The second tournament of show programs in figure skating «Russian «challenge» ended in the same way as the first one — Alexey Yagudin won. The ball this evening was ruled, as a year ago, by the dramatic genre, and in it the 2002 Olympic champion is unsurpassed.
The “Russian Challenge” started out turbulently. The night before, Stanislava Konstantinova, a figure skater whose name was well-known six years ago, spoke on social networks about how she was removed from the list of participants after one of the first rehearsals. According to the athlete, the organizers did not like either the performance (she later revealed that it was a program to music from The Bremen Town Musicians) or its form.
A little later it became known that Sofia Leontyeva and Daniil Gorelkin would not compete in the tournament. To be fair, they were listed as reserves, but in a situation where all the skaters who were in the reserves were allowed to participate, the absence of yesterday’s juniors who shone brightly this season still left questions.
In the end, no answers were received. None of the organizers — namely the Russian Figure Skating Federation and Channel One — wanted to comment on the situation for the press. Perhaps they should have made a short statement, at least with the words “the level of rooms was not satisfactory.” But the silence is also understandable: the social networks of the same Channel One received an angry wave of thousands of messages from fans, whom any word could only provoke. Well, there can be no complaints anyway: according to the regulations, the organizers can make changes to the composition of the participants at their discretion.
However, when the tournament began, everything was in the past. From the very first number it became clear that the participants tried very hard so that their performances did not look like amateur performances. The theme of the current “Russian Challenge” was everything related to Russia — and, without exception, each program carried an idea, and some amazed with incredible depth.
So, Ksenia Sinitsyna was the first to make the packed hall shed tears. The figure skater chose an extremely difficult theme of besieged Leningrad for the program. Probably every resident of this city, without exception, knows the lines from Tanya Savicheva’s diary. Skating on ice under them is truly a challenge, and Ksenia passed it.
Viewers saw another program on the theme of the Great Patriotic War performed by Evgeny Semenenko. The two-time Russian champion chose “Cranes” by Rasul Gamzatov, performed by Mark Bernes, as the musical accompaniment. And this was also the case when the skating corresponded to the content of the words sounded under the arches of the arena — although it’s oh so difficult to interpret them on the ice…
Few people remembered that evening that the Russian soul can not only suffer, but also joke and have fun. Among them were those who chose works from the Soviet period for the programs. Roman Savosin took aim at Bulgakov’s Sharikov, Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva/Egor Bazin chose images from “The Diamond Arm”, Elizaveta Shanaeva/Pavel Drozd — from “Office Romance”, and Anastasia Mishina/Alexander Gallyamov — from “12 Chairs”. At a minimum, everyone was happy to hear their favorite music.
But, in modern terms, the second “Russian Challenge”, as well as the first, included dramatic programs. I was struck by the dedication to the untimely deceased Olympic champion Sergei Grinkov and the silver medalist of the Russian Championship this season, Sofia Muravyova. The dedication to Daniil Samsonov’s mother turned out to be heartfelt — the skater presented her with a bouquet of flowers right during the performance. Mikhail Kolyada took to the ice with his wife Daria and performed a program to a chilling song from the rock opera “Juno and Avos” — “I will never forget you.”
The fact that the name of the tournament contained the word “show” made the audience remember several times when they did not agree with the expressed opinion of one of the jury. Thus, People's Artist of Russia Sergei Bezrukov just started talking about the discrepancy between the image in Dmitry Aliyev's program and the character of Vladimir Vysotsky's song «My Gypsy», when the public subjected him to furious obstruction. At some point, the actor was even forced into silence. But in general, disputes here are quite normal: and they can be considered part of the show.
However, both the audience and the jury agreed in determining the two best performances of the evening. If the third place in the tournament was shared by Sinitsyna and world champions of different years Maria Petrova/Alexey Tikhonov and Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin, then the second place unconditionally became Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. The figure skater chose a rather uncharacteristic image for herself — she performed a number full of tragedy to “Requiem” by Marina Tsvetaeva, read by Alisa Freundlich. And probably everyone in the hall believed her.
And the winner, like last year, was Alexey Yagudin. The 2002 Olympic champion concluded the performances of the participants and decided on an extremely unconventional move — he rode and at the same time read “Moments” by Robert Rozhdestvensky. Of course, one can argue about whether the intonation of Yagudin’s reading corresponded to the spirit of the great work. But in any case it was incredibly strong.
The jury members took turns announcing their options for the top three — and after choreographer Yegor Druzhinin, ballet dancer Kimin Kim and actress Victoria Isakova put Yagudin in first place, the winner of the tournament became 90% clear. True, opera singer Aida Garifullina, choreographer Boris Eifman and Bezrukov revived the intrigue by calling Tuktamysheva’s performance the strongest — but Yagudin also scored points against the latter two and eventually took first place. For winning the tournament, the Salt Lake City Olympic champion will receive 5 million rubles, Tuktamysheva — 3 million, and 1 million for third place.
The final chord of the evening was the appearance on the ice of Roman Kostomarov, who performed a number out of competition together with his wife Oksana Domnina. The host of the event, Maxim Trankov, remembered how a year ago everyone wished the seriously ill Olympic champion good health. Since then, Kostomarov has made absolutely incredible progress. And, probably, no one will be surprised if an outstanding athlete fights for victory in the third “Russian Challenge”.