Anton Sikharulidze: “For me, it’s just showing off. People aren’t ready to do two or three quads in a program – especially girls. With this “showing off” of three or four quads, when you don’t land them clean, you’ll be 28th at Worlds.”
Anton Sikharulidze, President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, criticized the pursuit of quadruple jumps as “showing off” and emphasized the importance of adapting to new international trends focused on clean elements and skating quality.
original source: Sports
Anton Sikharulidze, President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR), described the pursuit of quadruple jumps in programs as “showing off” during a discussion on the show “Katok.” Here’s a translation.
“(Question from Evgenia Medvedeva) As president of the federation, how do you view the fact that girls are chasing difficulty but sometimes neglect their skating? At one point, there was a global trend where everyone attempted quads – even foreigners. We saw salchows, axels, and much more.
Of course, we’re not counting our Russian girls, who consistently do quad flips and lutzes with beautiful skating. But it seems like the chase for difficulty continues, even though the same level isn’t being achieved. There are many mistakes. What do you think?
Anton Sikharulidze: Since this is an open conversation, I’ll say: for me, it’s just showing off. People aren’t ready to do two or three quads in a program – especially girls. It’s just showing off. We go for it.
On TV, commentators say people have so many quads planned. But listen, with this kind of skating, with this “showing off” of three or four quads, when you don’t land them clean, you’ll be 28th at Worlds.
So you need to understand what your goal is. Do I want to show that everyone in my group is trying quads? Or do I want to win competitions and grow wisely, improving technical skills step by step? In my opinion, the girls aren’t ready for these jumps right now. Their programs fell apart completely.
But I see it a bit differently. I evaluate each competition in the context of today, here and now, but also relate it to the Olympics and Worlds. How will it be there? I’d advise them to do the same, because skating without four elements and getting “854 points” has nothing to do with reality.
(Question from Roman Naguchev) I recently read that Russian figure skating pays much more attention to elements, almost before learning to skate well. It seems like skating is more important… Judging by this Olympics, skating is more in trend than elements. Liu’s performance seems to confirm this.
Anton Sikharulidze: Look, this is a separate conversation, and we can get into it now. What’s happening in world figure skating? We need to lay it out clearly: “Figure skating has completely changed.” That’s the starting point.
Next: it hasn’t just changed, the rules have changed and continue to change, and will change again this summer. That’s the second thing to note. Third: judging trends have completely changed. If you compare to my time with Lesha (Yagudin), they’re totally different. Maybe even, Zhenya, compared to your time, they’ve changed.
Everything is moving in a new direction. We Russians are jumpers. We focus on elements, difficulty, spinning, wiping your nose, falling from a quad, going for a second, falling again, going for a third. That’s cool. But we need to decide: do we want to talk about how we’ll win, or do we actually want to win? Those are two different things.
If we really want to win, we need to live by these new international trends, not make up our own. I’ve often heard our top coaches say, “I totally disagree with what’s happening in international figure skating. It’s nonsense, we need to jump.”
Fine, if you can jump and skate, I’ll stand up, take off my hat, and applaud. But it doesn’t work that way. What’s happening now? The international direction is that every element you do must be clean. Clean elements.
And as compensation, I can talk about how many quads we jump. But sometimes it’s unclear: is it three and a half or a quad, the landing is crooked. These elements now score zero or negative. They’re worth nothing. That’s called an attempt. If you try and fail – go home.
Second: besides clean elements, there’s spinning. Look at how many points top guys and girls get for spins. But honestly, we haven’t had a culture of spinning.”
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