Valieva's scholarship, Yagudin's gratitude and Gallyamov's joke: what is being discussed in the world of figure skating

Valieva Scholarship

Despite the disqualification, Kamila Valieva remains in the center of attention of the sports community. This time, the main topic of the week was the deprivation of her presidential scholarship, which is paid to the winners and medalists of the Games. The reward amount is 52 thousand rubles for first place, 39 thousand for second place, 30 thousand for third place.

As three-time Olympic champion Irina Rodnina noted, this decision of the Ministry of Sports is quite logical.

“The Presidential Scholarship is not a lifetime benefit. To receive it, you must be part of the Russian national team, and Kamila is excluded from it. Valieva is not a member of the national team and cannot compete for another two years. And what? How do you want her to be paid? This scholarship is only given to Olympic champions, and she is stripped of her gold medal. That's all!" — Rodnina said in an interview with Sport24.

And commentator Dmitry Guberniev is confident that Valieva will survive calmly even without government support.

“Kamila, as a person who works and will work on television, take part in commercial shows and master classes, will remain in demand... Kamila will find where in the country to realize her talent,” Guberniev said. 

By the way, Victoria Sinitsyna was also deprived of a scholarship, since she took a break from performing and is not part of the Russian national team. At the same time, her husband Nikita Katsalapov, who won gold at the Games in Sochi, kept the payment.

Shcherbakova's birthday

Anna Shcherbakova celebrated her 20th birthday on March 28. On this day she heard many kind words and wishes. Thus, choreographer Alexei Zheleznyakov warmly congratulated the athlete. 

“How quickly time flies, how quickly our students become successful and wealthy people, which cannot but please us. Anechka, all the best, may Lady Fortune never leave you, and may you be healthy a million times over!”, Match TV quoted Zheleznyakov as saying. 

They didn’t forget to congratulate the Olympic champion and Tutberidze on the team. The group posted a poem on social networks. The skater herself told how she was recovering from ankle surgery, which took place a week ago.

"Not so fast. But I think everything is going according to plan, I’m slowly coming to my senses, everything is under the control of the doctors,” said Shcherbakova.

Restoration of Kostornaya

Another figure skater who has attracted increased attention is Alena Kostornaya. She also failed to avoid injury, so together with Georgiy Kunitsa she ended the season a little earlier than planned.

According to choreographer Betina Popova, recovery after shoulder surgery is quite fast.

“We even ask her to do it a little less actively, because she’s really eager - she’s already doing support, she’s already promoting in the todes, she’s starting to throw out emissions. Where is it flying? Don't know. It's like we have the Olympics tomorrow! She won't be tomorrow while we have time. She came out very actively. Of course, she was probably used to it from childhood that you can’t stay injured for long, so she immediately went out and did everything. Now he demands maximum output from himself and from his partner,” Popova noted in an interview with “Championship”. 

The situation with Khudaiberdieva

Meanwhile, Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva admitted that she is sometimes confused with Alina Zagitova, although in appearance the girls are not at all similar. Moreover, as the 2023 Russian champion in ice dancing says, this does not even depend on hair color.

“They come up to me and say: “Alina, can I take a photo with you?” And then they mark Alina in the photo,” Khudaiberdieva said laughing on the Kvaksel YouTube channel.

Moreover, like skier Veronika Stepanova, Lisa talked a lot about media in this interview. According to the skater, Alexander Gallyamov made the right decision to run a Telegram channel.

“Sasha is sharp-tongued, writes posts on social networks, but at the same time goes out, does his job and proves that this activity does not interfere with him in any way and that this is also possible... Why else do I support this story. When I tried to somehow develop myself in the media, they slapped me on the wrist and said: “This distracts you from sports, you’re an athlete, an athlete shouldn’t do that.” Like, let's have fewer photos. For me, this coincided with a disastrous season, unfortunately, but this did not depend at all on posting photos!” the athlete said. 

Gallyamov's activity

Alexander is very interesting to watch at the end of the season. He manages to communicate with colleagues who play for other countries. According to Nikita Volodin, who won bronze at the World Championships in sports pairs at the World Championships in Montreal, it was Gallyamov who was the first to congratulate him on the award.

“The very first one wrote, or rather wrote down a “circle” for me. He says, well done, it was a great debut at the World Championships. I’m pleased that he follows us, watches the performances, and I, in turn, always follow his skates,” the Sports figure skater is quoted as saying.

At the same time, Alexander behaves very relaxed at events. So, he called Alexandra Trusova on speakerphone and asked when they would record a joint track.

