Less than a week has passed after the open trials of the Russian national figure skating team, but for some of their participants the competition season has already begun. Two-time Olympic silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva traveled from Moscow to the other end of the world - to Canadian Oakville, located near Toronto. There she took part in the Autumn Classic International Challenger Series tournament.
The competition brought together a number of famous participants. French Mae-Berenice Meite, Swiss Alexia Paganini, American Karen Chen, Korean Lim Eun-soo, showed up in women's single skating, but Rika Kihira was supposed to be the main rival of Medvedeva at her first tournament in the 2019/20 season. The winner of all last year's international tournaments, except for the home world championship, in which she lost 0.31 points to Medvedeva in the bronze dispute, also chose Canada for her debut this season.
What Medvedev is capable of, figure skating enthusiasts learned at the test drive, where she presented two new programs to the music of Exogenesis by Muse and to the soundtrack of Memoirs of a Geisha. The 19-year-old skater could not skate cleanly, falling on the sheepskin coat, ruining both axles in an arbitrary one and once again not showing a clear edge on the lutz. Due to these mistakes, the Russian woman was not able to fully reveal her images, although the quality of the choreography was noticeable in any case.
However, with the arrival in Canada, Medvedev returned to her usual rut. In the short program, where she performed in a tight-fitting jumpsuit, there were no serious technical errors. One fuzzy edge on the final lutz and a reduced level per rotation - for the beginning of the season this is a perfectly acceptable level of error. Medvedev received 75.14 points from the judges for the short program. This is her best mark in official competitions since the Olympics in Pyeongchang.
However, after the first day of the competition, Medvedeva failed to seize the leadership. Kihira during training and final rolling showed all her power, performing a triple axel eight times in a row and repeating a flip-toe loop cascade ten times. In a short program, the Japanese continued this successful series. Even with a blot on the rittberger, Kihira surpassed Medvedev by three points.
The dispute between the two skaters continued in the free program, in which the Russian woman truly transformed. In a new dress, strewn with sakura flowers, she completely laid out on the ice, and the performance of all the jumps gave her confidence. Let it be felt that Medvedev was tense before jumping, she at least managed to avoid falls. However, the judges recorded a number of errors - again, fuzzy ribs on the Lutz and two undercuts, due to which the first three jumping elements received almost no allowances. The judges praised the components, but taking into account the technique, the rating for the rental was 142.29 points. In total, it turned out 217.43 points - at the bronze world championship for the Russian woman, the judges rated Medvedev higher.
Kihira responded with her free program on religions around the world. This time she failed to purely perform both triple axels - the judges considered the solo jump to be under-twisted, as did the lutz in the last cascade. But such blots, as well as a loss in the components, did not prevent the Japanese from getting around Medvedev due to the technical base and gaining 224.16 points. For Kihira, this is the third career result.
The Russian skater, who did not win her first international victory in two years, said after the rental that she could perform better, and was quite happy with her current situation.
“My main goal in the competition was to show confident performances, because it was important for me at the start of the season. Last year was very crumpled, but now I feel fit. I feel that I can be even better and happy with my ratings, as they correspond to my current skating. I know which components I can still grow in, so I will continue to work. Tomorrow I will have training, the day after tomorrow is finally a day off, and next week I will continue to work as usual and prepare for the next competition, ”Medvedeva told the Olympic Channel.
If the two-time world champion succeeds in further progressing, then the start of the season may well be successful for her. Let Medvedeva’s only technical weapon be the questioning Lutz, the skater keeps the chances of a successful performance in the Grand Prix and getting into the Russian national team by her name and performances. Her next tournament will be the Shanghai Trophy, which will be held from October 3 to 5. There, the main rival of the Russian woman will be the silver medalist of the 2019 World Cup, Elizaveta Tursynbaeva.