American journalist rebuked Tutberidze for dinner with judges

American journalist David Leese reproached Russian coach Eteri Tutberidze for a dinner with the judges, which allegedly could have influenced the scores of her wards at the European Figure Skating Championships (EC) in Tallinn (Estonia). He expressed his opinion on the air of his YouTube channel The Skating Lesson.

The journalist said that the Croatian referee was among those whom Tutberidze invited to dinner. This affected the scores of Russian skaters, who, in his opinion, had errors.

“(Evgenia) Tarasova and (Vladimir) Morozov had several mistakes at once in this one outburst. First, she leaned forward, then – the hand touches the ice. The first mistake is exactly minus one or two points, the second is minus two. So that’s minus four. Even if we think they made the greatest blowout of all time, its ceiling is plus one. But how can it be the greatest outlier if there are two errors? GOE should definitely be negative. So she also raised her leg, because she lost control, ”Liz expressed the opinion.

Earlier, Liz spoke about raising the age limit in figure skating. “This could turn out to be a disaster for the Tutberidze team. Their 17-year-old skaters are barely holding on. Evgenia Medvedeva peaked at the 2017 Russian Championships and was a shadow of herself at the PyeongChang Olympics,” he said.

Tutberidze has prepared several Olympic champions, as well as winners of the world and European championships in women’s single skating. Among her students are Yulia Lipnitskaya, Alina Zagitova, Kamila Valieva, Alexandra Trusova, Alena Kostornaya, Anna Shcherbakova and others.

David Leese is known for his critical remarks about the Russian national figure skating team. Together with fellow columnist Jonathan Beyer, he makes analytical videos and publishes them on the YouTube channel The Skating Lesson.