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subjective type of figure skating. Sports are wondering whether they are deliberately trying to lower the guys Elena Maslennikova and Ilya Averbukh to the bottom.
As the Moon replaces the Sun, so in our figure skating the cautious bewilderment of dance duets is replaced by scores for the short program of the Russian Championship their own delight after the scores for the free program.
Yesterday seems to have marked a trend towards restraint — the judges, who are usually extremely loyal to our athletes at domestic competitions, suddenly decided to take what is called a downgrade. Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin, then two-time national champions, and now three-time champions, entered the mixed zone and carefully, delicately asked the question — why do we have 86 points, although this season we already had 87? And at our last Russian championship there were 88? And this is with an objective improvement in physical fitness and proficiency in programs.
This neat question, formally left without an addressee, was obviously addressed to the judges. Like, explain, tell us what was wrong, and we’ll go work “300 times better” — a diplomatic way to indicate skepticism. Last year's national champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva/Egor Bazin tried to be even more careful — the latter said that the judges were good, but Elizaveta seemed to want to get away from the topic altogether (the famous «It seems like you want to say something, but then you think — what for is it necessary?» ), but indifference to her was not read in the figure skater’s words.
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Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Sofia Kachushkina and Mark Volkov perform free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championship in Chelyabinsk.
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Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Yegor Bazin perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.< br>
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Elizaveta Shanaeva and Pavel Drozd perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Varvara Zhdanova and Timur Babaev-Smirnov perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk .
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Sofia Shevchenko and Andrey Yezhlov perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Sofia Kachushkina and Mark Volkov performing a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Yegor Bazin performing a free dance at Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Elizaveta Shanaeva and Pavel Drozd perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Varvara Zhdanova and Timur Babaev -Smirnov perform a free dance at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Sofia Shevchenko and Andrey Yezhlov perform a free dance dancing at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Chelyabinsk.
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Although, perhaps we just imagined it. At least at the final press conference, Stepanova/Bukin, then already three-time champions, said that in fact they did not discuss the judges at all. As well as Khudaiberdieva/Bazin — at that moment the owners of a full set of medals at the national championship (they took the missing silver). Both their scores did not increase very much — in the free dance, Alexandra and Ivan had 134 points a couple of years ago (now — 130), and Elizaveta and Egor once jumped over 123, not yet being national champions. But at the same time, any, even subtle, touch of misunderstanding seemed to have evaporated on Friday. Why is not completely clear.
True, not for everyone. Yesterday we wrote about the outstanding situation with a minus sign with the new dance duet Sofia Shevchenko/Andrey Yezhlov — the guys skated the rhythm dance without fatal errors and ended up only in 11th place out of 15 possible. It would seem, so what? And the fact that Shevchenko — for a second, champion of the Grand Prix Final among juniors — a couple of years ago did not hesitate to talk about the behind-the-scenes games in judging our ice dancing.
And all this resulted… In 11th place. Yes, in the rhythm dance, in the free dance, in the sum of all dances at once — they somehow incredibly ended up in 11th place everywhere, although both days they skated very well. And here we can only have two options — either it’s just the magic of numbers, or the “scandalous” couple from above is persistently pointed out that they are not welcome, no matter what they do.
And if the second option turns out to be true, then this is simply outrageous.