Sofia Samodelkina

Sofia Samodelkina
Samodelkina in 2021
Full name	Sofia Vladimirovna Samodelkina
Native name	Софья Владимировна Самоделкина
Other names	Sofya Sonia
Born	(2007-02-18) 18 February 2007 (age 17) Moscow, Russia
Hometown	Astana, Kazakhstan
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Figure skating career
Country	Kazakhstan (since 2024) Russia (2019–2023)
Coach	Elmira Turganova
Skating club	Kazakhstan Figure Skating Union
Began skating	2011

Sofia Vladimirovna Samodelkina (Russian: Софья Владимировна Самоделкина; born 18 February 2007) is a Russian-born figure skater that currently competes for Kazakhstan. She is the 2024 CS Denis Ten Memorial Challenge silver medalist.

As a junior skater, competing for Russia, she is the 2021 JGP Slovenia silver medalist, the 2021 JGP Russia bronze medalist, and the 2021 Denis Ten Memorial Challenge champion.

Samodelkina is the ninth woman to land a quadruple jump and the fifteenth to land a triple Axel jump in international competition. She is the second woman after Alexandra Trusova who has landed all quadruple jumps except quad Axel in practice. She is the first woman to attempt a quad loop in competition, but the jump was not ratified due to under-rotation.[1] She has landed ratified triple axels, quad salchows, and quad toes in international competition.

Samodelkina was born on February 18, 2007 in Moscow to a Kazakh mother and a Russian father.^[2] She has an older brother and a younger sister.^[3] She received Kazakh citizenship in the summer of 2023.^[4]

In addition to figure skating, she enjoys drawing as a hobby.^[5]

Samodelkina's parents decided to enroll her into figure skating at CSKA Moscow in 2011 when she was five years old. For the first six years of her skating career, Samodelkina was coached by Lilia Biktagirova. Sergei Davydov would later become her coach in 2016.^[5][6]

Samodelkina placed fourth at the 2020 Russian Junior Championships and 2021 Russian Junior Championships.

Samodelkina made her junior international debut at the 2021 JGP Russia held in Krasnoyarsk in mid-September. She fell on an underrotated triple Axel jump in the short program, missing her combination as a result, ending up sixth in that segment. In the free skate, she placed second behind Sofia Akateva, landing a quadruple Salchow with positive GOE and becoming the ninth woman in history to land a quad. She also landed a quad Salchow-double toe loop combination and quad Lutz in the program, although called a quarter short, taking the bronze medal overall.^[7] At the 2021 JGP Slovenia, she made a mistake on the opening triple Axel and placed fourth. She won the free skate after landing a quad Salchow and rose to second place overall.^[8]

Later in autumn, at the 2021 Denis Ten Memorial Challenge, Samodelkina became the fifteenth woman to land a triple Axel jump in international competition and won the event.^[9]

Samodelkina made her debut at the senior national championships at the 2022 Russian Championships She underrotated two of her three quad attempts, originally placing fifth, however, the original winner of the Championship Kamila Valieva was later stripped of her medal due to a positive doping test, promoting Samodelinka by one place meaning she finished fourth overall. She expressed enthusiasm at the overall results and qualifying for the national team for the following season.^[10]

At the 2022 Russian Junior Championships, Samodelkina performed her short program cleanly, including the triple Axel-triple toe loop combination, and placed second behind Sofia Akatieva. She stumbled on the quad Lutz and quad Salchow in the free skate but completed the other elements cleanly and won the silver medal behind Akatieva.

Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine Samodelkina was not allowed to participate in the 2022 World Junior Figure Skating Championships as all athletes representing Russia were barred from international competition. She instead closed her season at the 2022 Channel One Trophy where she competed at the senior level for the Red Machine team captained by Anna Shcherbakova. Samodelkina placed sixth in the short program, fourth in the free skate and fourth overall in the individual standings. She won the gold medal in the team event, with the Red Machine placing first.

Prior to the season, it was announced that Samodelkina had left her longtime coach Sergei Davydov and would instead be coached by Svetlana Sokolovskaya.

As Russia remained banned from international competition during the 2022-2023 season, Samodelkina opted to compete on the Russian Grand Prix series (a series of all-Russian competitions in the same format as the international Grand Prix series) Samodelkina was assigned to the second and fifth stages of the series.

