RSF forcing Russian coaches to coach only Russians until Sochi

Discussion in 'Great Skate Debate' started by Ajax, Apr 30, 2011.

  1. Cherub721

    Cherub721 YEAH!

    That theory would only work if you contend that the current Russian skaters are of the same level as those past medal winners like G&P, K&O, K&P, U&Z, M&D, G&G, B&S, T&M, Plushenko, Urmanov, Yagudin Slutskaya...
  2. Jessica

    Jessica Active Member

    I don't know about Zoueva but isn't Shpilband now an American citizen?
  3. Mayra

    Mayra Well-Known Member


    Meanwhile, Zoueva is a Canadian citizen. :)
  4. caseyedwards

    caseyedwards Well-Known Member

    Pile On!! No but seriously have Russians vanished from being part of successful skaters careers? No they are every where!! Ladies gold Russian coach. All dance medalists Russian coaches. The ones with the most talent were the most likely to paid highly to leave and they did-FAST!!
  5. Made4Dancin

    Made4Dancin New Member

    I must be stupid. I love the Olympics because everyone from around the world comes to play together. I have never cared how many medals the US wins. As a fan of figure skating, my favorite skaters were always chosen based on who they are and their talents and abilities not what country they come from. So when I hear about stuff like this I just think it's silly.

    However, if Russia is trying to repatriate it's coaches I would take it seriously. Meaning, if I were a foreign athlete, I wouldn't trust a Russian coach now. Just as coaches manipulate their athletes to win, they can do the opposite too.
  6. risto1803

    risto1803 Active Member

    Many Russian skaters have said that they learn a lot from their training mates from other countries (I/K from P/B, Voronov from the others in Morozov's group). However, the ones that should be concerned are the top non-russian skaters training with top russian skaters; I wouldn't trust the russian coaches in that case-I'm convinced they will give more support to the russian skaters when the Olympics come (examle: Linichuk with D/S and B/A). I only see one such case: P/B and I/K, and I expect actually the French Federation to pressure P/B to leave Zhulin (and there are already rumors about this).

    The Russian Federation can't say anything to Shpilbin and Zueva but they would like a top Russian dance team to train with them-and probably some team will move to S/Z after this season. However, I have the feeling that the Russian Federation would expect in that case S/Z to favor the Russian team over D/W,S/S, V/M, which probably won't happen.
  7. bek

    bek Guest

    The Russian federation was hardly able to pour money in the 90s. The program faced a huge exodus of coaches etc, and I frankly don't blame the Russians if they are just a bit bitter about it. If Frank Carroll moved to Russia and started coaching mainly Russians, while American kids weren't being trained, I bet Americans would be bitter. This being said I don't blame the Russian coaches, because they did have families to support etc. And Moskvina moving to the US allowed Russia's top talent to get the training necessary. As another poster said your theory only works if the Russian skaters in Vancover were as good as the Russian skaters of the past-and well they weren't. Yes figure skating can be corrupt and the Russian fed is corrupt, but I don't think anyone can argue that a lot of those Russian champions were amazing.

    And second what do the Russians have to be desperate about. They were going to have a rough time given the circumstances. But frankly they are bouncing back remarkably well. Of all the figure skating federations, they are the federation who least needs to be desperate.

    In pairs-they are hardly "barely medaling" anymore when they just placed 3 teams in the top 5. They have a ton of young talent in pairs too. In dance, yes right now they aren't medaling. But they have a lot of extremely talented young teams. They dominated juniors this year. I don't know if they will have gold by Sochi, but THEY will be in the mix in dance soon.

    In Ladies-they have a ton of young talent.

    Mens-well that's hardly great, but they did just get a medal.
  8. aliona22

    aliona22 Member

    Does Gorshkov have any non-Russian teams besides Hoffman/Zavozin?
  9. Domshabfan

    Domshabfan Searching for Cizeron's Instagram

    Good point about Frank Carroll where supposedly coaching in Russia, posters here would show us a long list of how much money USFSA spent in success of Frank's coaching ... also on that note, i would like to examine the anger of some of the posters on GSD on GE sponsoring Chinese FS team.

