My opinion:
Women:
Kaori Sakamoto
Adeliia Petrosian (Armenia)
Jia Shin
Men:
Yuma Kagiyama
Ilia Malinin
Shoma Uno
Dance:
Papadakis / Cizeron
Chock / Bates
Guignnard / Fabbri
Pairs:
Boikova / Kozlovskii (some country)
Mishina / Galliamov (some country)
Miura / Kihara
Close to zero shot lol. Russia has made it clear they're not willing to let go much less promising skaters, like at that time partnerless Dario Cirizano. Being eligable=/=actually being let go by the former fed. A skater that swept the entire season? She could request for a release tomorrow and she'd still not be skating for another country for at least 4 years or so. She's either skating for Russia at the Olympics or she's not skating at all.
That's what I was assuming. Russia seems super reluctant to release anyone, nevermind one of their best skaters. And then she'd still have to be out of international competition for a year.
russia is gonna host their own one, so this is unlikely tbh
There is no way that Tutberidze and Plushenko will allow their top skaters to miss the Olympics. If at the summer ISU congress Russia is still not allowed (which is likely), and even more so if the congress accepts the Canadian proposals to simplify the transition of skaters to other countries - then the Russian Figure Skating Federation is finished.
What do Tutberidze or Plushenko have to offer to the RusFed in return if they give their best skaters to other feds? Eteri is only as valuable for the fed as her best skaters at that time are. They're not gonna give her everything she asks for if she takes her biggest talents elsewhere, the reason why it worked with Diana is because D/S's value was inflated from the get go to keep Eteri happy when in reality they were entirely replacable.
Pluschenko will likely have Samodelkina (KAZ) by that point, and Tutberidze is focused on the GEO team medal for her daughter. She does not need Adelia to go the Olympics, she has Egadze (men) and Metelkina/Berulava (pairs) to do that.
They’re hardly releasing Samo so their national champion and all around winner of this season? Absolutely 0 chance.
Tutberidze has her own daughter vying for a team Oly medal. Tutberidze has shown that it's her focus by accompanying Nika Egadze everywhere, instead of attending Russian comps with her women skaters. Wasn't she also in the K&C with the GEO pairs team at Worlds? She does not need Adlia to go to the Olympics.
RusFed would never release Adeliia, B/K or M/G. Particularly the last two as they have no ties to other countries and are Worlds and/or Olympic medalists.
I can see Adam Siao Him Fa as a top podium contender as long as he stays healthy. He's been raising his PB almost every season and appears to be gaining confidence. Meanwhile Shoma Uno may decide not to continue the competitive grind.
Agree. Amam -- with a disastrous short -- has already beaten Shoma at Worlds.
Lmao. The moment I saw Petrosian’s name I knew this list is pointless.
There is absolutely zero chance that she transfers out of Sambo motherfucking 70. Russian figure skating will start to make a lot more sense when people start thinking abt its economic levers - most child athletes will not make the system any money, and the ones that do are cash cows to be milked to offset the loss(sorry for the lactic analogy) Training Petrosian for more than a decade and then handing her on a silver platter to another fed before she goes big internationally is detrimental to their business model.
Even the us fed refused to release Deanna just because she was a 4cc medalist. And they were kinda right because after she waited and left she became the world champ for Canada. Russia had to deal with a similar problem when they released Katya Alexandrova only for her to switch to Australia and win junior world pairs. Releasing a skater who isn’t even clearly in medal contention could prove strategically disastrous. So why would you release someone who is?
So I think it’d be safe for you to go ahead and take those hypothetical countries off your list because those skating feds would have to show up to Moscow with a fat fucking pile of cash ready to kiss ass at the Olympic level in order to poach those athletes. And it’d be a bad deal imho.
Russia will have to sacrifice this Olympic cycle and let the current generation of skaters go so as not to lose the next generations. Otherwise the change of citizenship will start at the novice level. And then Russia will lose its assets for the next Olympic cycles.
Absolutely no federation is letting their top athletes change countries. I do feel bad for the Russian athletes that are missing out on the Olympics, but the top athletes are very well taken care of by the Russian federation. Their whole life is paid for, they get a ton of price money and opportunities for shows. Why would they give that up to represent a country that isn’t funding them as well as Russia is (they can’t all skate for Georgia)? One of the big allures for winning the Olympics for Russia is the rewards you get from the Russian government. Apartment, cars, pension. They wouldn’t get that if they skate for a different federation and country. Not to mention they’d need to find a country to skate for.
It’s 2 years out. That’s an eternity.
However I would not be a big fan of so many Russian skaters switching countries. It’d really drown out any grassroots skaters who actually live and train in that country.
