2022 Olympic champion in team figure skating competition Kamila Valieva leads the Grand Prix in Kazan after the short program. Sport tells who tried to resist her.
The short program in Kazan was initially quite predictable. After the removal of Sofia Muravyova, who owns the triple axel and receives generous points for the components, there was simply no one to fight on equal terms with Valieva. On her native ice in Kazan, she acted as an absolute prima. All the attention, all the soft toys from the stands went to her. All the highest allowances for the elements… Well, you get the idea.
Camila came home with a basic short program without difficult jumps. It is obvious that the consequences of trauma are making themselves felt. She is still in her combat form. Double axel, triple flip and a combination of triple lutz and triple flip. All the participants showed similar content, but none of them even came close to the 80 points mark. And Valieva scored 83.3!The Olympic champion did an excellent job with two of the three jump elements. However, on the cascade lutz, it “fell out” a little. By the way, for this element she received the highest allowances — 2.12 points. Only three of the seven judges gave her +3 for him. The rest rated the element at «+4» with the maximum possible rating of «+5».
We can say that the trend to support Camila continues. Strategically, this may even be correct. After all, it was for her that a full ice palace gathered in Kazan. After the empty stands of the Iceberg at the Sochi stage, it is extremely joyful to see this. has changed. Riding at home is not exciting. Home, everyone loves you. How can you worry if you are expected like that,» Valieva told reporters after the performance.
Veronika Yametova, a hurricane girl from Yekaterinburg, got closest to Camila. She performed her tempo, sweeping short program, stuffed with original chips to the eyeballs, without any complaints. It is noteworthy that initially Veronica was not supposed to perform in Kazan. The fact that she was declared for the third stage became known at the last moment. we were asked to come. Skating two stages in a row is not hard for me,» she told reporters.
The referees rated her performance at 75.90 points. There are pros and cons here. The advantages are obvious — Veronika not only got her personal best in terms of total points, but also showed the best results in technique (40.86) and components (35.06). Using her example, we can say that referees are beginning to notice talents from the regions and adequately evaluate them.However, it is not very clear how there can be almost 7.5 points difference between Valieva and Yametova, who showed approximately equal performance in terms of quality? Yes, Camila performed wonderfully and deservedly takes the intermediate first place. But there is a feeling that the gap could be more modest. Indeed, right now Valiev does not have a colossal advantage over rivals.
The intermediate third place is occupied by 18-year-old Ksenia Sinitsyna (70.54) — the oldest participant of the Kazan stage among the tops. A few years ago, she competed with Valieva at the junior level and was considered promising. Ksenia did not have an ultra-c, but she jumped a complex combination of a triple lutz and a triple loop, which gives a serious advantage in a clean performance.
Then Sinitsyna faced health problems and recovered for a long time, while Camila confidently climbed to the top. Now she is in the role of catching up. However, this has absolutely no effect on her insinuating, cat-like skating. In the short program, Sinitsyna was noticeably cautious, and allowed underrotation, which affected the final scores. However, the performance was well worth it. Especially for an athlete who had recently planned to leave single skating for pair skating.
" , in the off-season, but the support of the fans helped, she said after the rental. — There was a desire to please them. Pair skating is not mine".
Free skating at the Russian Grand Prix stage in Kazan will be held on Sunday.
br>The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors