Russian figure skater Sofya Samodelkina received citizenship of Kazakhstan

Russian figure skating may be left without a rather gifted and strong single skater Sofya Samodelkina. She received the citizenship of Kazakhstan and is going, like many domestic athletes suffering due to international sanctions, to compete under the flag of another country. For skaters, a similar transition has already been made by the top dance couple Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin, now playing for Georgia.

The press service of the Kazakhstan Skating Union reported that Sofya Samodelkina received citizenship of Kazakhstan. “Kazakhstan Skating Union did not apply for the performances of figure skater Sofya Samodelkina for the national team of Kazakhstan. The athlete changed her citizenship on her own, ”the structure’s press service said in a statement. They also noted that if citizenship is granted, an individual has equal rights and opportunities and is entitled to apply for participation in performances as part of the national team.

According to information “RIA News”, Samodelkina will continue to train at CSKA, in the group of Svetlana Sokolovskaya, which has a number of very strong single skaters. This, for example, is the silver medalist of last year’s Olympics in Beijing in women’s skating Alexandra Trusova and Mark Kondratyuk, who contributed to the Russian victory in her team tournament. The Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR), as the agency specified, has not yet given the green light to the transition, and the general director of the structure, Alexander Kogan, refused to comment on the situation.

The act of Sophia Samodelkina fits into an already fairly stable trend. In recent months, several dozen domestic athletes from various sports have taken such a step, faced with difficulties due to international sanctions imposed on the industry.

Figure skating in this sense is not distinguished by the softness of the regime. The International Skating Union (ISU), unlike some other federations, has not yet followed the March recommendations International Olympic Committee (IOC) about the return of Russians to world sports. Moreover, apparently, their isolation, which excludes the opportunity to take part in top competitions, will extend to the next season.

In figure skating during the sanctions period, there was only one notable transition from the Russian team to the foreign team. His committed dancers Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin, who claimed the role of the first numbers in the national team. They decided to play for Georgia and under its flag have already managed to win the Ice Dance International tournament in Lake Placid, USA. Moreover, Davis and Smolkin paid compensation for the change of citizenship, transferred by the FFKKR to the Center for Sports Training of Russian National Teams.

Estimating the potential damage to Russian figure skating from the departure of Sofia Samodelkina is not so easy. On the one hand, the athlete, who is 16 years old and who recently received the right to ride in adult competitions, has not yet achieved any particularly high-profile success. But there are already some ups in her track record – and not only in junior tournaments. For example, in the previous season, she won stage of the Russian Grand Prix in Samara, ahead of Alexander Trusova, and at the stage in Sochi was the second. However, stability was not a strong quality of Samodelkina. For example, at the Russian Championship in Krasnoyarsk, due to gross mistakes, she fell to 11th place.

Sofia Samodelkina in the near future could hardly qualify for a place in the national team, that is, in the top three of the country’s strongest figure skaters. Even if we leave out the leaders of the previous Olympic cycle – Beijing champion Anna Shcherbakova, Trusova and awaiting the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in her difficult doping case Kamil Valiev, in Russia there are several figure skaters of the same age as Samodelkina, who are not inferior to her in terms of training. But at the same time, you can’t get away from the fact that the ceiling of Sophia Samodelkina’s capabilities looks extremely high. It is associated with the uniqueness of the technical content of the athlete. She is the second figure skater after Alexandra Trusova, who has mastered and performed all types of quadruple jumps at competitions.

But, unlike Trusova, Samodelkina has a good command of the most difficult triple axel. Such a set of elements sometimes provides her with classy scores by any standards – the Russian judges have around 218 points in the sum of the short and free programs.

With them now, in the absence of the best representatives of the Russian national team, you can even compete for prizes at the World Championships – provided that foreign referees are loyal to the components and the aesthetic component of the performance.

Arnold Kabanov