Victory hanyu despite injury
Saturday day at the Grand Prix stage in Moscow began with two unpleasant events. Russian fans worried about Evgeny Tarasov, who broke her chin after a collision with Alexander Korovin during a warm-up. And the Japanese fans, Yuzuru Hania, were worried about the trauma of their idol. During the training, the two-time Olympic champion fell a lot and eventually twisted his leg, getting an ankle sprain. A year ago, a similar injury deprived him of competitive practice for several months.
This time, Hania decided to continue speaking. According to him, he really wanted to show his free program, inspired by Russian history and traditions. despite the pain, the Japanese went out on the ice and played the quadruple salchows and sheepskin coats cleanly, but Hania was not enough for the other jumps. He fell on a triple axel, unsuccessfully performed a cascade, did not clearly execute a flip.
Two-time world champion scored only 167.89 points and was very surprised that the judges appreciated his hire so highly. However, Hania still became the best in the free program and naturally won the Grand Prix stage, because on the first day he broke the world record in the short program.
After the competition, Hania came to the press conference, leaning on a crutch. The Japanese skater said that his leg was very worried, but the injury was not as serious as a year ago. Nevertheless, he did not rule out that he would no longer be able to perform in the Grand Prix finals and at the Japanese Championship.
For the second and third places on the podium unfolded a serious struggle. Even Mikhail Kolyada, who was ranked eighth in the first day, joined it. He began his performances with pure quadruple Salchow and sheepskin coat in a cascade, but he ended up with the following: of the next eight jumps, only two were in three turns. Butterflies, breakdowns and under-robots followed the Russians throughout the entire performance, and although his program was technically more difficult than that of injured Hania and all the other skaters, he could not play much. Kolyada scored a total of 225.42 points, which allowed him to take fourth place, as in the Helsinki stage of the Grand Prix. Kolyada failed to get into the final tournament.
The second place was taken by Georgian Maurice Kvitelashvili. The student Eteri Tutberidze became the first representative of his country to win a medal at the Grand Prix stage. The figure skater who spoke earlier for Russia made many mistakes, but was reliable in cascades with a quadruple salchow and a flip salchow. In the technical assessment, Kvitelashvili even walked around Hania, but he lost to the components. Nevertheless, the Georgian figure skater did not give his silver medal to anyone. The third position was taken by Kazuki Tomono, who also committed a lot of mistakes in an arbitrary program.
In the final protocol, the men had two more Russian figure skaters. Andrei Lazukin showed the fifth result in the free program thanks to a quadruple sheepskin coat and a triple axel and eventually became the seventh. Artur Dmitriev fell from ninth place to 11th. The son of a two-time Olympic champion made two falls, one of which occurred after a risky attempt to perform a quad Axel - no one has ever performed this jump.
Dance excellence Stepanova and Bukin
The main favorites of the Russian stage in ice dancing, Alexander Stepanova and Ivan Bukin, on the eve of were greatly mistaken in the tango section of their rhythm dance. This misstep did not greatly affect the position of the duet, but in an amicable way he angered and tuned me to the flawless performance of a free dance.
Under the melodic and at the same time energetic composition Am I The One, the Russians showed almost all the elements of the highest, fourth level. The judges strictly treated the classification of one of the steps of the steps, but still gave her an incredibly high premium of three points. It was obvious that the world record of Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue would fall. And so it went. Stepanova and Bukin scored 124.94 points for a free dance and came close to a 200-point mark in the total score. The Russians were selected to the Grand Prix finals, having won a second victory in the current season.
The fight for silver and bronze of the tournament unfolded at the level of hundredths of a point. As a result, the scales swung in favor of the Spanish duet, which includes Sarah Hurtado and former Russian figure skater Kirill Khalyavin. Participants in the last Olympics in Phyonchkhane won 0.21 points from the Americans Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko - the son of the Olympic champion Sergey Ponomarenko.
Russian duet Sofya Evdokimova - Oleg Sudakov rose to fourth place. The skaters from Tolyatti played two positions with their free dance and went around more experienced couples from Poland and Lithuania. On the last, ninth line are Annabel Morozova and Andrei Bagin.