Figure skater Samodelkina will compete for Kazakhstan: loss or not

The alleged (or already happened) departure of Sofya Samodelkina, no matter what anyone says (we have enough talent, it’s okay), is an event without a plus sign for Russia. It is difficult to rejoice at any departure from the flag of the country of a famous athlete, and even in such difficult times. It is possible to calculate future risks that will be embodied in potential competition, albeit with a stretch. We do not know the terms or conditions of return. True, we know for sure that quotas will have to be earned anew. And this alone means that we will not return full representation at international competitions immediately.

Yes, someday our skaters will return to international ice. And then Sofya Samodelkina, who will throw off the burden of the past: failures, puberty, resentment at home refereeing, and most importantly, the fiercest competition of the first numbers, into whose struggle it is even impossible to wedge, may turn out to be a dangerous rival.

Last season, the athlete did not work out. But it was in juniors, playing for CSKA, that she became the vice-champion of Russia, won the final of the Junior Cup of Russia. She demonstrated her potential in all its glory and claims back in March last year, after the Olympic Games. The fifteen-year-old figure skater, speaking at one of the tournaments, declared five elements of ultra-si. Four jumps in four turns (different!) And a triple axel. (Axel, Salchow and Rittberger failed, Lutz and sheepskin coat failed.)

She announced such content not in order to amuse the public – Sophia really showed the performance of the most difficult jumps: something in tournaments, something in the training process. And I started conquering the peaks of ultra-si early, as it is now happening in our women’s single skating. At the age of 12, she mastered the favorite axel of Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. Then a quad salchow appeared, immediately after it (on the video) – a quad loop. The one that a little later in 2021, but at the official tournament, was the first in the history of women’s figure skating to be performed by Adelia Petrosyan. Also – lutz, sheepskin coat and flip … In short, Samodelkina went on adult ice, showing all quadruple jumps in training. True, it is not in vain that they say that training is only part of the path to success, you also need stability at the starts.

If Sophia had been born a little earlier, her career in Russia might have turned out differently. But the very first adult season is a struggle for a place in the Olympic team. And in it – the strongest of the strongest, already tested by stressful battles and run-in at all levels. They showed everything and everyone not in training, but at the starts, advanced to the Games confidently and not in one month.

The Olympic Games are over, a new streak of overcoming was not long in coming for the entire team. Sophia went through the traditional difficult way for girls to grow up. I decided to change coach Sergei Davydov. The parting passed for the public in a civilized manner. Samodelkina explained it this way: “Everything changes. Life has changed. I have changed. It’s just time.” The coach – like this: “To each of our athletes, both present and departed, we wish only victories, because sport is short and everyone has the right to decide where and with whom the result will be better!”.

Last season, already with the new coach Svetlana Sokolovskaya, started well: gold and silver of the Grand Prix stages. But the Russian Championship and the Grand Prix finals turned out to be a failure: eleventh place. In the lists of the main team, and in the reserve, Samodelkina for the new season was no longer there.

Never the most difficult decisions – and the change of the flag, no doubt, from this category – are not based on any one fact. But, perhaps, there is the last straw. What became that drop? Lack of international starts (where in one tournament, in addition, the participation of representatives of the country is limited). Failures at domestic major starts. The emergence of new competitors from junior skaters. Or maybe the success of Anastasia Gubanova, who changed the Russian flag to the Georgian one back in 2021, and this winter received the title of European champion?

By the way, we were all happy for Gubanova – our own girl! – but her success made me think, probably, more than one athlete is not the first echelon. What Nastya managed to do, if she remained in the protocols of a Russian figure skater, she could not even dream of. And she would never have made it to the European Championship with us. But, having changed her fate on the ice, at the age of 20 she won the first gold medal in the history of Georgia at the European Championship. There were no Russians there because of the suspension, the champion did not score even 200 points, which for the last decade is not a figure at all. I didn’t try to jump either quads or axel in three and a half turns. But the gold of Europe did not become gold from this.

And Samodelkina with her jumping content, even if she can’t show everything that she can do in training on the ice, is many times stronger than Gubanova (she won’t become a European champion, Kazakhstan is not among the participants, but all ISU tournaments, Grand Prix stages, the championship four continents open). Yes, in our team her chances to perform at the main competitions (if the return of Russian skaters does take place in the near future) are minimal. But whether she can strengthen the national team of Kazakhstan is not even a question. Without a doubt.

Kazakhstan has already known success in women’s single skating: in 2019, Elizabet Tursynbayeva won silver at the World Championships. And even if Sofia’s exit for a new country happens only next season, she will be able to impose competition on foreign rivals. It turns out that she left to return to the big game. (Although forecasts are a matter, as you know, then more: if she is healthy, if motivation does not disappear, if …)

But the point, of course, is not about which country, because of the desire to go to the main starts, our athletes leave to compete. They will leave under a different flag, especially skaters. By the way, they would have done this without the current situation with the suspension from international competitions. (Competition is moving forward. For the winners. But when there is no place for very strong athletes on the home podium, this is a collapse for always losers.) But now the refusal of the flag hurts more.

So far, there are no official releases, and there are no comments from the main characters – Sofia Samodelkina herself and the FFKKR – either. But the information that the federation will not let Sophia go just like that is floating in space. And you can understand this: I was a member of the Russian national team, and leaders should also try to look into the future, they are obliged.

But somewhere there, not for Kazakhstan, but for Georgia, Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin are already skating, having just received permission to cross from the FFKKR. They say everything happened according to the rules. (But this is not accurate.) Not just former members of the Russian team, but even those representing it at the Beijing Olympics. Even if the money for the last year of being in the national team and not performing on our ice even once, paid. As one famous song says: “Here we put a question mark, here again the end of the verse.”

… No one is happy when the athletes you love, whom you have been following since childhood, when it comes to women’s single skating, go under a different flag. Neither the athletes themselves, nor the leaders, much less the fans. I don’t know, by the way, whether it will be comfortable for the same Sofya to continue skating on CSKA ice next to colleagues who are forbidden to go on international ice. Yesterday – one misfortune for all, and today – on different sides of this misfortune.

But such questions are from the world of sensations and personal assessments. And we are already sitting on two chairs. On one – with resentment that our favorite skater Samodelkina will no longer be ours (perhaps). On the other – with the desire that Sophia have a big and beautiful career. And only one thing should not “jump” over chairs: the rules for transitions (and there is no getting away from them) are the same for all skaters.