I agree with you. I doubt Russia would let their big stars go, anyway. But we don't know her competitive they were be when they do return. I don't think they Russian Grand Prix scores should be counted as they're domestic and propaganda.
National scoring is not real.
Nope. Especially when it's doubled for nationalism
i chose the delusional path and will believe in the oly 5th to 1st prophecy for junhwan in milano
no seriously its in 2 seasons so many things can happen i wont make predictions based on now
I suggested it as a fantasy. Don't take the predictions too seriously. But it will be interesting to compare it with reality.
Half of these skaters/teams are either not eligible or considering retirement before Milan
There's also some missing major players from the last few seasons, like Adam and Isabeau
Out of the US women, I'd bet on Alysa instead of Isabeau, with her jump tech which might not match an adult body well.
I think dance is too hard to predict, depends on if G/P retire (likely), if C/B retire (I think 50/50), and if P/C return (seems unlikely now).
Also lots of chatter about Shoma retiring.
It's impossible to predict anything at this point. Who would have predicted in 2020 that neither Rika nor Kostornaia would be at the Olympics? Or that Kaori would be the OBM and World Champion and the leading skater into that quad?
Don't forget Bradie too. I thought Bradie and Rika were a lock for Olympics back in 2020.
Definitely Bradie, too. She and Rika have both been so unlucky
Green Parsons might retire?
Gilles/Poirier
I doubt Russia will let anyone go and Adelia might be at the expiration date and we don't know how competitive they will be compared to the rest. They may only have one skater per discipline if they aren't back next season. I feel like it's way too soon to put Jia on the Olympics podium. I feel like Loena or maybe another Japanese woman is a bit more likely.
Shoma ain't sticking around for another Olympics. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see it.
My dance prediction is
god help us if F/G become olympic medalists...
Yeah I kind of agree with you, but if P2 and C/B retire and P/C don’t come back, it’s almost certainly going to happen.
My delulu podium for the Women: 1 - Gracie Gold 2 - Amber Glenn 3 - Yelim Kim
Women - Probably Mao Shimada, Kaori then Kim Chae-yeon; it’s possible Alissa Liu and Jia Chin could be in the conversation.
Men - Ilia, Yuma, Adam, Junwan
Dance - Lajoie and Lagha (upward trajectory and interest), Fear and Gibson, Guinard and Fabri
Pairs - Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps, Riku and Ryuichi, and I like a dark horse Michaud and Pereira
Mao Shimada is not eligible for Milano, she’s a few months too young
Mao Shimada won’t be old enough!
Thanks for the intel- too bad
Do we think Papadakis and Cizeron are coming back?
I know I'm late but I am so confused by the P/C gossip mill right now. I know she's commented on some of the difficulties of her experience but I feel like the streets are properly mad at him now...and I do not know why.
I'd love to see them again, but not at her expense & they have every title they could want, so I get it either way.
This list is crazy lol
I'm Russian and for many years I've been deeply immersed in two things: figure skating and politics. And I'm often just surprised by this subreddit's views on how things are going in Russian figure skating. I won't argue any more about the possibility of Russian top figure skaters moving to other countries. Pretty soon there will just start to be insider news about changing countries and the facts will speak instead of me. You'd be surprised how many top figure skaters won't be entering the next domestic season in Russia.
I think something will happen with Dario cirisano and partner and anabel morozov and her partner. I bet they will be released but WITH RUSSIAN PARTNERS so that Russian fed can still brag about the Russian skating system and their ice dance. Remember dario wanted the release with a non Russian skater (she as czeck) and by that they couldn't have counted that team as "Russian" with dario's new russian partner the Russian media will count them as russians even if they are competing for Italy. Anabelle morozov also has a Russian partner so putting this pair either in the USA or in France and still consider them Russians in domestic Russian media can be fully possible
These are pretty solid predictions based on this past season. It’s honestly going to be pretty exciting to see how everything plays out with Russia skaters representing other countries over the next year and how the always-exciting Olympic qualifying season goes.
It’s also really exciting to be back in a pre-Olympic season that everyone is excited about post-pandemic. 2025 will be much more like 2016-17 than 2020-21, obviously.
I wonder if Adeliia would transfer to Armenia. If so it'd have to be soon as otherwise she won't be able to make the Olympics. I would hope Jia places above her but equally with quads in her arsenal (if she still has them) the others won't have much chances
Russia wouldn't let her transfer, so there's no guarantee she will even make it
You're all going to see daughter/whatever and her nonexistant edges on the podium in Milano mark my words
Now you will be beaten by Ilia’s fans and his manager, who said a couple days ago that Ilia will soon be jumping quintuple jumps.
Would RusFed ever release Adeliia? And she would pretty much have to transfer this summer to be eligible for international competition in 2026, right?