The first success of Sinitsina and Katsalapov
Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov won the Chinese Grand Prix stage, although they had to work very hard to keep first place after the rhythm dance. The Russian duet also performed beautifully in free dance, but the judges still had questions for the production. Firstly, they were not satisfied with the step path - they received a third level of difficulty for it. Secondly, the judges recorded too long support, and this is followed by a more severe punishment in the form of a lost point.
However, the rest of Sinitsin and Katsalapov were perfect - almost all the elements received fourth levels, and the components remained as high as the day before. Only the points were not so cosmic. For an arbitrary dance, students of Alexander Zhulin received 124.51 points, and the total scored 209.90 points. For those who want to be the best after Gabriela Papadakis and Guillaume Sizeron, this is not enough.
The Americans nearly pulled ahead of Madison Chock and Evan Bates. Judges had practically no complaints against them, and for the original support and visits the jury noted the duet with very high premiums. 128.21 points for an arbitrary dance - this is the third result in history according to current rules. The basis of this assessment was the technique, but also in the components of the US skaters left the Russians behind.
Fortunately, Sinitsina and Katsalapov had enough reserves after the rhythm dance to get ahead by 1.45 points. It is interesting that they won their first victory at the Grand Prix in their careers, and they did not succeed even with their previous partners, although the Katsalapov duet with Elena Ilinyh was also one of the strongest in the world at one time.
Finally, something began to be obtained from Sofia Evdokimova and Yegor Bazin. To the win-win music from Schindler's List, the couple scored the best ratings of the season and rose from seventh to sixth. The duet from Togliatti still has a lot of problems, except for twizzles and supports, they did not receive fourth levels for the elements. But the best points of the season give some hope that they will get in shape for the championship of Russia.
The young duo Anastasia Skoptsova and Kirill Alyoshin did not succeed in performing - the judges reviewed the choreographic track and decided that when the partner fell on the ice, it was a fall, although this was the idea of the duet. For this, the Russians lost a lot of points and lost three hundredths to Evdokimova and Bazin in the final assessment.
The Renaissance of Jin Boyang
The Grand Prix stage in China brought the long-awaited victory to one of the main characters in men's skating before the Olympics in Pyeongchang - the local skater Jin Boyan. Although he is known as one of the best jumpers among men, for several years of performances he had only one high-profile victory in the championship of four continents. Since then, he has mainly fought injuries, not rivals.
After a short program, Jin Boyang lost to compatriot Yan Han, but had to step forward due to more complex content. He began the rental with pure quadruple lutz and a sheepskin coat with a cascade. This was followed by a completely unsuccessful attempt on another sheepskin coat, after which Jin Boyang no longer deviated from the course in first place, performing expensive cascades worth more than ten points. As a result, the Chinese skater earned 176.10 points - this is the fourth result in the world this season. In total, he scored 261.51 points, and no one could argue with this result.
Andrei Lazukin spoke with the same content, but again failed loudly. Although he had recorded only one fall, almost all the jumps were performed so unimportantly that the judges did not have time to “minus” his performance. As a result, a phenomenon rare for figure skating occurred - the rating for equipment did not increase compared to the base cost, but fell by almost ten points. Lazukin fell to the tenth place, and so far the question remains as to which of the Russian men will be worthy to go to the European Championship - after Alexander Samarin and Dmitry Aliyev, only 32-year-old Sergey Voronov remains a candidate for a ticket.
Championship program Sui and Chania
The pair skating tournament ended with the triumphant debut of Sui Wenjin and Han Kun this season. The Chinese couple left their favorite program for the fans, which brought them last year the gold of the World Cup and two world records, although the skaters themselves said that this growing music in dynamics does not suit them.
So far, the program of Sui and Chania is very simplified, and to the end they themselves could not cope with it - the partner doubled the parallel salchow, and they both had errors on rotation. But the scores for their performance, they scored amazing - 147.47 points for the program and 228.37 in total. They not only won the home stage of the Grand Prix, but also far ahead of all other couples in the world dispute, including the Russian ones.
As in men's skating, in the doubles, Chinese skaters took two first places. The silver went to the duo Peng Cheng and Jin Yang, who did not avoid problems in jumping and scored less than 200 points in total, but still ahead of Canadians Lyubov Ilyushechkina and Charlie Bilodo, who also had bad emissions.
The last place among eight pairs was taken by the Russians Alisa Efimova and Alexander Korovin. For a partner, it was perhaps the most unlucky day of her career. She fell on the ice three times, and only in two cases after the jumps - once she stumbled just out of the blue, although immediately after that the couple performed a wonderful salchow surge.