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The first stage of the Russian Grand Prix in Ufa ended on Sunday. The results were not as clear as many expected. talks about the main conclusions after the tournament.
Time for new champions
The results in the short program in men's single skating were unexpected for most fans. The interim first place was taken by 23-year-old Roman Savosin, who made a triumphant return after a break in his career. This fact could not but affect the mood of the other participants, who were firmly entrenched in the national team. Perhaps this is why Makar Ignatov, Gleb Lutfullin and Andrey Mozalev could not cope with their nerves, made serious mistakes on the jumping elements and dropped out of the race for first place. The fight unfolded between Savosin and Russian champion Evgeny Semenenko.
Semenenko went to the tournament as a leader. Second place after the short program was more of a defeat than a good opportunity for him. For many, it remained a mystery whether the athlete would be able to cope with the responsibility and “change the score” in his favor. Four clean quads proved that Semenenko has no problem getting himself together and skating the program almost perfectly. The athlete was pleased with the performance, noting the successful attempt at a quadruple loop.
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«I am glad that I completed the first jump, a quadruple loop. With such a percentage of successful jumps in training, it was a sin not to include it in the program. I do 80 percent. Today Mishin praised me for the performance,» Semenenko told reporters.
You need to have nerves of steel to perform well after the audience clapping for your opponent in ecstasy for several minutes, and then you hear a total of 289.37 points for two programs. On the first quadruple sheepskin coat, it seemed that Savosin really didn’t care about what was happening around him. However, this was followed by a mistake on the exit from the quadruple Salchow and a fall on the second attempt. But for Roman, second place is definitely not a loss. This is the hope that even after a pause you can return and perform on the same level with the strongest athletes in the country. I would like to believe that this story still has a happy ending.
Petrosyan, even with mistakes, has no equal
The results of the girls at the stage in Ufa were quite predictable. Adelia Petrosyan’s main struggle was with herself. If in the short program she challenged the triple axel, then in the free program the main competitors were the quadruple flip and quadruple toe loop.
The skater has already performed a flip this season at open skates, but made mistakes on both attempts. This is clearly not the result that is expected in the coaching staff of Eteri Tutberidze, where only maximalists work.
Petrosyan began attacking the quads almost from the very beginning of the warm-up. She rushed like a whirlwind from one edge of the side to the other and showed one clean attempt after another, getting the audience more and more excited.
However, Petrosyan began her performance with a fall, and mistakes followed. At some point, she herself shook her head disapprovingly, as if telling herself that it was time to get her act together. And it worked: triples did not cause any problems for the skater, and fourth-level spins and complex choreographic combinations allowed her to take first place with a huge margin of 24 points. Despite the victory, the skater rated her performance unsatisfactorily.
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«Apparently, I was burnt out, tired — I competed last. I'll work on it. I expected to do more, so I'm upset. Such a victory for me I’m not happy with it. I won’t celebrate,” Petrosyan said.
With different emotions, two other participants of the tournament entered the mixed zone. Not everyone starts clapping from the very beginning of the program, but the magic of Anna Frolova captivated the entire hall. As in the short program, the skater created a special atmosphere in the arena, enchanting the audience with every movement. The stands took several minutes to recover from her speech.
Young Elizaveta Kulikova also found her own fans, who shouted words of support from different parts of the arena before the start of the program. The audience was impressed that the 15-year-old figure skater is not afraid to take on “adult” music and looks quite organic in these programs. All that remains is to add elements of ultra-si, and she will have the opportunity to fight for a place on the podium at other major tournaments. However, Kulikova said that she is in the process of restoring the quadruple lutz, so viewers will see the complication of the content very soon.
Resurrection of ice dancing
The off-season made us especially worried about ice dancing. Even the experts did not understand how good the national team would look after the summer break. However, the first stage of the Grand Prix showed that everything is not so bad in dancing.
After changing the coaching staff, Russian champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Egor Bazin, indeed, became more self-confident. The skaters themselves note this.
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“We moved to Alexander Zhulin to try new things and try to open up in new ways. The atmosphere in the team and approach help us feel new emotions, see a clear path, what to do next. We feel more confident than last season,” the duo told reporters.
Confidence allowed them to skate their programs so that no one could challenge their right to first place.
But Irina Khavronina and David Narizhny are not going to give up their positions either. In the short program, the duo made a serious mistake in the lift. The figure skater took the blot very emotionally and could not hold back her tears. However, during the evening she seemed to rethink what had happened. During the warm-up before the free program, they exuded such confidence that no one had any doubts: the couple would show their maximum. And so it happened.
Sofia Leontyeva and Daniil Gorelkin, who have just graduated from juniors, demonstrate from their first performances the potential of future leaders in dance. And the stands in Ufa have already shown that they have a large support group that will believe in their duet.