Leadership of Sinitsina and Katsalapov
The current vice world champions in ice dancing Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov have long been waiting for their participation in the Grand Prix series. Only in the fourth stage in China did they enter the struggle to reach the finals to be held in Turin. For the Russians it was worth being outstripped - in the only official tournament this season they did not score 200 points in two dances, unlike their main rivals from the USA and Canada.
However, in Chongqing, the judges turned out to be almost as generous to the Russian couple as they had recently at commercial starts in Shanghai. The Russian duet performed in rhythm dance to the music from the movie "Singing in the Rain", which also attracted other duets this season. Their musical accompaniment flowed smoothly from the melodic title track to a brisk loss, but in no way did such changes affect the integrity of the dance.
Sinitsina and Katsalapov were especially good at twizzling - at high speed, without any blots, worthy of the fourth level of difficulty. They became the basis of the pair’s new personal record - 85.39 points. The Russians pushed the Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donoghue from second place in the list of highest ratings for rhythm dance.
The second on the first day of the competition was the Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who just won the silver at the stage in France just a week ago. Their performance was almost a failure - for the finestep, the couple received only the first level of difficulty. But still they obeyed a little more than 80 points thanks to the components. Canadians Lawrence Fournier-Baudry and Nikolai Sørensen technically were much cleaner, but became third.
The second Russian pair in rhythm dance were the 2018 world junior champions Anastasia Skoptsova and Kirill Aleshin. For their debut in the Grand Prix, they performed very successfully, gaining 69.19 points. For adult skating, these are not the most impressive figures yet, and they only allowed to take sixth place. But in ice dancing, it has always been especially difficult for newcomers to gain credibility.
Huge problems continue to haunt Sofia Evdokimova and Yegor Bazin. The pair again performed worse compared to last year. Above the second level there were only twizzles from the partner and support. With a score of 64.07 points, skaters from Togliatti outperformed only very inexperienced duets from China and Japan.
Mistakes in Men
The men's short program was hardly able to please the aesthetics of figure skating, who are primarily waiting for clean performances of rentals. Almost all participants in the Chinese Grand Prix stage were mistaken and fell, competing in who will lose less on this point.
A pleasant exception for the local public was only Yan Han. The world champion among juniors back in 2012 temporarily left figure skating after the Olympics in Pyeongchang, but managed to return quite successfully. Although there were no four jumps at the box office of the Chinese skater, he purely performed those that he could and scored 86.46 points.
The second place was taken by another representative of the Middle Kingdom Jin Boyang. From him, fans were waiting for a vivid performance as in previous years, but he fell on the fourth lutz and hurried with a triple axel - the jump did not receive a bonus for performance in the second half. Jin's components were not up to par, and the judges gave him only 85.43 points.
The best skater not from China so far is Matteo Rizzo. The bronze medalist of the European Championship made a weighty application for leadership, starting the program with a four sheepskin coat and a triple axel. But the fall on Lutz, which did not allow the cascade, sent the Italian to third place with 81.72 points.
The only Russian Andrei Lazukin also supported the universal fashion for ripped rentals. He touched the ice with his hand after landing from the fourth lutz, on which the judges also did not like the repulsion rib. And then he completely tore off the cascade, left without a fourth jump. Lazukin was not allowed to compensate for the losses with components - with a score of seven points, he earned only 74.31 points and was in eighth place.
Almost world record of the Chinese
In pair skating, there were no equal to the Chinese skaters either. Another could not be expected when the world champions Sui Wenjing and Han Kun went on the ice. At their first tournament in the new season, they performed almost according to the world record of Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, although they did not beat him - they did not have 0.31 points.
At the same time, the Chinese couple did not use all their capabilities to 100%. The set of elements was not the most difficult, but in the rotation and on the todes, the judges set the third level. Sui Wenjing and Han Kun were able to exceed the score of 80 points due to the components - only one judge regretted the score above nine points.
New Canadian couple, made up of former Russian figure skater Lyubov Ilyushechkina and Charlie Bilodo, climbed to second place. After fifth place at the home stage, they have every chance of winning the Grand Prix medal. So far, they have 68.98 points in their assets, which could have been more if not for a mistake on a triple sheepskin coat. The third after a short program were the Chinese Peng Cheng and Jin Yang, who also failed to perform a clean parallel jump.
The same mistake, only on the Salkhov, overtook Alisa Efimova, speaking in tandem with Alexander Korovin. Her fall led to the fact that the only Russian duet became the sixth with a score of 63.97 points. For Oleg Vasiliev’s students, this is not the limit, but not a sentence - up to three prize-winners they lack four and a half points.