Victory with a quadruple flip: Shcherbakova surpassed Usacheva and Tuktamysheva at the Russian Cup stage in Sochi

Anna Shcherbakova's victory turned out to be unique in its persuasiveness.

It's not even about the result, but how powerfully and confidently she coped in the free program with a quadruple flip (14.74 with a base jump cost of 11.0) and thus stopped all talk about the athlete growing up, her breaks technique, and no one knows if she can ... She could.

Shcherbakova did not manage to avoid mistakes in the free program (in particular, she performed an “extra” jump, which left her without a cascade), but the level at which the battle for the gold of the national championship will be fought in December was clearly indicated.

It is more than useful to look at the state of affairs in female solitary from this angle.

For example, it becomes clear that the triple axel, which Elizaveta Tuktamysheva restored so long and painfully for the season, does not bring any advantage if he is alone.

In order to fight for real, one more is desperately needed - in a cascade.

And preferably a quadruple jump too, and not by the second half of the season, but here and now.

Otherwise, the train may leave before you get to the platform while still having real big achievements.

The same, by the way, can be said about the European champion and winner of the last year's Grand Prix finals Alena Kostornaya, who has not yet started the competitive season (she will open it at the Russian Cup stage in Kazan on November 8-12).

She changed her coach in the offseason, leaving for Evgeni Plushenko from Eteri Tutberidze.

And the question of whether the skater will be able to restore the triple axel and bring the jump to such a state that she can jump it three times in two programs becomes almost key.

It will depend on this whether Kostornaya will retain the ability to fight for a place in the national team or not.

Moreover, Alexandra Trusova continues to complicate her programs.

This figure skater won the previous stage of the Russian Cup, which was held in Moscow, but for the second start, it seems, she will be preparing a novelty - a quadruple rittberger.

Not to say that Sasha desperately needs a jump for competitive struggle (three quads, which have already been tested in the program, give her a solid reserve in this regard, plus there is a fairly well-jumped salchow), but if she manages to complete the rittberger in competitions, the achievement will become historical: Trusova for the fourth time will enter her name in the Guinness Book of Records.

In pair skating, the bronze medalists of the European Championship 2020 Daria Pavlyuchenko - Denis Khodykin won virtually without competition.

But the men's tournament clearly demonstrated how quickly the sporting situation familiar to fans can change.

Before the start of the competition, it was assumed that the champion of the 2020 continental championship, Dmitry Aliev, who missed the start of this season due to a back injury, and the bronze medalist of the 2018 World Championship Mikhail Kolyada, who returned to the once-lost fighting condition under the leadership of Alexei Mishin, would compete for the championship.

As a result, Kolyada became a champion, but to a large extent he left on his former merits - due to the components of riding.

He lost the free program to Andrey Mozalev, and in the technical part he lost thoroughly.

For the elements, Mikhail scored 87.72 points, while the 17-year-old ward of Kirill Davydenko, who had just graduated from juniors, earned 95.18 points.

In terms of aggregate points, Mozalev remained second, ahead of Aliyev by 23.73 points.

Probably, this is the most distinctive feature of the current generation of skaters: in their circle, one can hear less and less often the phrase, once common and characteristic of beginners: "I still have everything ahead."

Again, the girls should be grateful for this transformation of consciousness - they, as they say, started first.

The forced isolation and the cancellation of a large number of international tournaments slightly blurred the picture of the world, depriving the skaters of a real opportunity to compare themselves with their rivals, but even within the framework of the Russian Cup, it is not difficult to see how sharp and dramatic the competition will be when all the competitors meet on the same ice.