Daniil Gleichengauz: Valieva has nothing to complicate, she doesn’t jump anything harder than she jumps now

Daniil Gleichengauz shared his impressions of the juniors performances at the Russian Junior Nationals 2020.

by Anastasiya Loginova for sport24.ru dd.7th February 2020

– We assess each athlete individually, someone did worse, and someone did better. No one skated perfectly today, Daniil had a small mistake on a toe loop, Sofia also lost points on combinations. But at the same time they fought and showed an interesting fight. I think that the audience was pleased to watch.

The result is good, but we could have taken a bit higher places.

Even higher? You have the first three places.

– There were five athletes.

At the European Championships, the gap from the rest was 40 points, and here is quite the same. Don’t you feel lack of competition?

– After Carolina Kostner retirement, there are no strong rivals in Europe, which cannot be said about the world. Therefore, all the main battles will be at the World Championships.

Relative difference in points? Well, only Kamila has it. Because she combines both jumping qualities and spins.

Will Kamila or other girls complicate the content before Worlds? Or will everything remain the same?

– Kamila has nothing to complicate so far – she doesn’t jump anything harder than she jumps now. If it were possible, we’d increased the number of toe loops to seven, of course.

Daniil Samsonov has many quadruples in his arsenal. But it’s bad that they are not yet ready together yet. Therefore, we have to choose either a toe loop, or salchow, or flip.

Kamila said that because of the excitement, she did not make the first toe loop. In terms of physical form, are the quadruples completely ready?

– She has already done a lot of clean run-throughs. Of course, she was nervous and went on this element on straight legs, and it was clear that she fell out of the circle. Well done, that she fought. The decisive moment of the program – when she went on the second one, focused and made it in combination.

So the work on new elements for Kamila will be in the summer?

– I think yes. We are unlikely to go into this process now. If only on harness.

Can you sum up the results of the guys, except Samsonov?

– Georgi Kunitsa showed almost his maximum. In training, he skated worse. Therefore, we are very pleased with how he focused and showed himself. Vsevolod Knyazev is still a very small boy. Let’s see how he will develop. So far he has learned only the quadruple salchow. He also need to learn axel and toe loop. Will see.

Related topics: Daniil Gleichengauz, Kamila Valieva, World Junior Championships