The expectations of the men's free program at the European Championships among the Russians, most likely, were ambiguous. On the one hand, Dmitry Aliyev and Arthur Danielyan were in the top three in the first day, and their skaters in the protocol were not the same skaters who could be considered invincible.
On the other hand, there was concern about Alexander Samarin. The vice-champion of Europe took only 13th place and did not even get into the penultimate warm-up. However, recently the same Danielyan managed to rise to second place from the 13th place at the Russian Championship, and he had to win back even more than Samarin had to score. With perfect skating and unleashing his full potential, he could also turn the tide of the competition.
But the miracle did not happen. The first hopping element did not go as planned - the quadruple lutz was left without a cascade. The next four-piece sheepskin coat turned out with a dubious touchdown. Samarin came to his senses a bit, having performed a rare cascade of lutz - oiler - flip, but in the second half of the program everything again became too sad. The blot on one triple axel was followed by a fall on the other, and the final Rittberger turned into a “butterfly”.
Samarin scored just 220.43 points and did not even capture intermediate leadership, although he had the highest position after a short program in his group. There was no doubt that Aliyev and Danielyan would be higher than Samarin.
And this meant one thing: he could not qualify for the World Cup through a tournament in Graz, since only two athletes could represent the national team there instead of three. The Russian Figure Skating Federation will have to solve the difficult question of who will now get the quota - either Danielyan, who still has the junior world championships in priority, or Samarin who disappoints in the third consecutive tournament, or conduct an additional selection for the national team for, for example, the Cup final Of Russia.
Before the performance of the penultimate group of participants, Samarin’s situation improved slightly - four skaters scored even less points, so the recent leader of the Russian national team managed to rise to the top ten. The reference point for the strongest workout was Italian Daniel Grassl, who showed the best rental life with quadruple lutz, flip and rittberger and earned a total of 244.88 points.
The German Paul Fenz and the Latvian Denis Vasiliev did not manage to remove the young figure skater from Italy - their technical base was weaker, and the programs were worse. And the Georgian Moris Kvitelashvili managed to get closer to the first medal in his country for men's single skating. Even with one fall on the fourth sheepskin coat, he beat Grassle by incomplete two points - the students of Eteri Tutberidze were not so close to the podium of the European Championship since Sergey Voronov in 2015.
Following on the ice, Arthur Danielyan came out to speak under “Traviata”. The 16-year-old skater immediately laid out his trump cards and performed two quadruple salchow with one triple. But then he made the fans nervous - after the blot on the triple axel, a completely insulting drop on the triple lutz followed. Danielyan skated the rest of the program cleanly and until the end could not understand what his result would be in the end. The judges still noted his breakthrough this season - he beat Kvitelashvili only three hundredths of a point!
Dmitry Aliyev went even further - his rental under Sound of Silence was impeccable. Finally, one of the most gifted, but unstable skaters of the country managed to realize all his plans on ice. The confidence with which he performed the quadruple lutz and two sheepskin coats in four turns left no doubt - the student of Yevgeny Rukavitsyn aimed at gold. Aliyev set two personal records and scored a total of 272.89 points.
It remained to say his word to Michal Brzezine. For a 29-year-old Czech to win a medal in his 13th continental championship was the ultimate dream. But at the beginning of the rental under The Beatles, it became clear that he would not be able to return to the podium after seven years. None of the three attempts by Brzeziny to fulfill the quadruple salchow were successful, and two of them completely turned into falls. The hall supported the experienced athlete with all his might, who was not at all discouraged by such a disastrous start, but at the end he still could not help but be upset that he had dropped to seventh from the first place.
Dmitry Aliyev became the new European champion after the seven-year reign of Javier Fernandez and brought Russia the first gold in men's single skating after Evgeni Plushenko. Arthur Danielyan won silver and became the youngest medalist in the 21st century, while Maurice Kvitelashvili, who represented Russia in the past, received a bronze medal under the flag of Georgia.