The attention of fans to the participants of the women's tournament was riveted long before the start of the short program.
On Friday morning, the girls held an official training session, which could say a lot about the mood and readiness of the athletes.
First of all, figure skating fans were worried about whether Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Kamila Valieva and Alexander Trusov would perform a triple axel.
For girls, this is the most difficult element in the short program, on the performance of which the position in the intermediate protocol largely depended.
Tuktamysheva and Valieva coped with a difficult jump, although at the same time the student Eteri Tutberidze fell on the path of steps.
Trusova did not try the triple axel.
She decided to avoid unnecessary risk and confine herself to a jump of two and a half turns, with which Evgeni Plushenko's ward has no problems.
Valieva got the second serial number in the draw for the short run, and she had to show her program before all the favorites.
An excellent program to the music of Olympic champion Eric Redford did not require the obligatory execution of a triple axel in order to be in the group of leaders, but the 14-year-old skater did not want to abandon her plans either.
Valieva tried to show her main element after the triple flip and failed.
She not only did not finish the jump, but also fell upon landing.
Nevertheless, the judges highly appreciated the skater's efforts and consoled her with generous components.
For the artistic part of her performance, Valieva received 37.54 points.
This score surpassed the world record of Alina Zagitova set at the 2019 World Cup victorious for her.
The final result of the student Eteri Tutberidze was 79.99 points.
Valieva remained in first place until the exit of Anna Shcherbakova.
She had only recently recovered from pneumonia, and it was seen that she was still experiencing discomfort from the illness.
However, health problems did not affect her rental.
The two-time Russian champion performed each jump with ease and grace.
After the Lutz - Rittberger cascade, the athlete could breathe out calmly, but suddenly she had a rotation failure.
She barely held her position and escaped serious punishment by losing only two levels.
In technical assessment, Shcherbakova lost to Valieva, but left the overall impression even more favorable.
The judges gave her 80.31 points and helped improve the unofficial component record to 37.80 points.
The first to challenge Tutberidze's students was their recent classmate Trusova.
For the rental, she wore a new white and purple dress, in which she looked even more organic during her sensual program.
The rejection of the triple axel allowed Trusova to feel more confident and perform the rest of the jumps with high quality, but the judges were not completely satisfied with her performance.
They habitually fixed the skater's wrong edge on the flip, evaluated the step sequence to the third level, and put rather modest components.
Plushenko responded to 75.76 points with a downward thumb.
In third place, Trusova did not stay long.
She was replaced by the vice-world champion among juniors Daria Usacheva.
Another student of Tutberidze, for whom the championship in Chelyabinsk was the first in her career, coped with the entire jump set, which included a double axel, triple lutz and a cascade flip - toe loop.
On the step path, a 14-year-old athlete stumbled, but lost only one level of difficulty and even gained an increase in the base mark.
Usacheva scored 76.72 points and joined the intermediate three, which consisted only of representatives of "Sambo-70".
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva closed the competition and probably understood that even with a clean triple axel it would not be easy for her to find herself between Tutberidze's students.
Nevertheless, she tried and started the program with a step-out on her signature jump.
For the cascade, the 2015 world champion chose two triple sheepskin coats, which finally deprived herself of the theoretical opportunity to enter the top three.
Finally, Tuktamysheva also stumbled on the step path and lost one level while spinning.
The winner of the Russian stage of the Grand Prix scored 73.56 points and took only fifth place.
Elizaveta Nugumanova lost only three tenths of the points to Tuktamysheva.
Her performance to the melodies of a Viennese waltz was one of the main surprises of the day.
Yevgeny Rukavitsyna's student skated unmistakably and, at the same time, pleased with a rare cascade of two rittbergers.
Maya Khromykh lost another 0.33 points.
Tutberidze's ward remained in the fight for medals - less than four points separated the third place from the seventh according to the results of the short program.