Drama on the Volga: now Russian greenhouses are doing four

The stage in Kazan turned out to be controversial: a good line-up, a lot of locals, the main duel of Russian and even world pair skating, but not so many clean rentals and not the largest palace for 3 thousand people, in which empty seats were visible. Nevertheless, a historic event happened this weekend in Kazan. Read more about it in the Izvestia article.

A hard-won victory

Alexandra Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky made a quadruple salchow throw. This is a super-complex element and much more rare than the quadruple jumps in single skating. The representatives of pair skating deserve to be mentioned at the beginning of all reports and reports. Mishina's confrontation/Gallyamova and Boikova/Kozlovsky has already become a "classic" of Russian figure skating. There is also a personal, there is a purely sporting one. And for the last two years, the former have reigned supreme in the duel. Alexandra and Dmitry even seemed to be falling apart under the pressure of super-stable rivals.

But Gallyamov was out in the new season after an injury — a broken leg. And, as cynical as it may sound, it was a chance for sworn friends. The Kazan duel followed a high-quality scenario. Sasha and Dima made a mistake in the short program, but not critically, and gave a couple of points of advantage. They had gone out earlier in an arbitrary fashion — and immediately made a grave mistake. The partner fell off the axel, which she shouldn't have done, and out of the blue brought a penalty point.

But the guys made a luxurious quadruple ejection the next element. It is a pity that it is rated low on the database, but according to the Russian rules, performers receive a bonus point. Thus, the penalty for the fall was glossed over.

Mishina/Gallyamov came out confidently and began to peel his elements, as usual, like seeds. But first there was a malfunction on the triple sheepskin coat — a synchronous fall, and later Alexander could not lift Anastasia in support, which had not happened for a very long time. After that, the couple stopped rolling for a second, but still continued to fight. And already on the way off the ice, Gallyamov was beside himself with rage and reprimanded his partner for the failure, even though he was good himself. But this dominant athlete mentality has helped Sasha for many years. It just has side effects.

Force emissions: results of the second stage of the Russian Grand Prix of Figure Skating

The battle for leadership is escalating in all forms

The triumph of the Ice Mistress

For women, which is not often the case in Russian figure skating, after the short program, the four leaders were in the range of 0.43 points, with two girls sharing the first place. Something new happened with the status of Sofia Muravyeva — it seemed that until recently she went to the "young ones" and did not score points herself, despite her triple axel.

However, as the years go by, the axel has turned into a double, and now 19-year-old Sofia is gaining the same points with young Dina Khusnutdinova, who jumps the same triple jump. And most fans understand this. Muravyova's status has changed, and Alexey Mishin will surely work to upgrade this special status. At least for now, it seems like a more affordable job than restoring difficult jumps.

In the free skate, Khusnutdinov was the only one clean among all the leaders in his native land. Being the youngest, she went on more difficult jumps, and proved to be mentally more stable. Khusnutdinova completed the program with the lowest components among the four leaders, but thanks to two triple axles, she became the first with a noticeable margin.

Both Muravyova, Sadkova, and Frolova were wrong. Sofia immediately began to rearrange the jumps in the program, which confused her by the end — as a result, there were two weak elements in the bonus ending and seventh place in the free skate. Sadkova went for two quadruple sheepskin coats and de facto lost both - she probably overdid it in the warm—up, making five or six successful attempts. I was even surprised by her breakaway from Frolova in the fight for silver — she did not perform the ultra-complicated jumps. Yes, she looked physically hard, but she didn't fall.

Anyway, 16-year-old Khusnutdinova, having barely joined the Tutberidze group and formally still playing for Tatarstan, returned and immediately won the home stage. A young girl breaks into adult women's skating and is already ready to fight for a medal at the Russian Championship.

Vladislav Dikidzhi stood out among the men at the stage — otherwise, the guys either did not risk the abundance of complex content, or went for numerous quads and fell. The season of the promising Matvey Vetlugin looks like a tragedy. Having an artistic gift, he could have relied on it, added a couple of fours and would now be in the lead of the season. But regular attempts to hit difficult quads throw him back. And this is not only his problem.

But the system is designed in such a way that people often begin to see your artistry only if you have technology. In part, this is just about Dikigi, who landed four quads in a free skate (one for a minus grade) and beat all of them in terms of components.

By the Russian Championship, the leaderboard of the Russian national team is getting tighter. The fight for medals at the two remaining stages of the Grand Prix and the Russian Championship in St. Petersburg will be tough.