Men

The first day of the Russian championship in Chelyabinsk began with a performance by men who showed their short programs.

Makar Ignatov, having entered the ice under the second starting number, immediately set a high bar for all singles.

He had to fight on the road with a quadruple rittberger, but still, the 20-year-old skater succeeded in jumping.

The judges no longer had any questions about the cascade of the quadruple toe loop - the triple toe loop, as well as to the triple axel.

His result was 98.30 points - only Mikhail Kolyada scored more at the stages of the Russian Cup.

For a long time, no one managed to move Ignatov from the first place, although several skaters were close to this.

Artyom Kovalev was prevented from gaining more than 87.45 points from a fall on the steps.

Evgeny Semenenko began his performance to the title song of "Gangster Petersburg" with a wonderful quadruple salchow and triple axel, but he broke the cascade without getting points for the second jump and fell while spinning.

Pyotr Humennik's rib offensively flew off when landing from a triple axel, and for him 84.39 points became the limit.

In the last group there were several troublemakers at once.

Mark Kondratyuk managed, thanks to a clean run with a quadruple salchow, to score 90.88 points and temporarily move up to second place, which became a small sensation in the short program.

The junior world champion Andrei Mozalev was supposed to climb even higher, but he fell on a quadruple flip and earned only 89.47 points.

In the end, only Mikhail Kolyada was able to surpass Ignatov's result.

The two-time champion of Russia from the first seconds showed self-confidence and coped with a quadruple toe loop in a cascade and with his most problematic jump - a triple axel.

Although Kolyada lost to Ignatov in technique, he earned good components and scored 102.48 points.

For Russian men, this is the best result of the season.

Vice-champion of Europe Alexander Samarin returned to the ice after a long break and tried to surprise the audience not only with an unusual choice of music - the song "Polyushko-Pole", but also with the second content after Ignatov in complexity.

However, the skater fell on a quadruple lutz and immediately found himself out of the top three.

Samarin skated the rest of the program well and ended up settling for fifth place and 87.96 points.

Dancing on Ice

The dancers' tournament this year is being held without the winners of the last two Russian championships, Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov.

They had had coronavirus and did not have time to recover, although figure skating fans will be able to see them at New Year's shows.

In their absence, the main contenders for gold were Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin, who already have six national championship awards, but none of the highest dignity.

Stepanova and Bukin showed the rhythm dance before everyone else and immediately made it clear that no one would be allowed to the first place.

They were preparing for this tournament for only three weeks, and the last time they went out on the ice in official competitions back in January at the European Championship.

Nevertheless, they performed very energetically and brightly to the well-known music of the fans from Moulin Rouge!

For each element, the dancers received the fourth level of difficulty, but at the last moment the judges removed a point from them for overexposed support.

With a total score of 87.28 points, Stepanova and Bukin guaranteed themselves leadership at the end of the first day.

For the remaining two places in the intermediate three, there was a struggle between three pairs.

First, Anastasia Skoptsova and Kirill Alyoshin presented their number on the theme "Bonnie and Clyde".

The winners of the last two stages of the Russian Cup avoided criticism from the judges and scored 80.19 points.

Elizaveta Khudayberdieva and Yegor Bazin could have moved them from second place, but a much more experienced partner had a failure on twizzles, and the duo received 78.01 points for their rhythm dance.

Tiffany Zagorski and Jonathan Gureiro did not have such problems, and they have perfected their program to the music from The Great Showman long ago.

The couple scored 84.02 points and followed Stepanova and Bukin.

Sports couples

The first day of the Russian championship ended with sports couples presenting their short programs.

Of the main favorites, last year's bronze medalists Daria Pavlyuchenko and Denis Khodykin came out on the ice first.

If at the stages of the Russian Cup, something always prevented them from performing well to the jazz classics, then this time the skating was excellent.

The couple not only correctly performed all the elements, but also managed to play in public.

The judges rated their performance at 77.01 points.

European Champions Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky could easily surpass this result.

The world record holders in the short program had all the means for this.

However, Boykova landed on two feet after a difficult triple lutz throw.

This small mistake could have sent Tamara Moskvina's students to an intermediate second place, but still, due to the components, they scored 77.48 points.

Their classmates Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov were ready to conquer the 80-point mark, which they had already done at the last stage of the Russian Cup.

But in Chelyabinsk, in the presence of spectators and competitors, Gallyamov had an inexplicable failure.

He did not even try to perform the triple salchow, and the partner did it alone.

The loss of such an important element threw the pair to an intermediate fourth place with 73.25 points.

Taking into account the fact that Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov had not yet gone on the ice, Mishina and Gallyamov were left without the strongest warm-up in the free program.

Tarasova and Morozov made a splash on the ice arena.

Their Bolero, left over from last season, was brought to perfection for the Russian Championship and became the best rental of the first day of the competition.

The couple did not resort to the most difficult jumps and throws, but they received almost maximum allowances for each element.

At the same time, the judges punished the skaters with a penalty point for the late start of the skating, which did not prevent them from taking the lead with a score of 80.65 points.

Sports couples have not received so much this season at the stages of the Russian Cup.