Andrey SimonenkoCorrespondent SportAll materialsCompetitions of sports couples at the European Figure Skating Championship ended with the expected triumph of the Russians. But after Anastasia Mishina/Alexander Gallyamov, Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov and Aleksandra Boykova/Dmitry Kozlovsky confirmed the complete superiority of Russian pairs over European ones, questions arose. Thoughts came up — how to change the format of the tournament in this discipline, so that at least some kind of intrigue arises. For example, to force our couples to switch partners. But even in this case, the result would have been obvious — something like in a boxing fight between a heavyweight and a «bag» brought up for the public's amusement. However, this did not mean at all that there was no intrigue within the Russian troika itself. For example, we must not forget that it was in pair skating that the Russian team made a substitution in the team tournament of the Olympic Games in Sochi and Pyeongchang. Now the schedule is slightly different, but there are other nuances in the form of the upcoming dramatic fight with the Chinese couple, and putting two duets on the “commander”, distributing the load, is quite an option.
