The transition of the skater Alexandra Trusova from Eteri Tutberidze to Evgeni Plushenko remains one of the main topics of the off-season. First of all, the fans are worried in which direction the skater will continue to develop. Opinions on this subject may be different. Some have the right to believe that with the departure from the former coach, Trusova will lose some of his unique skills, which allowed him to become one of the best skaters on the planet in a short time. Others have reason to believe that Plushenko will help a sportswoman to reach a new level, who last season did not show her maximum in competitions.
Plushenko organized a training camp in Kislovodsk for Trusova and other new skaters who had previously studied with Tutberidze, while many other athletes of the Russian team went to Novogorsk near Moscow. This is a very logical step, given that Trusova, after the sensational change of coach, was urgently required to be away from prying eyes for some time.
The pressure on the 15-year-old skater can now be exerted by fans, and recent teammates in the group, and former coaches. From all this, Trusova was fenced off during the first training camp, the importance of which increased sharply in connection with recent events that affected the training of athletes around the world.
To some extent, Trusova repeated the path of Evgenia Medvedeva, who left the Tutberidze group shortly after the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. It would also be extremely difficult for her to continue to train in a place where everything would remind her of the last stage of her career. Of course, Trusova will not always be engaged in Kislovodsk and will return to Moscow, but she really was best off the capital after taking a long break on the ice after a long break.
The general public cannot find out how the training process is going on at Plushenko’s school. But the team of the two-time Olympic champion periodically reports on the success of their wards during the training camp. From what appears on social networks, we can conclude that the coach and the student found a common language and began to work fruitfully.
Almost immediately, Trusova was able to show on the ice a cascade of triple lutz - a triple rittberger, which is the most expensive element without quadruple jumps. This cascade last season fell out of the skater's arsenal. For the sake of the integrity of the program, she replaced the Rittberger with a cheaper sheepskin coat. In the new season, it will not be profitable to execute a simplified version of the cascade, since the triple lutz lost 0.6 points in value.
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Posted by @ angelsofplushenko6 Jun 2020 at 11:36 PDT
A few days later it became known that Trusova began to turn out a quadruple lutz again - the most expensive solo jump. Her trainer Sergey Rozanov showed how an athlete completed an element in training.
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Publication by Sergei Rozanov (@ gosu.coach) Jun 11, 2020 at 6:57 PDT
And then Plushenko said that Trusova mastered the fourth Rittberger, which remained the last jump in four turns, which she did not succeed. None of the girls have yet been able to perform that element in the competition.
“We have already restored all the quadruples, I can even reveal the secret that Sasha made a new quadruple, Rittberger. So we are pleased with how the preparations are going on, excellent conditions in Kislovodsk, we have a real team. Sergey Rozanov is a very smart, strong coach. I hope that the wonderful conditions and secrets that we use here will help to achieve high results in the season, ”Sport-Express quoted Plushenko as saying.
Trusova already demonstrated at the competitions the quadruple Lutz, Salchow, sheepskin coat and flip. Rittberger will have to further complicate her free program and compensate for those half points that will make it cheaper than the quadruple Lutz from next season. The new rules unequivocally encouraged skaters to master the Rittberger, and Trusova was one of the first to take this path.
But there is no equal sign between the execution of a jump in training and its inclusion in rentals. Trusova still has a lot of work to do to ensure that the fourth Rittberger can go to the program. In theory, she will now be able to perform six quadruple jumps per rental (the axel must be the seventh), but this option is unlikely, since even men no longer adhere to such complex content.
In the past, Trusova has already announced five quadruple jumps to the free program. In an interview with Maria Command, the athlete confirmed that she would strive for this further. A quadruple rittberger could replace the solo quadruple sheepskin coat and increase the cost of the program, which can already be considered the most expensive in women's single skating. The new element can also become a kind of “airbag” for Trusova in case any other jump fails or an injury forces him to abandon it.
But in addition to restoring old leaps and mastering new Trusova, it is necessary to pay attention to its weakest side - choreography. It was in this component that she lost a lot to her rivals throughout her career. Plushenko’s team didn’t hire individual specialists for the production of the programs and entrusted them to her coach Sergei Rozanov. According to Plushenko, the new programs turned out to be successful, but the fans will not know any details about them until the September test rentals of the Russian team.
“Now we are setting programs, they are almost ready, they are put by Sergei Rozanov. I would like to show our joint work, it seems to me that we succeeded. Until I say what kind of music, you will see everything at the test rentals, but it seems to me that we hit the mark in two programs, in two images. Sasha is very good at skating, she has excellent choreography, they simply did not pay attention to this before. Yes, there is a lot of work in the choreography, but it does it, ”Plushenko told TASS.
For skaters fighting for the highest places and setting themselves the goal of winning Olympic medals, the performances are extremely important. There are no trifles in this case, as sometimes the name of the choreographer who collaborated with the athlete impresses the judges. In the first season after leaving Trutova’s Tutberidze, it may be enough that the coach with whom she worked for several years deals with this issue. But in the future, the athlete will need a narrower specialist who will really be able to make a breakthrough in her choreography with her.