br>
The third stage of the Grand Prix series in figure skating ended on Sunday in Kazan. Kamila Valieva, the winner of the team tournament at the Beijing Olympics, became its main character, for whose sake both days of the competition the spectators filled the stands of the Palace of Sports in the capital of Tatarstan to capacity.
Valieva pleased Kazan and Vanya Dmitrienko
From the point of view of an outside observer, Valieva's performance at the third stage of the Russian Grand Prix in Kazan turned out to be almost identical to the start of the season, Moscow. Two weeks ago, she cleanly performed a short program without a triple Axel and fell in a free program from a quadruple toe loop, having coped with all the other elements. Now Camila has duplicated all the same, with one exception — she did not spin a triple lutz in a free skate. Actually, it was this underrotation that caused the difference between the Moscow and Kazan estimates by a little less than three points. But this did not stop Valieva from winning the second stage of the Russian Grand Prix in a row and reaching the Series Final.
br>At the third stage of the Grand Prix, Valieva competed in her own league. If in Moscow Sofia Akatieva tried to challenge her with several elements of ultra-si, then here neither Veronika Yametova nor Ksenia Sinitsyna, who took second and third places, respectively, had no practical opportunity to compete with the Olympic champion.
br>But, nevertheless, the Kazan public turned out to be understanding enough to meet both medalists with very warm emotions. Yametova demonstrated that she had already mastered the energetic, sporty style of skating in sufficient style and said that she was in the process of learning super-difficult jumps. And Sinitsyna, who owned them earlier, but then experienced a lot of dramatic events in a couple of years, captivated the audience even without ultra-si. It was enough for the figure skater's incredible ability to hear music and mastery of a full variety of techniques for its transmission.
A handshake instead of a kiss
Unlike the Grand Prix stages in Moscow and Sochi, the Kazan tournament of dancers contained a very definite intrigue. On the ice in a face-to-face fight, former duet partners Elizaveta Shanaeva and David Narizhny, who now compete with Pavel Drozd and Annabelle Morozova, respectively, met. An additional nerve was given by the fact that the breakup of the couple turned out to be, to put it mildly, painful. Saturday Shanaeva after the rhythmic dance, in which she and her new partner lost a little more than two points to her former partner. — Tomorrow we will try to win back.»
But it didn't work out. Shanaeva and Drozd were good in the free dance, but Morozova and Narizhny were even better — so Annabelle and David won the case. After the end of the competition, the rivals were already more restrained in their assessments of the principles of the duel.
«I didn't come here to compete,» said Narizhny. «We're still too young a couple. the opinion of the coach is important, that you are going in the right direction. First of all, I came here to do better than it was. Grades are secondary.
«Lisa and I are just starting our journey. Of course, the place on the podium is important, there are only three of them, and the first is only one. This is not the only start. We will fight and show progress from start to start. We are on the right track, we have a long way» , Drozd concluded.
However, it is impossible to cancel integrity with words, and this was demonstrated by the episode during the awards ceremony. A certain ritual has been adopted among the dancers — during the congratulations on the pedestal, the partners warmly greet the partners of the duets competing with them. Most often — a kiss. Here, between Shanaeva and Narizhny there was only an extremely cool handshake, and during it the skater defiantly turned away.
The favorite of the third stage of the Russian Grand Prix in men's single skating was the winner of the starting stage — European champion 2020 Dmitry Aliev. But the confidence of numerous fans of the skater from St. Petersburg in his final victory could not but be shaken after the short program, in which he, having performed a clean quadruple salchow, spoiled two other jump elements. Before the final day of the tournament, Aliyev was second, more than ten points behind his countryman Andrey Mozalev.
But, as in the Moscow stage of the Russian Grand Prix, Aliyev was on a roll in the free program. Although, as the skater later said, he was on the verge of withdrawing from the tournament — in the morning the foot injury worsened. «Either withdraw, or fight to the end,» — this is how Aliyev formulated his choice, choosing the second option. And in the end it all ended with a new kiss — as in Moscow, Dmitry thanked the ice for the rental, kissing it with his lips. of Aliyev's clean quads, Mozalev, who was the last to perform, managed to answer with two — but several mistakes did not allow the leader to stay on top. The participant of the Olympic Games in Beijing lost in the amount of more than eight points. The third was Ivan Popov, and the fourth place was taken by the vice-champion of Europe 2020 Artur Danielyan, who for the first time after a long break performed a four-turn salchow with a relatively acceptable departure.
There was no new sensation
At the stage of the Russian Grand Prix in Kazan, only three sports couples competed, except for the Belarusians Ekaterina Yurova/Dmitry Bushlanov, who entered out of the competition (by the way, figure skaters from the allied country also participated in the same status in singles competitions) . And the silver medalists of the 2022 Olympics in pair skating Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov could be called concrete favorites.
However, the starting stage of the series, where double European champions and multiple prize-winners of the world championships sensationally lost only to Natalya Khabibullin and Ilya Knyazhuk, who were just starting their adult careers, and demonstrated that nothing is reinforced concrete on slippery ice. Moreover, in the short program, Evgenia made a gross mistake on the parallel jump. And in the end Tarasova/Morozov, Yasmina Kadyrova/Valery Kolesov and Yulia Artemyeva/Aleksey Bryukhanov settled down in the range of less than two and a half points.
br>However, in the free program, Evgenia and Vladimir confirmed their class, with net skating, gaining an amount exceeding the world record (it will not be counted, since it was shown at the internal start). The other two couples kept their positions — and the gap also turned out to be more in line with the difference in class.
The fourth stage of the Russian Grand Prix in figure skating will take place on November 12-13 in Moscow.
br>