The best chance: Trusova will try to reach the Grand Prix finals through America

There's not much to tell about the small 100,000-strong town of Everett in the northwestern United States. There are US aircraft carriers, and the Democrats have just won the election by one wicket... But next weekend he will become the main one in world figure skating — the fourth stage of the Grand Prix series, Skate America, will be held here. And in each of the sports, Russians will have something to see, and the name of the arena is generally associated with an Indian legend.

The tasks of Trusova and Petrosyan

To begin with, briefly about the arena. It is called the "Angel of the Winds", in honor of the spirit of the local Stillaguamish Indians, who watches over them from the neighboring Pilchuk Mountain. Two Russians, Alexandra Trusova (Ignatova) and Adelia Petrosyan, will perform as guests of the Indians.

For Trusova, the American stage will be a chance to guarantee her entry into the Grand Prix finals. After the second place in China, even the third place in the United States should be enough for selection — in this case, the computer estimates the probability of getting into the top 6 at 90%. And even with the fourth position, it gives a 70% chance of a positive outcome. A lot, of course, depends on the specific distribution of seats among the other contenders — Chiba, Petrykina, Levito, Hae In Lee, and... Petrosyan, of course. She is a direct competitor of Trusova. Adelia only has the first stage of two, and in two weeks she will have another chance in Japan. But, of course, you have to strike the iron while it's hot.

Rental Leaders: which of the skaters of the national team surprised at the test starts

Trusova is the best by a margin, Humennik is being squeezed by competitors, there is chaos in dancing

However, it's Trusova who has a hot spot — Alexandra is coming to the tournament after silver in China and a clean quadruple lutz. Petrosyan is after the fourth place at the Russian stage with two falls. In the international arena, she scored 204.16 this year, and this is more than in Yekaterinburg. We need to make a significant leap forward.

Who are the rivals

At the same time, the composition in the USA turned out to be quite favorable for Russians. Olympic champion Alice Liu and Amber Glenn have withdrawn, and the main obstacle on the way to gold now looks like the Japanese Olympic medalist Ami Nakai, who has already won the stage in France.

In Shenzhen, Alexandra scored 221.27 points and lost to Japanese Mona Chiba by only 3.21. Her quadruple turned out to be the only one in the women's tournament, although the rivals have an advantage in the short due to axel (no one could realize it in China, Gubanova and Chiba won due to the components).

18-year-old Ami Nakai won the French Grand Prix with a score of 219.74 points, meaning the results are very close. Although Nakai scored more than 227 points last season, and Trusova recently received 226.01 at the Denis Ten Memorial.

As for the second representative of Russia, the likely scenario for Adelia is a fight for bronze with a whole crowd of equal competitors. There is a component Sofya Samodelkina, who became the 10th at the Olympics. Korean women Yoo Young and especially Kim Yoo Jae can surprise with a triple axel, Japanese Rino Matsuike also tried ultra-si. All of them are capable of breaking the 200+ mark — it all depends on the judging panel.

So far, Inna Goncharenko's ward has been unable to find herself this season. It seems that the short program at the Russian Grand Prix "Gold of the Urals" turned out to be close to ideal, but it was arbitrary, and it was definitely unpleasant for a participant in the 2026 Olympics to be without medals below Zlata Burya. By the way, Petrosyan went to the USA without her coach.

Another thing is that both Alexandra and Adelia will be performing for the second weekend in a row, one flew from relatively nearby China, the other from Yekaterinburg. With all the achievements of modern medicine, recovery can cause problems for Russians. But, unfortunately, these are the realities of this season.

Malinin's Return

There is something to see in other forms. Ilya Malinin returns to the men's tournament — he has publicly reflected a lot about the defeat at the Olympics, but it is not known what conclusions have been drawn and whether there will be less media activity now. The three-time world champion and Olympic champion in the team competes against Italian Daniel Grassl, Japanese Sota Yamamoto, Estonian Alexander Selevko. The eternal "king of components" from the USA, Jason Brown, is also here.

We should also mention Georgy Reshtenko from St. Petersburg, who represents the Czech Republic. The bronze medalist of the 2026 European Championship at the Canadian Grand Prix became only the seventh with a score of 216.94 points. In the United States, he will have to add significantly to qualify for the podium.

There are our people in pair skating too. Nikita Volodin, a native of St. Petersburg, represents Germany together with Minerva Fabienne Haze. In March, they won the World Championship with a total of 228.33 points, and a few weeks earlier they became Olympic bronze medalists. Their rivals are Americans Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov.

And there are several people with Russian roots on the list of participants in dancing, for example, Evgenia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissot (France), as well as Artem Markelov, a native of Volzhsky, from Liam Ness (USA), will compete for the victory.