Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin from July 31 to 2 August will take part in competitions in the United States. A year and a half after the last performance for Russia at the 2022 Olympics, the couple will take to the ice for the first time, representing the Georgian national team. says that daughter Eteri Tutberidze and her partner chose the tournament to restart her career.
The competition will be held from July 31 to August 2 at the Lake Placid Olympic Center. The place is legendary — the home of the 1980 Winter Olympics. 43 years ago, Natalia Linichuk and Gennady Karponosov won Olympic gold within these walls. It was there that Irina Rodnina, paired with Alexei Zaitsev, became the three-time Olympic champion.
The history of the tournament is rich — approximately under this name and approximately in this form it has existed for almost 100 years. But at first, only local athletes were allowed to participate. It acquired the status of international competitions in 2015. From the same moment, Lake Placid Ice Dance International entered the official calendar of the International Skating Union.
A distinctive feature of the tournament is that it was invented only for dance duets. No other types — women's and men's single skating, pair skating — are represented at Lake Placid Ice Dance International.
The tournament is organized by the American Figure Skating Federation in the format of open competition. There are always more American and Canadian duos performing here than anywhere else, at least because they don't have to spend money on logistics. Athletes from Europe who train in America often perform.
Participation in the tournament this season costs $410 per duo — $10 more than a year ago. Those who do not have US citizenship need to enroll in a special program in order to apply. The organizers reserve the right to refuse and keep the number of participants small, such cases of history are unknown.
According to the regulations, everything is strict with music for performances: it must be uploaded in the proper format to a special site by July 21. It turns out that at the time of the release of this material, the organizers have already known for a week what kind of music Davis/Smolkin and other participants will skate to. But if the athletes are late with the upload before the deadline, they will be charged a fine of $25.
Athletes compete in two categories — adults and juniors. For example, in 2022, there were 10 duets for adults, 8 for juniors. In addition to the prevailing USA and Canada, there were athletes from Israel, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Poland.
There is no exact list of participants at the moment — as it shows practice, he will appear just before the start of the tournament. The fact that Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin will perform in Lake Placid was reported by the Georgian Figure Skating Federation.
By the way, Diana and Gleb performed in Lake Placid in 2019 in juniors, then becoming second. Since then, about everything has changed in their careers, from ambitions, coaches to sports citizenship. Now they are not little-known cute juniors, but Olympic participants, one of the most talked about couples in the world.
A year ago, the winners of the senior tournament received around 180 points from the judges. The personal record of Diana and Gleb is almost 19 points higher. So, regardless of the composition of the participants, Davis/Smolkin should not get lost in the standings. It will even be surprising if they take a place below the second.