The Russian junior figure skating team began the season by showing new short programs for the first time in Novogorsk. Sport tells about excellent students and slobs, Olympic melancholy and unexpected experiments with music.
«What, again?» Plushenko did this 15 years ago!
The August pre-season skates are an interesting attraction where you can answer several important questions. Who is vying for the leading positions, how has the overall level changed compared to last year, and who is the most original in choosing music for their programs. And if we are usually excellent in the first two indicators, then there is room for improvement in the third.
When the first speaker, Mikhail Aleksakhin, started skating to “Aranjuez,” I wanted to go out to the windows of the skating rink in Novogorsk with a sign “Sho, again?” It’s not that I’m tired of hearing the same thing year after year for ten years, but just tell me why? Why, among thousands of options, was Evgeni Plushenko’s student given a program to the music to which the “chief” skated 15 years ago?
But it turned out that it was premature to protest — For the most part, this season the producers found an unexpected amount of original music for both boys and girls. We also remembered something from the classics, but not so hackneyed — for example, “Csardash” by Monti by Milana Ledebeva.
There were several French curtsies, perhaps this is some kind of hidden Olympic melancholy — Valeria Lukashova, Alena Prineva from Khrustalny and Elena Kostyleva from Plushenko's Angels performed to lyrical female vocals with a characteristic grazing.
A special treat for the ears and a contribution to culture are programs by Lidia Pleskacheva to a little-known tango composition by Edvard Grieg and Maria Gordeeva to the music “Compassion” by composer Ilya Beshevli. Margarita Bazylyuk has an original choice — the fast theme of Miserlou with an ethnic flavor suits her very well.
Perhaps the most surprising person was Agata Petrova from Alexei Mishin’s group. Looking like a cartoon Gadget, cutie Agatha brutally rolled out the ice under Black Betty. Anna Lyashenko performed last with her soundtrack to «Major Thunder».
What does Valieva have to do with it?
If we take the general level, the first impression is this: the girls are excellent students, the boys are slobs (with the exception of the child prodigy Arseniy Fedotov). The latter several times during the performance evoked associations, don't be surprised, with Kamila Valieva — thanks to the purity of lines, elasticity of movements and signature high extension of the free leg. Arseniy has grown a lot over the summer, and this helps him — he began to skate even more powerfully. Queen's choice for the short program is close to ideal.
The boys are slobs not even because the girls are better at triple axels — this is not an indicator at all during the performances. It's just that they give the impression of some kind of laxity, indifference. The girls are so focused, as if they have the World Championships in a week. The form of Margarita Bazylyuk, Lidiya Pleskacheva, Alisa Dvoeglazova, Elena Kostyleva and some other girls makes you wonder if they even had an off-season.
All of the above — no offense to the boys. They just mature later in figure skating than the girls. The main thing is that everyone waits for their World Championships.
And finally — there wasn't enough applause today, to be honest. The silence did not match the level of the spectacle. When journalists were once invited to the junior skating, we applauded every difficult jump, every beautiful spin and burnout on the step sequence. Not to mention the start and the final pose. And it seems that the representatives of the federation, television people and all the respected specialists who happened to be in Novogorsk due to their position could not be surprised by this — they were motionless and dispassionate, like the centuries-old oaks planted along the sides of the rink. On Thursday, free programs — please applaud the children, otherwise they will act like strangers. The children are gold!