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The second day of the test skates of the Russian national team has already brought together almost a full “Megasport”. And those who dedicated Sunday to figure skating definitely did not regret it – they saw Olympic champion Kamila Valieva in another new image for herself and a lot of other mega-interesting things.
Dancing after Rammstein was not canceled
The second day of test skates started against the backdrop of a situation that began to develop the night before. Russian vice-champion Pyotr Gumennik, unexpectedly for many, performed last season’s short program, although he had been preparing a new one all summer and even demonstrated it in the suburbs of St. Petersburg at performances by athletes from the Moskvina school – to the music of the Rammstein group. In the mixed zone, the skater evasively answered the question why he refused the composition of the German group, but said that the decision was not his.
The details were revealed on social networks by Gumennik’s coach Veronika Daineko. According to her words, published in the “Own FC” group on VKontakte, Moskvina showed an email, the meaning of which was that “Rammstein is unpatriotic, bad and the like with a request to restore order in those sports that use musical accompaniment.” The coach reported that the letter was sent to the Russian Ministry of Sports and to the addresses of federations of all winter sports.
In this regard, we had to wait for the second day of test skates with caution. In the same ice dancing, the discipline that opened the performances, compositions by modern Western musicians are often used. If you delve into their biographies, it is very likely that you will find something different from what the Rammstein group was seen doing. But in the end, the dancers were not canceled – they skated to the music they were going to. The only thing that was somewhat annoying was that there were too many monotonous compositions. But this is a matter of taste.
Philosophy from Stepanova and Bukin
I would like to highlight two dances most of all – which is noteworthy, current and former students of Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk. Today's and yesterday's juniors are Sofia Leontyeva and Daniil Gorelkin. They definitely did not follow the path of viscous, sophisticated music with impersonal images, well-trodden by many, but performed a dance filled with the most interesting findings to music from the sequel to the film “Snow White and the Huntsman.” And with poetry in the background – which is also rare. Leontyeva and Gorelkin had the final starting number, and it was thanks to them, according to the law formulated by Stirlitz, that a positive aftertaste remained from the free dances.
The second dance of the day, which will be talked about a lot, was performed by Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin. As you know, during the missed season they moved from Pork and Zhuk to the group of Alexander Zhulin. Their program to the soundtrack from the play “Passengers” by the Canadian circus theater “All Seven Fingers” is a very philosophical story of reflection on human relationships. The seriousness of the idea of the dance impressed the multiple European champions. Of course, as the season progresses, the program will be honed and imbued with even more meaning than at the first show – which makes us look forward to their next appearances on the ice.
Tuktamysheva gave hope
Before the start of the second day of the test skates, there were various rumors about the withdrawal of participants in the women's singles. In the end, only one thing turned out to be true: Sofya Akatieva did not take to the ice. The Russian champion suffered a stress fracture in her foot in the summer, due to which she has not yet had time to get into shape. She performed the short program on Saturday – with simplified content, and is not ready to handle the free program yet.
Ksenia Sinitsyna could also withdraw from the free program – as it became known later, she injured her leg during training. “I could barely walk, I had to freeze it for a very long time, glue it, re-glue it, but it was all useless,” admitted the figure skater, whose pain was noticeable even during the warm-up before going on the ice. And a few hours after the performance, Sinitsyna was limping, walking along the sidelines of Megasport, but the performance of the Spanish-themed program itself demonstrated that when the skater recovers, she will again charm the audience with her rare combination of difficult jumps and magnificent gliding.
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva also came out on the second day of the screenings, although there were certain doubts about her. It’s just that the skater doesn’t have a new free program, and the question hung in the air – will she perform the old one? The answer was positive. But Tuktamysheva saved her main technical trump card – the triple axel. So far there have only been doubles.
Actually, after Saturday, when the ex-world champion, in a conversation with reporters, expressed doubts that she would compete in the competitions of the season, it occurred to her that she no longer needed the trixel. However, the next day, in the same mixed zone, Tuktamysheva gave hope to all her fans, announcing that she was scheduled to participate in the Russian Grand Prix stages in Krasnoyarsk and Moscow. I really want to hope that these plans will still come true – it will be boring without Lisa…
And now – Panther
And in the same way, I can only hope with all my heart for a fair decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport regarding Kamila Valieva. Let’s leave the fate of the gold medals at the Olympic team tournament out of the picture for now and talk only about the new programs this season that Kamila performed at the skates. And they are real hits that shouldn’t be on a conventional shelf. True, it is difficult to say that in the free program Valieva transformed into a completely new image for herself, as happened in the short program. At the show tournament at the end of last season she was a shaman, and some movements from there could be seen in her “Black Panther”.
But one can only admire how Kamila managed to prepare to perform a four-minute program after a retinal tear, returning to the ice only ten days ago. Yes, in the end it was noticeable that the Olympic champion was finishing with moral strength, but before the one-and-a-half axel, which can be considered the only blemish in two days, there was a full set with all triple jumps. Will Valieva return to her quads and three and a half Axel, if, of course, CAS allows her to continue the season? If the answer to this question turns out to be positive, then probably no one will be surprised: this skater can do everything. On Sunday, as show host Maxim Trankov aptly noted, she was the champion of Wakanda, a fictional country whose princess Camila played that day.
But we still saw the girls’ quadruple jumps that day. The “pioneer” was Veronica Zhilina, who cleanly performed a sheepskin coat in four turns in a double cascade – and then tried such a jump again, but here she already failed. For Trankov, her program under Michael Jackson, known for various dubious things, reminded him… No, not the story with Rammstein and Gumennika, but performances under the “king of pop” coach Zhilina Evgeni Plushenko about 20 years ago. When it was not accepted to write complaints about topics for programs to higher authorities.
Adelia Petrosyan completed the test skates in women's single skating, and the audience again saw a quadruple jump – this time a flip. But, rather, this is not what struck me – the winner of the Russian Grand Prix Final had performed quadruples before. And how soulfully the 16-year-old figure skater skated to the music of the modern St. Petersburg composer Leonid Levashkevich “February”. And Adelia grows up, and along with her, her second grade “grows up.” And coupled with ultra-complex technical content, Petrosyan made a serious bid for leadership in the coming season.
