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The second stage of the Russian Grand Prix in figure skating ended in Omsk with the revelations of Alena Kostornaya, the defeat of the Olympic champion Mark Kondratyuk and the brilliant victory of Adelia Petrosyan.
Charisma like Plushenko
First, I would like to resolve the confusion with attendance. It seemed to many that it was not up to par — well, more precisely, not 100% of the capacity of the beautiful arena where the local KHL club Avangard plays. This, they say, is a problem. In the NHL, the Omsk arena will not yield to anyone. Beautiful inside and out, modern, comfortable and roomy.
For hockey and basketball (they most often take place on the same grounds) there are so many seats, maybe back to back. However, despite the paradoxically high popularity of figure skating, the occupancy of our arenas does not even approach 70% everywhere. And this is normal, because it is one thing to follow the results and some scandals in the media, and another thing to understand the numerous subtleties, without which a trip to the competition will lose all meaning.
So, in these conditions, Omsk coped with the stage very well. Omsk residents kept the bar of 5-7 thousand spectators in the stands all weekend, and sometimes exceeded it. Perhaps the only (albeit quite serious) remark is that on the first day there was confusion with the start time of the opening, which is why Olympic champions Anna Shcherbakova, Victoria Sinitsina, Nikita Katsalapova and world champion Elizaveta Tuktamysheva were brought to the arena, and the spectators seemed to be forgotten. Otherwise, the stage in Omsk turned out to be, in the language of the skaters themselves, both interesting and “working”.
Among the men, Olympic champion Mark Kondratyuk was the clear favorite, but a complete breakdown in the jumps in the short program distanced him from gold. Mark wasn’t clean in the free program either, although overall he made up for his bad start. In Kiss and Cry, while waiting for his grades, he told the camera that he was ashamed. In the mixed zone I tried to decipher what exactly it was for.
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“I can’t explain this feeling,” he said. “A lot of people came, many supported and cheered for me, I heard it. It’s a little awkward that I didn’t show the maximum for them. I didn’t analyze it (failure) globally. During the day between «With short and free programs, it's easier not to think about this, so as not to put yourself in a bad state. I was pretty well prepared, so what happened yesterday surprised me. It happens that you are not ready and expect something like this. But now — not.»
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“I just really love performing, that’s my motivation. Cool competitions, cool arena. Nothing has changed, except that only our athletes compete here. If the circumstances are like this now, I can’t influence them. What can I do? Nothing.” .
But who definitely doesn’t have to look for motivation out of thin air is Matvey Vetlugin. He has been among the promising ones for a long time, approaching the top. The lack of stable quadruples previously did not allow us to even qualify for the top three starts, not to mention victory. True, he always had one most valuable quality, but now it sparkled so much that it was better not to stand next to him. Matvey is a great artist and a truly charismatic person, able to show others without words that the ice belongs to him. There are only a few of these not only here, but also in the world.
In the victorious scenery, sparks, of course, become even more valuable. In this regard, Omsk became happy for Matvey. The audience watched him in fascination, the applause and squeals of the fans after the announcement of the result were deafening. It’s as if on the ice it’s not a 20-year-old guy without a single victory at the senior level, but some Yuzuru Hanyu or at least Shoma Uno.
A colleague who watched Matvey both days said that in Vetlugin he sees a young man Evgeniy Plushenko – still “green”, but at the same time flexible, artistic, without injuries and magnetically attractive to the audience. There is logic in this comparison. And not only because of the blonde hair.
Matvey spoke about the victory in Omsk in a unique style:
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“When I was giving an interview to television cameras, I thought that I was second, and asked Lesha Erokhov (second place — ed.): “What are you? “He replied: “I’m the second, I congratulated you on your victory.” I had to rewrite it. Probably, I looked at the wrong last name in the table. It happens that you skip a line.”
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Tutberidze and Egadze, and not Petrosyan?
