Ilia Averbukh: “The level has really dropped, especially in women’s singles, and also in men’s – it’s a B category competition. The European Championships have long since declined in level; they were sustained solely by Russian athletes.”
Ilia Averbukh believes that any skater from the top five at the Russian Championships would have won the European Championships.
original source: TASS
Ilia Averbukh stated that any of the top five Russian women’s skaters would have won the European Championships, attributing the decline in competition level to the absence of Russian athletes. Here’s a translation of his comments.
Choreographer, producer, and 2002 Olympic medalist Ilia Averbukh believes that any skater from the top five at the Russian Championships would have won the European Championships.
“Yes, absolutely. You could say that any of the top five would definitely have won. The level has really dropped, especially in women’s singles, and also in men’s – it’s a B or C category tournament. The European Championships have long since declined in level; they were sustained solely by Russian athletes.
Naturally, it’s turned out that the winners are guys and girls with Russian surnames, representing Estonia, Georgia. They also train with Eteri Tutberidze. They’re seizing their chance while we’re not there,” Averbukh said.
“If you look at the results, in recent years we brought home four gold medals. Without us, they’re left with nothing,” Averbukh told RIA Novosti.
Related topics: European Championships, Ilia Averbukh
Yes, Russsian dominated the sporte then because of doping.
And yet all he and Tarasova ever do is whine about being not allowed to participate in these apparently subpar, C category, competitions..
So either your skaters are so far above the others that winning against them is basically without merit because it’s super easy to do, or the championship actually means something in which case the medal means more than whether you won it with 220 points or 190 points. Which one is it Ilia?
Well, I don’t agree about the men’s side. While it might be a bit true for the women, but the men were still quite good level, even without russians. For example Adam Siao Him Fa didn’t participate, but that doesn’t have to do anything with the russians.