Zsofia SZEPLAKI (HUN) | Junior Women Free Skating | Riga 2024

And now to 13-year-old Sofia Zablacki. She competed in a Hungarian test skate earlier this month and posted a score of 84 points. That will certainly give her a comfortable lead at this stage, should she repeat it. Sofia Zablacki from Hungary, to me, seems to be the most competition-ready skater of all that we have seen. A skater that seems to be, that performance suggests, has had multiple run-throughs in practice. The speed of the final closing spin suggests she has energy and abundance, perhaps doing double run-throughs. I'm not sure, but very impressive competition readiness. Certainly her performance level is at a high level for her compared to the technical qualities. She does the jumps, under rotation in some cases, not a lot of flow in the landing. But what she does, the work that she does between the elements is really, really good. Get a chance to look back at some of that performance ability. Watch the landing, that would be on the quarter. But you can just see, just slightly under-rotated. Watch this axle, watch the arms go back with the free leg. Up high, gets all the way around that one, not a problem, but not a lot of speed in the landing. Yeah, and it looks, as I say, it's competition-ready. It looks like Sofia is so well-trained in readiness for this and very comfortable with consistency. It's that difficult aspect for the skater and the coach as to how much time is devoted to getting the run-throughs done. Getting fit and then versus, okay, now it's time to work on the quality. I guess your point is, and it's a good point, you can't do all things at the highest level all the time. So true. You have to pick your battles and pick your priorities, really. And to be fair, run-throughs, as we see this triple flip, to do run-throughs is something that most of the skaters are reluctant to do. You can see the lack of rotation there, again, because the physicality of a run-through is so exhausting and it takes a lot for the coach to force sometimes the skaters to do the sufficient numbers to give the fitness that will give them the points. Yeah, in that exhaustion comes pain. And I think that I remember running through five-minute programs. All I could think was, I'm never going to make it, I'll die at the end, because you're dying. I mean, you are dying. It's funny, there's this skater, a brilliant, lovely, wonderful skater that I teach, and she said to me on occasion during her senior free skate, she said, there are times when I think death would be easier than doing a good run-through. Yeah, it's true. It's true. And you're saying it's true. We're corroborating, that's the feeling. You're still consumed with the exhaustion and the pain. And then you don't do it enough. But then when you get to competition, now your fear goes way up, because you're going, not only will I have the pain, I'm going to have the pain of a bad skate because I'm not in shape. And then you can't replicate the quality of your individual elements because you're so consumed with the worry of the pain. The best skaters train at the highest level on the most consistent basis. 77.60, that is first in the free program with a total competition score of 117.61. Sofia is in first place at this stage of the competition.