Vera and Jack both had a free day and decided to go on a walk just the two of them to a close by bakery to get breakfast together.
Jack had his arm wrapped around her shoulder as they walked together.
Vera was listening to Jack talk about something from his last practice and could feel herself get cold as they walked through the freezing New Jersey weather.
“My hands are cold.” Vera shivered as she forgot her gloves and could feel how cold hands were getting.
“Is that a pickup line?” Jack cheekily smirked at his girlfriend looking at her.
“Woah how did you know.” Vera sassed her boyfriend back with a sarcastic smile.
“It’s a talent baby!” Jack flirted back winking at her making her shake her head with a fond laugh.
Jack did take his arm off her shoulder and grabbed both her hands holding them between his bigger hands blowing on them, warming them up quickly and then held both her hands in his jacket pocket.
Aliona Kostornaia, Alexandra Trusova and Anna Sherbakova, better known as 3A, are 3 Russian figure skaters coached by Eteri Tutberidze.
While they were juniors, they were always seen dominating competitions by placing 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Only losing to each other.
Alexandra Trusova, popular for starting the quad revolution in women's figure skating, was seen as the 'leader' of the group, she was expected to start winning everything when she turned senior. Aliona Kostornaia was seen as the most artistic, graceful and theatrical one, she can't jump any quads, but she does have a triple axel. Anna Sherbakova on the other hand, can jump quads, yet she is the least talked about in this trio.
They all turned from juniors to seniors at the same time, and contrary to what most people expected, Aliona Kostornaia starts winning all the competitions. In May 2020, it was announced that Alexandra (also known as Sasha) would be leaving Team Tutberidze for The Angels Of Plushenko. Only a month later, it was announced that Aliona would also be leaving Team Tutberidze for The Angels Of Plushenko. Eteri Tutberidze and Evgeni Plushenko had a dispute not long before this about another skater, Evgenia Medvedeva, and they were still not on good terms.
Sasha mainly moved to Plushenko so she could be #1 at the camp and have all the attention on her, specifically from Sergei Rozanov, who is a coach who previously worked at Eteri's camp, but moved to Plushenko. He is the coach that helped all of 3A to get their jumps, this is another reason why Eteri and Plushenko are rivals. Sasha was unhappy about her main competition, Aliona, also moving to Plushenko and being coached by Sergei. A schedule had to be made where neither of them could see each other on the ice or even leaving/entering the rink. Because Sergei started coaching Aliona again, Sasha didn't want to be coached by him anymore and she started working with a different coach.
A few months later, Aliona decided to move back to Eteri, but she was given a very hard time. She was forced to give an interview on Russian state television apologising for what she did and practically begging Eteri for forgiveness. Sadly, Aliona got infected with COVID this season, which took her out of most competitions this season. Eventually, Eteri allowed Aliona to return to her camp under one condition, she had to get her triple axel back within 2 months.
Sasha also moved back to Eteri later because of the Eteri bonus, which basically means that those coached by Eteri get higher scores in competition. This switch was just in time for the olympic season, for these olympics, there were only 3 spots for the Russians, and one of them was already taken by Kamila Valieva. There were 6 more olympic-level athletes who had to battle it out for 2 spots to go to Beijing. Due to the level difference between Russian figure skaters and the rest of the world, going to the olympics almost guarantees coming home with a medal. After Sasha showcased her 5-quad record breaking performance at Russian test skates, she was also set to go to Beijing. This whole season, Eteri's team spoke very negatively of Aliona during press conferences, calling her lazy and saying that her personality is the reason she can't land quads. Suddenly, Aliona posted a picture of a broken arm, which knocked her out of the battle to go to the olympics. There was still a battle between Jelizaveta Tuktamysheva and Anna Sherbakova over who would go to the olympics, but because the federation has a preference for Eteri girls, Anna was chosen to go. At the time, Anna didn't even have any ultra C elements in her programs, but she ended up performing ultra C elements at the olympics.
These heartbreaking olympics ended with Anna in first place, Sasha, heartbroken, in second, and Kamila, the favourite to win gold, in 4th place. I have a more detailed post about Beijing 2022 on my blog if you're interested.
These olympics marked the end of the dreamteam that was 3A, and this will go down in history as the death of figure skating.
just realized all my fave skating elements look… similar…
yulia lipnitskaya’s layback spin and spiral
sasha cohen’s layback spin and spiral
yuna kim’s ina bauer and catch foot layback spin
johnny weir’s spider lunge
and alexandra trusova’s unparalleled cantilever (which she sometimes skates with her hair loose in what appears to be a very effective dominance display)
unrelated addendum: newly obsessed with Ilia Malinin’s quad Lutz entry