Andrei SimonenkoSport correspondentAll materialsThe Russian national team, after the performance of Mark Kondratyuk in the free program, strengthened the leadership in the team figure skaters' tournament, obtained earlier by the magnificent Kamila Valieva. The champion of Russia and Europe lost to the Japanese Yuma Kagiyama, but did the main thing — he got ahead of the American Vincent Zhou, and now the Russian team can only confirm their superiority on the last day of the tournament. The US national team was chosen not by the three-time world champion Nathan Chen, but by the much less eminent and, frankly speaking, not so skillful Vincent Zhou, I thought: the Americans are darkening something. Not otherwise, deliberately misleading. Well, they couldn’t, having spent the first day of the team competition so brilliantly unexpectedly, take and bet on the continuation of a figure skater obviously weaker than the one who could bring them the maximum points. However, it turned out that the American headquarters had no hidden intentions. Zhou did replace Chen in the free skate. The desire of the Olympic favorite in men's single skating to save energy, not to repeat the catastrophes four years ago and to win his personal gold turned out to be stronger than the desire to help his team. If, of course, it still persisted after the US team was let down by Nathan's namesake, Karen Chen, who ended up in fifth place in the women's short program. .jpg» />
American figure skater Karen ChenBut all this would not matter if Mark Kondratyuk had not done his job. It was him, as expected, that the headquarters of the Russian team put up for random rental. Of course, the situation was absolutely not the one in which they are looking for good from good. Kondratyuk coped with his nerves in the short program, and this should have helped him relieve the load of tension on the second day of the competition. Still, nerves are such a thing, in the fight against which even the most experienced masters of their craft sometimes fail. Therefore, it was scary for Kondratyuk. Even coupled with the realization of the fact that Mark could not fall below fifth place after the elimination of the weakest teams. And after the Canadian Roman Sadovsky fell apart in the free program — and below the fourth. But Kondratyuk's struggle with himself ended after the first element, the quadruple sheepskin coat, which he had to «save» after an uneven departure. What followed was pure bliss. All elements are from the teeth, but the main thing is the energy, impressive in strength, capable of bringing the crowd to ecstasy. What a pity that there are not crowds here, but several hundred local spectators by special invitations and in strictly chess seating. How this Chinese classicism contrasted with Kondratyuk's arthouse…
Mark Kondratyuk Russian men's single skating has long been waiting for a figure skater with such crazy charisma, extraordinary artistic abilities and at the same time stable. «Daisies» — so jokingly in recent years in the press centers, cynical journalists have been calling all the crowds of Russian male singles. Nothing like this, you can’t tear off the petals of this 18-year-old guy, he is monumental, like the Crimean bridge. The Japanese Yuma Kagiyama, who spoke next, reminded of Yuzuru Hanyu. The two-time Olympic champion missed the team tournament; But the leader of the younger generation of Japanese figure skating has the same main quality as the great veteran. You take the jumps, the most difficult, the most dizzying, for granted, jumping as if breathing. Kagiyama Kondratyuk outperformed with a large margin, which, however, is unprincipled in the team tournament — the team does not lose more than one point from this. It remained to be seen whether Zhou, who was finishing the performances of single skaters with arbitrary skates, would withstand the tension of the moment. The trembling legs of the American figure skater at the very first trips showed — no, he could not stand it. There were both undercooked and «butterfly» … Vincent got together only for the second half of the program, but the main thing was already lost — the opportunity to eliminate the backlog of the US team from the Russians. Zhou lost to Kondratyuk, and as a result, the advantage of the Russian team even increased. Before the last day of the team tournament, it is three points.