    \Here, GE is being heavily criticised for sponsoring Chinese team and helping a FS team quote '' funded by communist sports machine''. Yet then they should also criticise GE for trading with China as well. We would like your yuans but we will not spend any profit in your country.

    I can see where Russians are doing, argument being we are funding you heavily, so you must coach just our athletes. However the decision is lunatic, they are just mad in doing that since they are not winning any friends. and may even cause some coaches to leave the country.
  10. BigB08822

    BigB08822 Well-Known Member

    I think Sochi is going to have tons of potential for huge scandals. I think the Russian fed will stop at nothing to dominate and we could see some gigantic judging scandals. Just a feeling.
  11. millipied

    millipied New Member

    Yeah, sure. And this championship just proved your point that event in Russia equals judging scandal.:rolleyes:
  12. Ozzisk8tr

    Ozzisk8tr Well-Known Member

    As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm a fan of the sport not which country the skaters are from. Some of the fans on here I'm not so keen on because of their ill will towards some skaters (depending on the country the skaters are from) however. I think the RSF's decision will make more people just go :rolleyes: at them than think they are doing the right thing.

    Oddly enough, majority of the Rachael hate comes from their own countrymen, likewise with the Alissa hate in the past. This being said though, I was honestly shocked and very appalled by some of the comments in the freedance thread last night. Some of those people should be very ashamed of what they were saying. I lost much respect for a couple of posters who I'd had respect for in the past. Some of it was (sort of)friendly jibing, but some was just nasty.
    Cheylana and (deleted member) like this.
  13. equatorial

    equatorial Well-Known Member

    You should read some Russian FS boards where Russian posters bash Russian skaters left, right and centre :lol: Nowhere does Rachel hate come even close to that.
    Ozzisk8tr and (deleted member) like this.
  14. Asli

    Asli Well-Known Member

    This new development has nothing to do with Zoueva/Shpilband. Shpilband would not even be a Russian citizen, since he defected to the USA during Soviet times. Not sure about Zoueva, but isn't she Canadian?

    Russian skating is mainly funded by taxpayers' money. If I understand correctly, this rule concerns Russian coaches who receive a salary from the state, who use state or municipal facilities for free, whose successful students are funded and provided with free off-ice training, free lodging and other conditions that western skaters cannot dream of and who, as an extra source of income, take on foreign students. I understand that a state salary is not sufficient income for a top coach, but they also receive 30% of their Russian students' prize money, which wouldn't be the case with foreign students.

    As for Morozov, he doesn't strike me as the charitable type, nor the nationalistic type, so surely he went to Russia because he was offered very good conditions. He was offered those conditions to prepare Russian skaters to Sochi. He can't have everything.

    I'm sure no Russian coaches want to leave Russia until Sochi and this rule is valid only until then.
    Last edited: May 1, 2011
  15. Domshabfan

    Domshabfan Searching for Cizeron's Instagram

    Do you think because the competition is in Russia and if Russians don't like the result of an event (Like Plushy Vs Lysacek case ), Russians will create a huge scandal?, since support of local media is equally important, if not Plushenko would be walking around with a joint gold medal as well.
  16. Loves_Shizuka

    Loves_Shizuka Gettin' my sass out

    Ha, I know right. Also, in comparison to some other online sports forums, this place is positively tame. Not that I'm saying this is a good or bad thing.
  17. Gil-Galad

    Gil-Galad Well-Known Member

    I was thinking the same thing. Daugavpils is rather close to Russia (100km from the border I believe), lots of people speak Russian there - but it is still Latvia and therefore European Union. The question is if Morosov really wants to stay there or if he has / had any plans to move to Russia fromt there.
  18. englishman

    englishman Banned Member

    thats cool , thank you dude !
  19. hanca

    hanca Well-Known Member

    :lol: :lol: :lol:
    Of course Shpilban and Zueva will favour a russian team. They have Khokhlova and Andreev, and he is Zoueva's son, so it would be surprising if this team wasn't high at her priority list. This year this team was only trying to gel, so the results were not there yet, but within a year I would expect Andreev to be unrecognisable.
  20. misskarne

    misskarne #408

    To be honest I think that's just common sense. Who knows how many potential OGMs are skating around unable to afford top-notch coaching in Western countries, while kids who are rubbish but have loaded parents get all the attention? I like the concept of anything that gives young athletes the same opportunities, regardless of $$$.

