Ice age: how were the rentals of Russian figure skaters in St. Petersburg?

Among winter sports, perhaps only figure skating can now boast full halls and hype (KHL in parentheses). The control rentals of the national team, held in St. Petersburg, were successful not only in terms of attendance — 80-90 percent of the seats were filled and the sides were fully occupied by sponsors.

Who impressed

Questions were raised by the appearance of a fast food chain among the sponsors, saying, where are the refined figures of athletes, and where is the breaded chicken. But it makes sense to criticize it, knowing the amount of the contract, and it's probably good and the federation is satisfied. Moreover, among other sponsors, the chicken was balanced by the high-protein cheese that appeared in the lobby with its own area.

I would like to thank even the stewards who worked at the arena. No janitor's syndrome, everything is polite and without chasing after the wrong words on the posters. Channel One beautifully decorated the arena, projecting portraits of figure skaters onto huge banners hanging from the ceiling. There was no replacement for the deceased commentator Alexander Grishin — instead there was a portrait, and next to it was a bouquet of roses.

As for the sports component, everything is more complicated here. September has never been the moment of skaters' best form, because why? Rentals without ratings and with a greatly reduced sports component are something like a performance and an opportunity to see a digest of world culture. What is fashionable, relevant now, and how it all translates to ice.

The composition of the performance: what to expect from the skaters' test runs

In what form do athletes approach the start of the new season

There were really impressive programs on the fingers of one hand. Rhythm dancing on the theme of the 1990s, especially Shcherbakova's "Bitch Love"/Goncharova, but also Prodigy Kaganovskaya/Nekrasova and even Andrey Gubin from Shevchenko/The hedgehog. Alisa Dvoeglazova, a possible contender for the title of champion of Russia, left a pleasant impression on the girls — she performed to the tune of the ABBA group. At Boikova's/Kozlovsky's "Moonlight Sonata" turned out to be energetic and even evil.

The amount of Russian music has decreased again, except for rhythm dance, as if subconsciously during the Olympic season you want to put something on a foreign audience, or maybe people feel the breath of return.

At the same time, quite a lot of programs turned out to be either raw or without the novelty effect. Mishina/Gallyamov skated classics in the short program again, and this season we did not avoid Malade, Notre Dame and other familiar topics. But with rules that focus on jumps and scores, creativity takes a back seat.

Return the full pedestal

Why is Dvoeglazova the likely champion of Russia, even though Adelia Petrosyan participates in the Olympics? The student Eteri Tutberidze (they are both from this group) is 16 years old, she does not qualify for adult competitions according to the international age limit, but can already compete at the highest level in Russian. Therefore, it has an advantage in quadruple jumps. Actually, only Dvoeglazova performed two of them (quadruple sheepskin coats solo and in cascade), but she fell off the lutz. There was also Sadkova, but her successful attempt at the same sheepskin coat cost several falls at once during the program — this can hardly be considered luck.

But the overall impression is that the Tutberidze group can regain its full pedestal among women. Dvoeglazova, Petrosyan, Sadkova are quite a likely scenario, and there is also Akatieva. Gorbacheva is the only competitor, but in St. Petersburg she performed unconvincingly and even called herself a goofball after the free program — she mixed up the jumps. In fact, there is no Plushenko school in adult single skating, Muravyova has a program in a dramatic style that suits her, but she is physically fit and it seems far from a triple axel.

Petrosyan is also far away, she skated in St. Petersburg with mistakes on both days, but this should not cause us to panic before the Olympics. Adelia had flown in from Beijing just a week earlier and had the right to exhale rather than take on responsibility. So just thank her for coming and attracting the audience.

Fight warm-up: how our figure skaters won the Olympic selection

The performances of Adelia Petrosyan and Peter Gumennik turned out to be successful, but ambiguous

Couples have a traditional confrontation./Gallyamova and Boikova/Kozlovsky has become denser — the second ones are still making mistakes, but the first ones are not in the best condition after their partner's injury. Therefore, we can say that Sasha and Dima won the fight in St. Petersburg even with a minimal advantage — due to a successful quadruple drop to the floor, which sent the audience into ecstasy.

But after the failure of the trip to the Olympics, there is a feeling that others will rule in pairs for the next Games. I would really like to be wrong and hope that both of the country's best duets will remain young and after a couple of world Championships they will also compete for Olympic tickets.

But in dancing in the absence of Stepanova, who did not receive an Olympic ticket./Bukin seems to be getting closer — five or six young couples are already elbowing each other, and if we hope to return, then we will have to start with one quota. Imagine how they will fight for her.

Right during the rentals, the federation's director general, Alexander Kogan, changed his position to general secretary (who had not been on staff before), and speed skater Svetlana Bazhanova became the CEO. Perhaps this is preparation for the federation's consolidation and merger with speed skating after the Olympics. This means that they will certainly be dealt with at this level.

But it's good to have something to fight for. The main feeling from the past rentals is that figure skating is not dying, but holding on. He still has the money and the nerve.