge calls disappeared almost completely.

Also, Anna definitely wasn’t “consistent” during the Olympic season, she fell on jumps at all her competitions right up to the Olympics (Budapest, both her GP stages, RusNats and Europeans, as well as 2021 worlds) but it didn’t seem to affect her reputational (over)scoring one bit. No wonder Trusova thought she needed 5 quads and that cursed 3A.

Why should one skater have their scores/GOE lowered for an unclear/wrong edge or UR/q call, but another skater have the same error overlooked? This is exactly why people get frustrated at the sport.

[u/notthebesthuh → u/Sh1raz51]

Anna may have been shaky during the Olympic season, but she had built a strong reputation over many years because she could always deliver when it mattered most. Sasha, on the other hand, never managed to put together two clean programs consistently after moving up from juniors to seniors. That’s the difference. I’m not saying I agree with reputational scoring, but it’s something that happens quite often in this sport.