After such a denouement, the men's competition in the women's singles no longer looked so attractive. The stands, by the way, were in total solidarity with this — before the release of the strongest warm-up there were no noticeably more spectators in the arena, and this already says something. And so what if even the best Russian coach of our time, Eteri Tutberidze, prefers not to watch the most promising student Adelia Petrosyan, but follows the Georgian Nika Egadze at the Grand Prix stage in the USA — a great guy, but still not the top singles skater in the world right now . After this, talk about the indestructible superiority of our competitions over the rest of the sinful world becomes somewhat untenable, albeit partly true.
Petrosyan did not break under the burden of leadership, although in the short program she was as close as possible to this. In the free program she showed a clean quadruple flip. Even a fall from a quad toe loop did not prevent her from successfully recovering and taking first place. Eteri Georgievna Adelia will certainly be proud. Well, when he watches the performance, of course.
The main rival was Alina Gorbacheva, who after the first day was ahead of her more eminent colleague by as much as 4.5 points. But in the free program, Alina failed at the quadruple Salchow (only three revolutions) at the beginning of the program; she was unable to overcome the mistake in the remaining time. The result is that on the second day, Sofia Fedchenko’s student lost not only to Petrosyan, but also to Maria Agayeva, who is not so well known to the general public, who, unlike her counterpart, showed an almost flawless free skate. The total gap between Gorbacheva, who took second place, and Petrosyan was more than 30 points (236.31 versus 205.71).
Pair skating, the final event on the Omsk ice, also continued the downward trend in interest.
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«My favorite sport is drowning in a swamp»
Olympic champions Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov were unattainable even before the start of the competition. They remained so even after the disappointing failure of the triple Salchow in the short program. In the free program everything was clean, pleasing to the eye and verified with “Moscow” precision.
I would like to say much more about Alena Kostornaya’s debut in pairs skating with her partner on the ice and in life, Georgy Kunitsa. In the short program they performed far from flawlessly, but Alena’s magnetism and Georgiy’s experience in pairs still allowed them to show their class. For the first time on competitive ice, 68 points can be considered a great success without any “buts”. However, Alena herself, judging by her words on social networks, did not like something about the debut.
After a fiery performance in the mixed zone, following the results of the free program, we can definitely say that it was just about the grades. Alena was used to something different — she never scored less than 75 points in singles skating. Well, a very long time ago, but here… And even though Kunitsa’s scores were the highest in her short career as a couple, Kostornaya noticeably wants more – points, pure elements, and the admiration of the public.
That’s why, probably, there were extinct faces after the evaluations, and Alena’s analytical comments for Georgiy right on the ice immediately after the skate, in which the only censorship can be quoted is “This is what.” Therefore, Kostornaya traditionally gave journalists food for thought for the coming week.
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“I don’t appreciate the performance at all. I’m dissatisfied with everything,” said Kostornaya. “I’m dissatisfied with the way our short program was assessed. I’m simply outraged. In the free program we were enough for the morning practice, 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 assessments. There was such a huge difference between the assessments of one and the second judge — even according to the rules, this could not have happened.»
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“This is an objective understanding of how my favorite sport is drowning in a swamp,” the figure skater added, answering the question of what her tirade means. “The world is cruel, unfortunately, everyone thinks to themselves. This is correct, this is what needs to be done, but there is sports principle, which this contradicts.»
And this despite the fact that in total Gosha and Alena received more than 192 points. If the guys correct their mistakes, they will be able to claim the national top 3 in the future. In the very near future — perhaps even before the end of the current season. But after such bold words…
I would like the first experience not to extinguish the passion for the new discipline in Kostornaya, but, on the contrary, only heated it up even more. Even with the unsurpassed pairs of Mishina and Gallyamov in Omsk, the most interesting thing to watch was Alena and Georgy.
And there is a desire for this to last as long as possible. After all, after the departure of Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, there are no more such bright people in our figure skating.
The author’s opinion may not coincide with the position of the editors