“Sasha is one of the few who are ready for the right kick. I have enormous respect for her and all her endeavors. PS They wanted to catch me weakly,” Gallyamov wrote on the Telegtam channel.

But the undoubted masterpiece was the athlete’s April Fool’s joke about Olympic champion Alina Zagitova.

“She took first place in a competition to invent words that do not exist in nature, simply by clarifying the rules of the competition,” the world champion wrote. 

Medvedeva's earnings

Olympic medalist Evgenia Medvedeva also continues to host her program. True, as the athlete admits, she does this not only for the sake of media exposure, but also to earn money.

“I was recently asked: what brings you the most financially? Advertising comes first, figure skating comes second. And this goes in parallel. YouTube episodes have such a thing as advertising integration. And this is a definite way of earning money for me,” Medvedeva noted on the Youtube channel “Unsweetened Business.”

Dikiji plans

Vladislav Dikidzhi does not lose hope of performing a quadruple jump in the near future. Let us remember that he bet with Gallyamov that he would do it by the end of summer. True, for this the skater needs to lose a little weight.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to try to do it yet, I need to get in shape a little, lose weight, and now I was staging programs, preparing for Ilya Averbukh’s show. Now you can slowly start walking towards him. I won’t say what they argued about,” the skater said. 

Dikiji also told how exactly he was able to perform a quadruple axel. At the same time, according to the skater, he is still far from Ilya Malinin in terms of performance.

“It was after the Channel One Cup. I lay down at home for a couple of days, Oleg Stanislavovich (Tataurov) gave me a rest. During this time, I lost a couple more kilograms. I went out on the ice and felt very good condition in my legs, arms, and whole body. In fact, my first thing was this axel. I did a double once, did a triple, twisted it a little - and realized that now I would jump a quadruple. I turn to the coach and say: “I’ll do it now.” And he did,” admitted Vladislav.

Drozd's new partner

Figure skater Pavel Drozd was not left alone for long after breaking up with Elizaveta Shanaeva. A couple of days later he already began training with Elizaveta Shichina in Ksenia Rumyantseva’s group. The partner previously performed with Gordey Khubulov. Their duet finished sixth in the 2023 Russian Junior Grand Prix final.

Meanwhile, Ilya Yablokov suspended training in Natalia Linichuk’s dance group. In early February, the athlete announced his transition to this sport and the start of classes at the Evgeni Plushenko Academy. 

It seems that Yablokov was in a hurry with such a drastic decision. According to sources, the 20-year-old athlete has begun work on restoring his jumping arsenal. Currently he performs in ice shows, but perhaps by next season he will return to competitions again.

Thanks to Yagudin

An unexpected thaw occurred in the relationship between “irreconcilable friends” Alexei Yagudin and Evgeni Plushenko. The latter previously called his eternal competitor a role model and praised him for winning the “Russian Challenge”.

“He’s great, he keeps himself in good shape, he’s smart. He recently had surgery on his hip, and now he did a triple sheepskin coat and skated well. This is truly an example to follow, an example not only for skaters, but for people in general. I’m just glad,” Plushenko said.

Yagudin, in turn, thanked the two-time Olympic champion for his kind words.

“Zhenya, thank you very much, finally something pleasant. I always admired what he did in the sport. Outstanding personality. I’m pleased that he finally appreciated it,” the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic champion told the Championship.

Kostomarov's jokes

Olympic champion Roman Kostomarov, together with his wife Oksana Domnina, attended the TV show “The Will Show” and again delighted his fans with his amazing willpower and attitude to the situation with amputation of limbs.   

“Max Stavisky constantly teases me: “Your parking is free, you don’t need a manicure or pedicure, your feet don’t sweat, you don’t need socks.” I say: “You need socks on your hands.” 

When you are on your feet, you feel like a complete person. When you come home and unfasten everything, you realize that you are like a cockroach on your back that cannot turn over. And you feel that way in the morning too. Then, when you put everything on, you drive a car, you feel normal, you live. The most difficult thing in everyday life is to put it all on,” said the skater.

The children also help Kostomarov cope with everything. According to Domnina, recently her son cut out his dad’s hand from cardboard and said: “Put it on.”  

“You put your hand right there, and you have five fingers. He taped everything up and made a brush out of cardboard. I say: maybe in the future you can build me a better hand so that it is more functional. He made some other mechanisms out of Lego, so that a pen could come out and sign something,” Roman added.