Aliyev’s underrated hire, Danielyan’s bronze and Samarin’s failure: how Russian skaters started at the European Championships in Graz

In the short program for men at the European Championships, all participants from Russia spoke one after another. Only if Dmitry Aliyev and Alexander Samarin were assigned a place in the strongest group closing the competition, then Arthur Danielyan was the first Russian to show himself in Graz.

Danielyan’s recent performance of the short program was not connected with pleasant memories. At the championship of Russia, he failed hire, falling from the fourth salchow and on the track steps. Nevertheless, an arbitrary composition allowed the 16-year-old skater to become the country's vice champion - from the 13th place Danielyan climbed to second. At the European Championships it would be impossible to repeat such a trick, so it was necessary to perform well right away.

In general, the newcomer to the Russian team managed. His performance under "Don Giovanni" was very impressive. The pupil of Elena Buyanova cleanly performed the quadruple salchow and the cascade of lutz - sheepskin coat, but did not quite cope with the triple axel - already at the exit Danielyan rocked, and yet he put his foot in order not to fall. Otherwise, the skater did not have any blots, and the perky path pleased the spectators. The first Russian participant scored 84.63 points high for himself and took the second intermediate place after the ageless Michal Brzezina from the Czech Republic, who earned 89.77 points.

European vice-champion Alexander Samarin in a new suit opened the final group of participants. A year ago, he overtook Javier Fernandez himself in the short program, but now he moved from the category of elite skaters to the category of extremely unstable. Even at the always reliable fourth lutz, this time there was an error, due to which it was not possible to execute the cascade. Samarin’s second quadruple jump was a sheepskin coat instead of the usual flip, but the skater completely fell on it, and he had to forget about the cascade. With a triple axel alone, it was impossible to hope for a good mark - Samarin scored only 74.77 points and was only in ninth place, without even getting into the penultimate warm-up.

Dmitry Aliyev’s performance was an order of magnitude better. The new champion of Russia, who came to Austria to play in the form of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, showed a beautiful quadruple lutz in a cascade and supplemented it with an equally strong quadruple sheepskin coat. The triple axel spoiled the impression a bit, after which Aliyev touched the ice with his hand, but in general it should have been a victory in the short program.

Only the judges turned out to have a completely different opinion - they considered both Lutz and Axel to be under-twisted, which is why the Russian technical mark fell by seven points. He also didn’t appreciate the components better than Brezina’s, so Aliyev located after the Czech with a score of 88.45 points.

Latvian Denis Vasiliev diluted the company of skaters performing quad jumps. Although his coach Stefan Lambiel at the age of 34 still shows the four-piece sheepskin coat on the show, his student eschews such complex elements, relying on clean skating. And Vasiliev’s bet could have played if not for the triple axel blot. Because of it, the representative of Latvia received 80.44 points, most of which fell on components.

To move Brezin from the first place was the Frenchman Kevin Aymoz - he was the opening of this season, having won bronze in the Grand Prix finals. However, on the ice of Graz there was a great failure with him. Aymoz fell on two jumps, and made a “butterfly” on the lutz. For all three jumps, he got fewer points than for a couple of his steps. The skater could not hold back his tears when he found out what such serious mistakes led to - he did not even get into an arbitrary program. France will not receive two quotas in men's single skating next year.

Maurice Kvitelashvili, the only student of Eteri Tutberidze in this type of competition, had a very high chance to dilute the three winners - his personal record and technical base allowed him to qualify. But on the final fourth sheepskin coat the Georgian skater fell, which was even somewhat expected, given how he fought on all previous jumps. In the dispute for the small bronze medal, Kvitelashvili lost only 1.63 points to Danielyan.

Last year’s bronze medalist Matteo Rizzo could still influence the results of the short program, but this season the Italian is not at all as stable as before. Although he avoided falling to the song from the film “La La Land”, he made a number of blots, because of which the judges did not let him not only into the top three, but also into the group of the strongest in the free program. Rizzo was the seventh with a score of 79.07 points.

Michal Brzezina, who won the bronze in 2013, was the first in the short program, having achieved this success at 29 years old. Dmitry Aliyev will try to win back 1.32 lag points, which is quite capable with stable skating and judicial objectivity. Arthur Danielyan will most likely have to fight to preserve the bronze, which is also claimed by several other participants, including Alexander Samarin, although he needs to win back almost ten points from his teammate.