Soon we will see Alexandra Trusova at competitions?! These are dreams for now, but the soil for them is already being fertilized. Sports received information from reliable sources about the intention of the Olympic vice-champion to compete at the test skates of the Russian national team after a year and a half break in her career. We tell you why “Sasha can do anything.”
Trusova is a pop idol of Russian sports. To be honest, it was with great difficulty that we believed in her return. Unlike many others, Alexandra is connected to quadruple jumps by an unbreakable chain, and with age they tend to get lost. Now she is 20 years old and in our figure skating at this age people retire a long time ago. The exception — Elizaveta Tuktamysheva — only confirms the rule.
Closer to the 2022 Olympic Games, Trusova began to reveal herself a little more brightly as an artist. Her Olympic short program “Frida,” one of the most striking productions in the careers of Eteri Tutberidze and Daniil Gleikhengauz, perfectly hit the mood and showed that Alexandra can still skate something other than various kinds of heroic images. Yes, perhaps not as organically as some of its competitors, but given the technical content of colossal complexity, it was difficult to expect more from it.
And yet, even with this in mind, she remained herself. While others lived on the ice as heroines with prescribed images, Trusova was Trusova — bright, strong-willed, charismatic. And there are both obvious advantages and disadvantages to this. On the plus side, the image of a cool girl, playfully breaking through the walls of stereotypes, elevated Alexandra to the rank of pop idol of Russian sports. Even in retirement (as it seemed earlier — final and irrevocable), she remained incredibly popular and recognizable. And unlike Alina Zagitova, a person of comparable media status, Alexandra did not even need to win the Olympic Games for this.
Well, the downside is that she did not have time to develop the “Frida” line and two programs of Svetlana Sokolovskaya’s headquarters at the competitions. Having shown the beginnings of creative potential, she has not yet brought them to the status of a personal norm. Now the lyrics from her still look like a one-time experiment, an unexpected and pleasant outburst, the repetition of which is usually not expected for objective reasons. Therefore, if we see, say, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova at the competitions, the first judge will expect beautiful, artistic performances and, secondly, some ultra-si element, then from Alexandra it will still be quads. And they will be assessed in accordance with the expectations set in advance. At least it seems so at the moment.
What is Plushenko’s role? Why did Trusova even think about returning? There is a feeling that there is no need to look for reinforced concrete logical chains here. Most likely, the answer will be much simpler — it’s Sasha. And this phrase simultaneously answers all questions and explains why her army of fans is growing day by day.
But if you still try to think about it, it is possible that the reason lies in the window of opportunity that has opened. The composition of the Russian national team in women's singles for this season does not look impenetrable. For the first time in a long time, three girls out of six (Anna Frolova, Ksenia Sinitsyna and Veronika Yametova) did not show ultra-si elements at competitions, which means that with proper preparation it is possible to beat them. It is quite possible that Evgeni Plushenko also played an active role in all this, under whose leadership Trusova is currently preparing a potential return. Most likely, he helped the “queen of quads” regain her motivation and provided the conditions for a comeback.
Well, then everything will depend on her. It's hard to say for sure what Alexandra's season will be like. And will there even be a season, as well as participation in test skates? At the moment, these questions remain open, and the answer to them depends entirely on what physical condition the skater will be in, say, in the middle/end of August.
But in any case, from an image point of view, Trusov is from this idea doesn't lose anything. If it doesn’t work out, it’s okay, you can always try to return to the 2025/26 season. Well, if everything goes according to plan, she will go down in the history of not only Russian, but also world sports. And not only as a conqueror of quadruples. And for the mere intention to do something like this, she deserves immense respect.