    I once saw a girl - about 14 - who had the most incredible innate feel for skating that I'd ever seen. She was one of my coach's other students. She had six lessons, and in those six lessons she had things down pat smoothly that I'd been working on for months. After the sixth lesson, she left and I never saw her again. Not because she lost interest. In fact, having spoken to her several times, the ice was her real passion. She left because her family couldn't afford it. The six lessons were her birthday/Christmas present. Her parents simply could not afford the $$$ for her to keep skating. And yet there are kids at my rink who are still on the same basic stuff that they were six months ago and frustrate their coaches enormously, but they keep coming back because the parents are loaded.


    I must say, I'm doing a lot of this: :rolleyes: at all the "OMG russia will cause jduging skandal!!11!!" comments in this thread. Puh-lease. They're strengthening in every discipline in every way before the Olympics. And they're not about to throw THEIR home Olympics into disgrace by trying anything on the judges. It's likely they will be capable of winning medals on their own.

    Besides, people in this thread are acting like the Russians are the only ones who've ever manipulated judges...or did most of you not watch Skate Canada?
    Cherub721 and (deleted member) like this.
  21. hanca

    hanca Well-Known Member

  22. kia_4EverOnIce

    kia_4EverOnIce New Member

    I agree with the "if Frank Carroll left US for Russia, what would American be saying now?" argument

    yeah....just because with the Olympics in US there weren't any scandals? or with Vancouver last year (about Canadian men and pairs)? :rolleyes:


    exactly, if Russian Fed put on good offers that Russian coaches accept, and do the most helping their talents grow up and be ready for home Olympics, what's wrong? They're only doing a very good work, and preparing their team at best, as any Fed is supposed to do.
  23. Fashionista

    Fashionista New Member

    It's official his new training base will be Novogorsk. He'll spend summer in the US and Latvia and then resettle in Moscow.
  24. BigB08822

    BigB08822 Well-Known Member

    It is just a gut feeling but i didn't say a WORD about this world championships so I have no idea what that means.
  25. Civic

    Civic New Member

    When you take the king's silver, you have to abide by the king's rules. *If* Russian government funds are subsidizing Russian coaches salaries and the rinks they work in, then it's not unreasonable for the Russian government to decree that said coaches work only with Russian skaters going into Sochi. JMHO.
  26. Thais

    Thais New Member

    The awakening of Russian interest in figure skating is a very good thing for this nation. It led up to a hole new generation of great skaters (I still can't believe how impressive the Russian dance couples are). However, I don't think Russian choreographers are what they used to be. I look at the north American dancers and they all have a different approach to ice dancing, one that is so different from the Russians. I know Zoueva and Shpilband are/were Russian, but they've built a style that is completely different form the Russian style. Furthermore, north American and non-Russian choreographer, in general, have shown new and better ways of expression on ice.

    In my opinion, the weakest point of Russian skaters is choreography and the next step (IMO), in order for Russia to have a powerful team at Sochi, is to have more non-Russian experts involved in the training process of their athletes.

    I'm a huge fan of Russian skating and I would hate to see all these amazing skaters stuck in another era, which is what will happen if they don't open themselves to a more up-to-date and less classical approach. It's time for something different even for Russian skaters.
    This is why I believe that this new policy of close doors will isolate the Russian athletes and, in the end, will only harm them.
  27. quiqie

    quiqie Well-Known Member

    From Piseev interview:

    The translation here
  28. hanca

    hanca Well-Known Member

    Closing doors does not seem to hurt Chineese pair skaters. they have built their pair program from nothing, without any influence of the experts from other countries.
  29. millipied

    millipied New Member

    There are plenty of great and successful under COP Russian choreographers- Tcherneshov, Petukhov, Morozov, Krylova, Zhulin, Platov,Tarasova etc. The problem is that some coaches, like Mishin, feel that they know enough about choreography.
    I would hate to see 100s of "North American" style clones on ice just because Zuevas and Wilsons are "IT choreographers" for some fans and judges. The beauty of this sport is in diversity and differences.
  30. Andrushka

    Andrushka Well-Known Member