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The winners of the Russian championship in ice dancing Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin officially moved to the Georgian national team. Sports tells about the Olympic prospects of a couple in a new country.
The ban of Russian sports opened the way to the world of big figure skating for the teams of the post-Soviet space. The naturalization machine, lubricated by the sanctions of the International Skating Union (ISU), should have been operating at full capacity a year ago. Then the mass source of Russians somehow managed to be contained, but a number of countries still had plans for great achievements.
The basis of the Georgian national team and earlier was almost entirely made up of ex-Russians. Now, with the official move of Davis and Smolkin, their Olympic hopes are starting to take shape.If the Russian suspension continues until 2026, and there is a possibility, Georgia will bring the following line-up to Milan: Nika Egadze, Anastasia Gubanova, a new couple that we should know about soon, and Davis/Smolkin. Such a team, with memories of the past Olympic commander, does not cause much enthusiasm. However, in the event that the ISU and the IOC cut off oxygen to us for the next few years, at least one team will disappear from the list of applicants for Olympic awards.
And then we bend our fingers: a protracted crisis in Canada, an abyss in dancing (and, possibly, in the future in pairs) in Japan, a drop in the overall command level of Italy. And then strong Georgian figure skaters with no experience and even titles stand on the other side of the scale. Under such circumstances, a team Olympic medal — say, bronze — would be a very realistic option.
Probably, this is what Diana and Gleb had in mind when they made a choice between Georgia and Israel. Even if you can't get to the awards in the individual dance tournament (although getting into the top 5 looks quite achievable), then the team medal and podiums at the European and perhaps even the world championships completely compensate for this.
Or is it still not? After all, with all its pluses, the Georgian team still remains, roughly speaking, on the periphery — at least in the dance world. It has its own laws, and the outcome of the competition is often determined not by the quality of the rentals, but by undercover agreements between certain blocks of countries among themselves. In ice dancing, if you look closely, all the top places are most often occupied by representatives of the strongest federations, and no one is able to move them.
Therefore, if in single skating you can quickly gain judicial loyalty, and the purity of your performance really decides a lot, then in the Davis/Smolkin discipline, the presence of a judge from your country in the panel is extremely important. The two-time world champion Maxim Stavisky, who spoke after changing sports citizenship to Bulgarian together with Albena Denkova, knows firsthand about this. In an interview with sports.ru, he described this as follows: «Having behind such strong judges as Russians, you need to try very hard to fall low in the final protocol. When we first beat the Russian couple, it was a great honor.»
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So, Georgia does not yet have its own dance judge. Perhaps, for this reason, too, Kazakova/Revia, with the transition to the adult level, could not even partially retain the authority gained during the junior period — while Davis/Smolkin, being a Russian couple, made an impressive breakthrough. For example, at the first adult European Championship, Diana and Gleb received record scores for debutants in both programs, beating future Olympic champions Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Sizeron in this indicator. Do Davis/Smolkin have Papadakis talent? The question, as they say, with an asterisk.
The closest example of metamorphoses with grades after changing citizenship is Gubanova. The figure skater, gifted with a second rating, had to spend more than one season to earn not only good ones — just normal points for the components. And this is in single skating, where, I repeat, it's easier.
Something similar can await Diana and Gleb. On the other hand, was their high marks only due to their belonging to the Russian team? It is unlikely that there will be those who want to deny that Diana's mother, Eteri Tutberidze, is a person whose influence is almost limitless, and if such an opportunity presents itself, she will surely take advantage of it. Therefore, perhaps, it is Davis/Smolkin who now has the highest chances of another kind of record — to become the first couple that gets good marks even in Russia, even in Georgia, at least somewhere else.
So, I must say, they did everything right. And in general, in life they are very pleasant and polite people with whom it is really comfortable to communicate, so let everything be fine with them. And there is nothing to blame them for.
But there are big questions for those who have been convincing the public for a whole year that white is black, and everyone who thinks otherwise is idiots, there are big questions.<