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in Omsk, at the Grand Prix stage, the first competitive start of European champion Alena Kostornaya took place, paired with Georgy Kunitsa. They did not win and did not even get into the prizes — they took fourth place based on the sum of the two programs. However, they definitely became the brightest flash of the tournament. This happened not thanks to the performance, but because of Kostornaya’s rage, with the help of which a small power plant could be launched.
The first stage of the disaster happened in the short program. The judges assessed the good performance of Kostornaya and Kunitsa quite modestly — four couples were immediately higher than them in the standings. The gap is small, only 5.5 points from the leaders — world champions Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov (they, however, were left without an element, not jumping the parallel triple Salchow). To the ambitious Alena, who, apparently, treated preparations for the Grand Prix as a fight for her life, these five points and the intermediate fifth place seemed like a resounding slap in the face. She accepted the points with visible disappointment, although immediately after the test she was in a great mood.
There are questions about the assessments. For example, for a cleanly executed lift, for some reason two judges gave the pair a “-3”, which means that one mark counted and affected the final result. The rest of the judges rated the same support from “0” to “3”. A well-executed twist (it does not yet reach the highest level of difficulty, which is rightly reflected in the protocols, but it was good in quality) was downvoted by three judges.
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And of course, the rating for the components is amazing. Some judge found the strength to slap the couple with “sixes” — for a nice production, cool costumes, involved skating and skating skills. This figure was not taken into account because, due to its absurdity, it was the only one. But the team as a whole rated Kostornaya and Kunitsa lower than expected.
Kostornaya has not received a “six” for skating skill since she was probably ten years old. She is definitely the best skater right now in Russia, if not in the world. Let's say Georgy does not have the same soft knee and silent powerful step, but does he really skate mediocrely, like an amateur hockey player on the outdoor skating rink near GUM? Absolutely not. This crazy spread of scores looks like it makes us doubt the adequacy of the judging.
Perhaps the lack of preparation at the moment had an effect, or the shock in the short program had an effect. In the free program, Alena and Gosha made several serious mistakes, so they could no longer blame the results.
After the rental, Kostornaya was practically furious and had difficulty coping with her emotions. She expressed complaints to her partner, to herself, and rhetorically addressed herself somewhere in the air — in reality, of course, she appealed to the people at the computers at the long side. And this was not a reaction to fresh mistakes, but the smoldering coals of yesterday’s fire in a short time.
And then Kostornaya came out to the journalists. She called what was happening a swamp in which her favorite sport was drowning:
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“I am unhappy with the way our short program was judged. I'm simply outraged. In the free program we were enough for the morning training, but not for the evening skate. But in the short program… The way we tried and trained, the way it was assessed… I was shocked and confused by the scores. There is such a huge difference between the scores of one and the second judge — even according to the rules, this could not have happened,” Kostornaya said.
You can already imagine what kind of reaction her sincerity will cause among figure skating experts, who will be called by correspondents from all publications for comments. It is unlikely that there will be anyone who will support Alena and confirm that they were judged strangely. Everyone will say something like: “Two singles”, “A week for a couple without a year” and “You have to stand in line from the very end”. And they won’t say, but they will think: “After such a stand-up, the judges will pin you to the bottom of the table.” This is the whole essence of the swamp that Kostornaya is talking about. Voices, hopes and all living things in general are drowned in it.
This means that fans and journalists should support Alena and Gosha. We're all really fed up with judging based on concepts. We think and talk about this within our community at every competition, when another athlete training in the wrong way falls under the hammer of fake justice.
Yes, you need to be prepared that refereeing without concepts works the same way for everyone, sometimes you may not like its results. Especially if they concern pets. But law will always be better than lawlessness. It just needs to be observed.
So let at least someone not be afraid to speak out loud. Now this can only be done by a girl who started a big career with the program “Angel2. A girl kissed by God, who was idolized by all the same people who will now try to put her in her place. Like Tatyana Tarasova, for example.
“< br>«Alena would be better off keeping quiet. She still needs to practice a lot to get good grades. She and Georgiy just became a couple. Of course, during the time they trained together, Alena learned a lot. But this does not mean that she should open her mouth and tell her how much she should bet for this skating. They are not a couple yet,” Tarasova told the correspondent.