At the second stage of the Russian Grand Prix series, Samodelkina scored 63.66 points in the short program and ranked in fifth place. She placed second in the free skate and second overall, winning the silver medal. At the fifth stage of the Russian Grand Prix, Samodelkina won both segments of the competition, winning the gold medal 4.07 points ahead of Olympic silver medalist Alexandra Trusova.

Competing at the 2023 Russian Championships, Samodelkina placed eighth in the short program and eleventh in the free skate, dropping to eleventh place overall. She went on to compete at the 2023 Channel One Trophy, where she was randomly drawn to compete on Kamila Valieva's team. She would individually place sixth at the event and her team would finish second overall. Samodelkina would then close her season by finishing eleventh at the 2023 Russian Grand Prix Final.

Throughout the season, Samodelkina underwent a significant growth spurt that would impact the timing of her jumps.^[2]

Following a disappointing end to the 2023–24 season and conscious of the emerging talent of young female skaters in Russia, Samodelkina began considering skating for another country. Having previously received offers from the German Ice Skating Union and the Israel Ice Skating Federation to represent their respective countries, Samodelkina declined these offers and instead decided that she wanted to represent her mother's home country of Kazakhstan. This decision, however, was met with some pushback from the Russian Figure Skating Federation, who were initially reluctant to release her. In spite of this, Samodelkina obtained a Kazakh passport and moved to Astana, Kazakhstan in hopes of pursuing this goal.^[2]

In late September, it was announced that Samodelkina had made a coaching change from Svetlana Sokolovskaya to Evgeni Plushenko. Samodelkina would train in Astana whilst making frequent trips to Moscow to train at the Angels of Plushenko.^[2][11] While in Kazakhstan, she was coached by Elmira Turganova, who was also head of the National Skating Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.^[12] Samodelkina would later reveal that it had been Sokolovskaya's decision to end their working relationship shortly after she had decided to represent Kazakhstan.^[13]

She was officially released by the Russian Figure Skating Federation in May 2024.^[2] Honored Russian figure skating coach and national figure skating team adviser, Tatiana Tarasova, reacted to this decision saying, "If the federation let her go, it means they don't consider it a big loss. For the Kazakhstan team, she may be [promising and talented], but for our team, she wasn't."^[14]

Samodelkina later spoke out on some of the negative attention she has received for deciding to represent Kazakhstan by both Russian media and the mental impact it had on her, "When I skated in Russia and was younger, the media didn’t pay as much attention as they did after my change of citizenship. But, of course, I saw both good and bad. People write what they think. This is their opinion, their decision to write or not write... Of course, when you read something bad about yourself, no matter how much you say you don’t pay attention to it, it’s somewhat untrue; it still somehow stays in your mind. But I have my close and dear ones who always tell me the truth, whether it’s bitter or sweet. I listen to them and try to improve."^[15]

In July 2024, Samodelkina competed at the Summer Championships, her first competition since March of 2023. She ranked in second place, but won the free skate, winning the gold medal overall.^[16] Upon watching Samodelkina's performances and her decreased level of technical difficulty, Tatiana Tarasova publicly mocked her, saying, "What Olympic medals? With such skating, they take the last places and don't give medals. No, it is impossible to see any future prospects in her."^[2][17]

At the beginning of September, Samodelkina announced that she had left Evgeni Plushenko and was now training in Kazakhstan full-time.^[18] Plushenko expressed upset with Samodelkina's decision to leave the Angels of Plushenko, saying, "Everything was done very ugly. We will learn our lessons and try to act more wisely in the future, especially when working with foreign athletes."^[2][19]

In late September, Samodelkina competed on the Junior Grand Prix circuit for the first time in three years at 2024 JGP Turkey. She would place fourth at the event.^[9] Going on to make her senior international debut at the 2024 CS Denis Ten Memorial Challenge, Samodelkina won the silver medal behind Anastasiia Gubanova of Georgia.^[16] Towards the end of October, Samodelkina traveled to Los Angeles, California, United States, where she began a three-week internship with Rafael Arutyunyan.^[20]

JGP: Junior Grand Prix CS: Challenger Series

Small medals for short and free programs awarded only at ISU Championships. Personal ISU bests highlighted in bold.

• Sofia Samodelkina at the International Skating Union
• Sofia Samodelkina at SkatingScores.com