While this fall, Russian figure skating enthusiasts admire the unprecedented success of singles, no less important reason for pride can pass by them. Over the past two years, pair skating in the country has embarked on the same path that women once did. Every season young people appear, bringing something new to their discipline, and now there are so many sports couples that you have to announce a competition for a place in the national team.
The fact that in the near future several strong world-class couples will appear in Russia can already be said. Confirmations of this appeared back in the 2018/19 season, when two duets who finished performing in juniors were able to immediately declare themselves. Daria Pavlyuchenko and Denis Khodykin immediately won two bronze medals at the Grand Prix stages and qualified for the final, while Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky won the bronze medal of the European Championship.
This season, the Grand Prix series has just reached the equator, and young Russian couples have already achieved much more significant successes. Pavlyuchenko and Khodykin twice won silver medals, Boykova and Kozlovsky won the stage in Canada, and the current world champions among juniors Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov chalked up their gold. At the same time, the best results of all three pairs are in the top 4 both at all tournaments and at the stages of the Grand Prix.
In addition, do not forget that in Russia there are other strong couples who now need to be wary of young rivals. Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov still remain the nominal leaders of the team, but in the summer they changed the coach and the place of training. So far, the couple has been rebuilding, and this continues to overlap with its usual fall recession. So far, the students of Marina Zueva managed to mark only bronze at the Grand Prix stage in Canada and will have to try to get into the finals.
Alice Efimova and Alexander Korovin have not yet spoken their words. Champions of the Krasnoyarsk Universiade will perform at the stages of the Grand Prix in China and Japan and will try to climb the podium, which they have already managed in past seasons. Five Russian couples headed by Apollinaria Panfilova and Dmitry Rylov, another future superstar, were selected to the final of the Junior Grand Prix.
Finally, at the Moscow Rostelecom Cup tournament, Ksenia Stolbova’s debut with new partner Andrei Novosyolov is expected. While they are the biggest mystery in domestic pair skating, but you can give a lot of examples when an experienced partner and a lesser-known partner achieved unprecedented success on ice.
- Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov
- RIA News
- © Alexey Danichev
The situation in Russian pair skating resembles the state of affairs in the female figure. Young athletes coming off the assembly line are pushing out older ones, and so they have to change something in themselves in order to slow down this process. There is only one difference - in pairs, development is still slower than in girls, and no one gets world records with champion titles immediately after reaching the adult level, unlike Evgenia Medvedeva, Alina Zagitova and Alexandra Trusova. But such impressive debuts, as now the new generation of Russian couples, did not exist before.
What else makes the current state of pair skating related to women is the skaters' exit to a new technical level. Boykova and Kozlovsky are leaders in the world according to the average first assessment in both the short program and the free program. They own complex emissions, high-quality cascades, progress in supports.
The couple rides with adults for the second year, and thanks to this, a certain authority has gained. The bronze medal of the European Championship, won partly due to the refusal of Natalia Zabiyako and Alexander Enbert to go to Minsk, as well as thanks to the mistakes of rivals, now works for students of Tamara Moskvina.
Mishina and Gallyamova can also be attributed to couples who have complete order with the equipment. Their chip is perfect parallel jumps, single and in cascade. In the short program, they consistently jump the triple salchow, and ideally you can expect from them a cascade of two jumps with an oiler - they still own the record for this bunch of points scored in juniors.
Pavlyuchenko and Khodykin also try to keep up in the hopping section and try to perform a triple flip - currently the most difficult jump for couples. In their arsenal there are also twists of the fourth level. In general, the duo has no weaknesses, and it only needs to get into the right rhythm in order to fulfill all its achievements.
Of course, for the time being it is impossible to hang gold medals for all Russian couples, as was the case with singles from the first days of their adult careers. Although they stand out as separate elements, pair skating is primarily valued for support. For their perfect performance, you can earn from nine to ten points (for jumps, outliers and twists - from six to eight and a half), and you can complete them four times in two rentals. Panfilova and Rylov perform them best of all in Russia, but they have not yet competed with adults. This season, the trend for support is set by North American couples, and largely because of this it is they who are the closest rivals of the Russians.
Without elite support, Russian duets will not be able to compete with last year’s world and European champions, who have not yet performed before the public this season. We are talking about the Chinese Sui Wenjing - Han Kun and the French Vanessa James - Morgan Sipre. They are still the main reference point for all couples, but Russian skaters are getting closer and closer to them.
And although the leap that domestic duets are taking is not as sharp as that made by singles, they still have time before the Olympic Games in Beijing. And whether those who are already losing young growth will be able to stay in the saddle, another question.