The Show Programs Tournament has become the most visible and coolest part of the figure skaters' calendar. Unique format, no restrictions on the participants and the meaning of the numbers. The prize fund is also solid — 12 million rubles. We are waiting for everyone,” said Alexander Kogan, general director of the FFKKR, at a meeting with journalists in August. About the duet of Zagitova and Medvedeva — so that everyone is stunned by surprise. Trusov paired with Kondratyuk (love always wins). Aerial acrobatics from Valieva: who else can show such fantastic?We wanted to see full-fledged competitions with fair individual wrestling, where the priority is still the show component — the ideal formula for spectator interest, and hence sponsorship for future seasons. It would be great if such a tournament became an annual festive end of the season.
But the organizers did not even remember about the new promising tournament for the whole season. We were busy with current tasks — the internal Grand Prix series, the jumping tournament, the Channel One Cup. There, too, there were enough shortcomings and problems with the regulations — all the forces were thrown into it. Or maybe the federation still kept in mind that Russian athletes could be admitted to the World Championship, which will be held a week after the show programs tournament. Then, of course, he would be a priority for the leaders of the national team.As a result, a couple of weeks before the premiere, which is scheduled for March 18, some kind of visible movement began, otherwise one could already think that there would be no tournament at all. He received the name «Russian challenge». 24 participants will present performances lasting from two to three minutes each. There are no mandatory technical elements, and there are no restrictions on costumes and props. Any special special effects are welcome, but must be agreed with the organizers.
The jury consists of people who are not directly related to figure skating, professionals from various fields of art, media representatives and athletes. This is probably done to avoid accusations of bias. The jury will have a fairly simple rating scale from 0 to 10 in increments of 0.25. For example, 0.25 is incredibly bad, while 10 is an outstanding performance. The assessment includes nine components of composition and presentation. As in the ISU system, the highest and lowest scores are discarded, and the rest are taken into the calculation of the arithmetic mean.
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The winner receives five million rubles;
- silver medalist — 3 million;
- bronze medalist — one million;
- There are also special prizes from the jury (500 thousand in each event) and the audience award (1 million rubles).
All interested world and Olympic champions are allowed to participate out of turn: Kamila Valieva, Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Solovyov, Tatyana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, Alina Zagitova, Mark Kondratyuk, Evgenia Medvedeva, Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov, Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, Tatiana Totmyanina and Maxim Marinin, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexei Yagudin.For the remaining 12 places, everyone applied. All they had to do was fill out an application to convince the organizers that they deserved a spot on the shortlist of 24 lucky winners. Getting into the shortlist is already a privilege, this is guaranteed prize money in the amount of 250 thousand rubles. True, the money can be spent, among other things, on staging the program, buying props and tailoring costumes.
In total, more than 100 applications were sent, from which the following skaters were selected: Sofya Akatieva, Matvey Vetlugin, Petr Gumennik, Makar Ignatov, Vasilisa Kaganovskaya and Valery Angelopol, Mikhail Kolyada, Andrey Mozalev, Anna Pogorilaya, Elena Radionova, Evgeny Semenenko, Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Yegor Bazin.
Figure skating is generally a scandalous sport. Not surprising, given the high degree of subjectivity in scoring and the extremely active fan base of the most popular athletes. Try to underestimate the conditional Alina Zagitova in at least one more or less significant competition, even if it is a throat singing festival, which she has been doing for three days. Then for three weeks you will rake up the consequences of the invasion of bots and a personal from the curses of your entire family up to the seventh generation.
This is why figure skating competitions need maximum transparency. To make it clear what are the requirements for the participants, who will sit on the jury, what rights they will be given, what will be decisive in determining the winner.
In this regard, I would like to praise the organizers for the idea to put characters not from figure skating on the jury. This increases the chance for the division of votes into different baskets, which means greater objectivity. True, there is a chance that the spectators, who do not agree with the outcome of the tournament, will accuse the non-figurative jury of unprofessionalism. But this is at least something new on the agenda, otherwise the «bias» has already worn out quite a bit.
So far, we are waiting for the show programs tournament with great interest and still believe that it will be the most spectacular season event. Although, after the story with Pogorila and the understanding that everything is done again at the last moment, and the regulations are again being rewritten on the go, there is a great fear of the audience. What if such a great idea turns into something that some athletes have demonstrated in exhibitions in recent seasons? That is, a white t-shirt, sweatpants, and a mock-up of a free program to whatever music the random mode produced, instead of a witty, sentimental, or epic production that was passionately conceived and practiced with gusto. In this light, even the transformation of the «Russian Challenge» into the younger brother of the «Ice Age» is not so scary. Let the theater be better, where props and acting are more important than figure skating than complete indifference and a crisis of ideas.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.