On Friday at the World Figure Skating Championships, the girls competed for medals without performing a single one ultra-si element. But a bright beam in the kaleidoscope of yesterday's pictures nevertheless flashed.
Recall that this week we are distributing virtual medals of the World Championship — that is, we are analyzing what the results would have been if our skaters had not been deprived of the right to participate in this tournament for the second year in a row. On the eve of Russian sports couples, according to our version, they took the entire pedestal — the real contenders for the world championship medals performed so grayly that the performances in the March Final of the Russian Grand Prix in St. Petersburg — and we take this tournament as the basis for drawing parallels — would be enough for Alexandra Boikova/Dmitry Kozlovsky, Anastasia Mishina/Alexander Gallyamov and Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov in order to take the World Cup awards to Russia.
Friday morning in Saitama began with the performance of a rhythmic program in ice dancing, and it is in this discipline that I somehow don’t want to compare Russians with the rest of the world. Too strange processes in Russian dances took place this season. The two top pairs Annabel Morozova/David Narizhny and Irina Khavronina/Dario Chirizano fell apart after the stages of the Russian Grand Prix, and the national champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva/Egor Bazin all season, by all accounts, received extremely inadequate marks for their faultless skating. And in the Final of the Russian Grand Prix, they did not perform with the strange wording «initially they did not plan to participate.» Apparently, an extra million rubles for the victory was not needed.Therefore, we will confine ourselves to general words — without Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov, who left either for a while, or for good, and Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin, who missed the season for a reason officially formulated as “for health reasons of the partner”, we had to do at the World Championships nothing. Unless it was possible to send there the most promising Vasilisa Kaganovskaya and Valery Angelopol, the winners of the Russian Grand Prix Final, to gain experience. But, most likely, in the first adult season they would hardly have managed to take a place in the top ten.
And this World Cup, it seems, will be dominated by the Americans Madison Chalk and Evan Bates. And hardly anyone will say that this is unfair. They defended their turn, characteristic of dancing, they took an offensive fourth place at the Beijing Olympics, after it they did not go anywhere and showed a desire to continue the fight. So there is nothing more to stop the judges from rewarding them with high scores. On Friday's rhythm dance, they scored just 0.79 points short of Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Sizeron's world record, while improving their own career best by more than four points. And unless something sensational happens, neither the Italians Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri, nor the Canadians Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier, who are now in second and third places, will not catch up with Chalk and Bates.
The organizers of the World Cup devoted Friday evening to beautiful girls, although, of course, it would be even more beautiful for Japanese fans if Kamila Valieva, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Sofya Muravyova — namely, they were selected for the world championship following the results of the Russian Championship — would have reached Saitama . Of course, pluses can be found in everything — for example, Valieva these days reached Yakutsk, where she delighted the local public by going on the ice in two of her stunning images at once — Wednesday and a shaman. But it would be much cooler if Camila «shamanized» today on Japanese ice, especially since the situation was appropriate — steam clouds mysteriously swirled above it due to too high a temperature.
But there was almost nothing mysterious in the rentals of the participants in the World Cup — everything is very predictable. Japan's Kaori Sakamoto won her second gold in a row, failing to make a single 3-3 combo. In the free program, she lost to the Korean Lee Hae-In, whose cascade of two triple jumps came out with underrotation. The Korean figure skater was left with silver, and the bronze went to the Belgian Luna Hendrix, who performed the combination «triple lutz — triple sheepskin coat» great, but she screwed up with a solo triple lutz.
Alas, Anastasia Gubanova was not at her best that evening. Either the backlog after a non-ideal short program pressed on her, or her strength ended after a long season, but after a decent first half of the free skate, the Russian “Georgian” simply turned off — there was further a fall, and a flip jump instead of an axel, and a loss of points on the step track and rotation. As a result, the European champion became only the 14th, losing immediately to five figure skaters from the Old World. Clearly not the result that student Yevgeny Rukavitsyn expected in Japan.
Well, in general, it turns out that the Russians, if they participate in the World Cup, today would stand on a podium, ahead of the “team of the rest of the world” by a wide margin. If we take, as we agreed, the performance of early March in the Russian Grand Prix Final as a sample, then gold would go to Valieva (241.76), silver to Tuktamysheva (241.61), and bronze to Muravyova (233.04). And the Russian pedestal would be completely unconditional. Sakamoto with a final score of 224.61 and the rest of the company would have been lower even if the Russians were judged strictly.Although in the Final of the Russian Grand Prix the arbitration was absolutely adequate. There are just objective indicators. Valieva performed two quadruple sheepskin coats in St. Petersburg — in the second half of the season, this jump was stable for the Olympic champion. Tuktamysheva — two triple axels, this is also her «crown». Muravyova made one Axel in three and a half turns, but on the other hand she performed two “3-3” combinations cleanly. Well, for comparison — for the entire World Championship, its real participants did not make a single ultra-c element. To be honest, Irina Slutskaya would have beaten them 20 years ago.
However, we still saw the skating of a new generation level with one participant. It was given out, as you could see if you watched the broadcast, by 16-year-old American Isabeau Levito. Which, as you know, is quite a product of the Russian school of figure skating — it is trained by a whole staff of our former compatriots, which includes two-time Olympic champion Evgeny Platov. And Levito's performance demonstrated Russian in the best sense — light, graceful gliding and incredible musicality.
Of course, Levito's bright performance did not become a sensation. This girl was appreciated at last year's World Junior Championships, where she won gold. Her first adult season became silver on the international stage — she took away medals of this dignity from two stages of the Grand Prix and the Final of the series, and gold at home when Levito won the US Championship. Isabeau could have risen to the podium at the debut world championship, if not for the offensive fall on the lutz in the free program and the blot on the cascade in the short.
But the fourth place in the world championships to start an adult career — in any case, a cool result. And for some reason, I am sure that the Japanese fans, pleased with the victory of their compatriot, still left the Saitama Super Arena, singing in their minds the immortal melody from the movie «My Sweet and Gentle Beast», which was so soulfully interpreted on the ice by a knowledgeable and Russian language, and Russian culture, a young American. For which she was awarded a standing ovation.