Tatiana Tarasova: Big tragedies happened at the Russian Nationals
Tatiana Tarasova about ladies at the Russian Nationals 2019.
Tarasova: Big tragedies happened at the Russian Nationals. Zhenya completely failed the short program, because she really wanted to show it. But she pulled herself together in the free and showed a new element for her – a triple salchow – triple loop, which she has never done before, with this combination she could have won the Olympic Games. We see that she goes forward. Alina skated the short brilliantly, but fell apart in the free. Girls can’t work like a jackhammers! But the young generation wasn’t confused. They were forbidden to jump quads in the short, so they won it all back in the free. Rushed to jump quads and showed the world: “Get ready, we are coming!”, and won the championship. It is necessary to train wisely, pay attention to health, restore it, and win with a high technical mark and second mark, which senior skaters still have higher and this will continue for another year or two. Even Kihira failed the short program at the Japanese Nationals and was in 5th place, but no one criticized her that she should leave without achieving her potential. The next day, she showed an outstanding result (155.5 points) – a record in the free program.
Did Zagitova and Medvedeva lost this Championships because they had a conflict?
– Nobody quarrels, stop this hype. If you watched the championship, you saw that girls took photos together. Why are you escalating the situation? I thought the ceiling would fall when Zhenya was skating! All people, including us, jumped up from the seats 45 seconds before the end of her program.
How do you feel about the possible increase of age for participation in Russian Nationals?
– Why only for the Russian Nationals? We must obey what ISU has done. In my opinion, this may be wrong, but if there are such rules, they can be changed only in 4 years. We could change this if we were preparing for this issue. Of course, I would raise the age to 16. We would give the opportunity to young girls to get stronger, and to senior skaters who make the whole world happy, to finish nicely and learn something during this time. In 4 years there will be the next meeting where this question will be discussed.
The head of the Federation, Alexander Gorshkov, stated that the team for European Championship was determined according to the sporting principle. Do you think it’s right that the participants of the Russian Nationals got into this team and not the potentially strongest figure skaters?
– The third number has always been determined by the coaching council. I didn’t stay for it, but I know the decision. Aleksei Mishin said that the Federation told him to prepare Tuktamysheva for the World Championships. He had no objections. It’s strange to me that no one spoke to Brian Orser, they could also told him to prepare Medvedeva. It would have been the right thing because Evgenia goes up now, and I consider it wrong to shoot her down again on this rise. We also should give hope. Even for the Universiade, Zhenya is not in the first substitute. This is not fair for the girl who made history. Not because I love or don’t love this or that athlete, I don’t like bosses (smiles). There is a decision, they say that it was taken unanimously. This isn’t entirely true – one abstained, one didn’t come.
by Evgeni Belousov for sport-express.ru
Related topics: Evgenia Medvedeva, Tatiana Tarasova
Tarasova is just as delusional about Evgenia as are Evgenia’s fans. I mean, to compare Evgenia and Tuktamisheva this season is really possible only if you totally lost it, as TAT seems to have.
When Tarasova is fond of someone she’s a bit delusional. For example, when she speaks about Stepanova – Bukin or her goddaughter Annabelle Morozov. She also said a lot of nice words about Ksenia Stolbova and that the Federation should support her. But I think she understands everything pretty well, better than many. She just tries to support because she believes it’s stupid to lose talents.
Those that participated and survived the meat grinder that is Russian Nationals should be the ones that go on to Euros and Worlds