If Sasha Trusova was born in Japan, fans would follow her around the world, as they run after Yuzuru Hanyu, the only one of the current idols of the whole country.
In the Land of the Rising Sun, they know how to admire what is inaccessible to understanding.
When Mao Asada was the queen of local hearts with a visiting card in the form of three triple axels - jumps that no single woman in the world dared to swing in competitions, I had to personally contemplate how an elderly Japanese woman, dried up by a long life, tried to unnoticeably pinch off a feather from Mao's dress, standing next to the skater in the elevator.
Sasha Trusova's five quadruple jumps are a phenomenon from the same category that is completely inaccessible to understanding.
Unleash the Japanese fans, they probably would have simply disassembled the idol from head to toe into souvenirs.
But, if we ignore emotions, the question immediately arises: what new did Alexandra show at the box office in Chelyabinsk? She had infringed on five quads before, even if within the framework of the competition, a couple of three attempts were successful at best. Moreover, until the current season in the skating environment, there was talk that Trusova, with all her jumping uniqueness, did not need such a technical extreme at all. That he destroys the image, breaks the program, turning four minutes of free skating into jumps for the sake of jumping, and the bottom line is that the athlete, continuing to increase the difficulty, digs a hole for herself, while the rivals gracefully and confidently stamp champion titles with much less blood ...
Probably, it was necessary for another year to pass, and we all saw: the amount of ultra-si is not at all an obstacle to choreography and aesthetic perception, if the program is delivered in such a way that absolutely everything is convenient for the skater.
Or maybe Sasha just finally grew up to her own ambitions not only with her emotions and body, but also with her head.
The pendulum of cheerleader perception is now likely to swing into the zone where it will become fashionable to say that Trusova pulled out a lucky ticket when she returned to Khrustalny after a year at the Evgeni Plushenko Academy, that she was very lucky to be accepted, not rejected, and that The past season, crowned with only the bronze of the world championship, was, of course, a mistake both in terms of training and lyrical programs that were not very suitable for the skater.
The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle.
In my opinion, Plushenko's tremendous merit lies in the fact that he not only gave Sasha the opportunity to develop in all directions, having connected a variety of specialists to the training process (the skater had such an opportunity in Khrustalny), but created for her within the walls of his own a school environment of absolute exclusivity.
In general, it is important for an athlete to feel that during the period of conscious growing up he is special, the center of someone's universe.
A person who has caught this feeling has a different self-confidence.
Even the look changes.
And you, looking at the skater from the outside, understand even before the start of the performance: here he is, a real leader, defining the face of his own sport.
As we all understood this on the example of two-time world champion Evgenia Medvedeva in those two and a half years that she endured rivals at all tournaments in a row.
After all, the main thing in that victorious skating was not at all the depth of the athlete's understanding of music or the sophistication of choreographic librettos, but the incredible pressure, the desire to break everyone, including her own fears.
Actually, in Chelyabinsk, Sasha most of all resembled that indestructible Zhenya.
All of the above does not at all guarantee Coward's immunity from defeat. The hardest jumping content is always an increased risk, no matter how confident the skater is in the jump. Mao also had devastating failures in this regard - in the short Olympic program in Sochi, and the story of Nathan Chen's debut at the Pyeongchang Games should be published as a separate brochure under the heading: "How to avoid situations that can never happen." In addition, the crazy rental of Trusova's free program in Chelyabinsk is still the only precedent that, by and large, has no meaning either in terms of the athlete's rating or in terms of additional competitive experience.
Of course, it was important for Sasha herself and her coaches to make sure that the skater copes with the task, but in Chelyabinsk there was also a short program, where Trusova did not succeed with the triple axel, just as he did not succeed at the beginning of last season at the Grand stages -at. This means that the question is still relevant: is it worth trying to stick the axel into the program anyway, or to limit ourselves to the previous set with a double jump, knowingly losing the basic complexity on this?
In what way, then, is Trusova better than those with whom she will have to compete? She, of course, was very lucky: firstly, she did not grow too much and, in this regard, did not lose either strength or sharpness, but, on the contrary, acquired additional physical conditions, allowing her to cope with any technical content without visible problems and giving certain guarantees that Sasha, if he wishes, can stay in figure skating until the next Olympics. Secondly, both programs, staged for Trusova by Daniel Gleichengauz, fell on the skater like a glove: in them she looks like a queen, and she does not need an entourage to somehow confirm this.
And besides, the coaching staff is no longer trying in any way to hinder Sasha's striving for an outrageous difficulty for women's skating, although two years ago there were constant disputes between the coaches and the figure skater about the permissible number of quadruple jumps.
But the main advantage is that Trusova began to look much older this season, more interesting and more difficult to skate than a year ago.
The world has never seen such a Sasha, truly dangerous in all respects.
And she will certainly continue to gain momentum, while world champion Anna Shcherbakova, European champion Alena Kostornaya and even Kamila Valieva, who has been called the country's main Olympic hope for the second season, work primarily to maintain the qualities and conditions that have been noticeably spent over the past year.
And it takes time to catch up, stabilize, and ideally also take a step forward.
And it remains catastrophically small.
The main thing is that the athletes have enough health for everything conceived.
And then the world will get a show that has never been equal in intensity at the Olympics.