The isolation of Sinitsina and Katsalapov, Ignatov's jumps and extravaganza in pairs: how the control skates of the Russian national team began

First pair and all-all-all

The main task of the pre-season rentals, regardless of whether they are held in an open mode, or only "for their own", has always been so that the specialists can see, and the coaches understand how successful the programs of their wards are, how much they correspond to the rules, how they look at the public the costumes (if they are ready) and with what degree of readiness the skaters enter the season. The proximity of the Olympic Games only exacerbates each of these points as much as possible. This is especially relevant now: unlike the season four years ago, Russian skaters have titles of reigning world champions in three types of programs out of four, and this significantly fuels Olympic intentions.

The Saturday program was opened by ice dancing - the only type of program where the upcoming intrigue is minimized. In the sense that it does not imply any serious internal Russian struggle. Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, having won the World Championship in Stockholm, confirmed their status as the first couple of the country, and this became the very border that sharply divided Russian dances into a leader and others - no matter how offensive it may sound in relation to potential rivals, including the first number includes the winners of the four continental championships Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin. Two years earlier, these skaters became vice-champions of Europe, and it was possible to talk about the fact that Russia has two equal strength pairs in dances (Sinitsina and Katsalapov remained fourth at that tournament).Stepanova and Bukin did not come to the rental in Chelyabinsk for medical reasons, but their presence would hardly change the reality much: no country in the Olympic season relies on two pairs. The favorites, as a rule, are determined in advance, and in our country they, of course, have already been determined both by the figure skating federation and by the judges.

All that has been said, however, does not at all negate the fierce competition for the two remaining Olympic vacancies, for which, in addition to Stepanova and Bukin, at least four more duos will apply this season: Tiffany Zagorski - Jonathan Gureiro, Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva - Yegor Bazin, Diana Davis - Gleb Smolkin and Annabel Morozov - Andrey Bagin.

The zest of the upcoming fight is given by the fact that all four duos not only progressed over the past year, but also guessed right with the programs.

Two quads.

Who's better?

The men's rental program brought together absolutely all the strongest Russian singles, including European champion Dmitry Aliyev, vice-champion of the continent Artur Danielyan and silver medalist of European Championship 2019 Alexander Samarin, who missed last season due to injuries.

Single skating performed by men is primarily jumping. With regard to the strongest skaters in the world, this statement can, of course, be argued with, recalling the brilliant performances of the two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu and the three-time world champion Nathan Chen, but in the Russian version it can hardly be questioned: the level of modern struggle for medals presupposes not only possession of several quadruple jumps, including the most difficult flip, lutz and rittberger, but ideally having two such jumps in the short program. For those who set themselves the task of fighting for medals in the Olympic season, this is a minimum program. Only then comes everything else, including choreographic delights.

Two quads included in their short skates Andrey Mozalev (salchow with a step-out and a sheepskin coat in a cascade with a double), Danielyan (a sheepskin coat with a touch of hands and salchow - with a fall from the second jump), Mikhail Kolyada (salchow with a fall and a sheepskin coat in a cascade with double), Evgeny Semenenko (two unmistakable sheepskin coats, one in a cascade with a triple one), Makar Ignatov (a rittberger and a sheepskin coat in a cascade with a triple one) and Mark Kondratyuk (sheepskin coat and salchow in a cascade). Aliyev, who has a set of quadruple lutz and sheepskin coat in the short program, limited himself to one quadruple, performing the lutz in three turns in the cascade.

Such a number of ultra-si elements, which are still not too familiar for Russian men's skating, can, on the one hand, be considered a guarantee of a tough internal Russian struggle for Olympic tickets, but more or less rolled-in (to the extent that mid-September suggests) the performers of two quads got only three hire - Semenenko, Ignatov and Kondratyuk.

It is worth recalling that at the moment Russia has only two Olympic quotas: in order to win the third one, one of the Russian singles must compete at the end of September at a tournament in Oberstdorf (it is already known that it will not be Aliyev, who was originally announced at the Nebelhorn Trophy) and get into the top six there.

Struggle for world domination

Two-time European champions Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov have already managed to open the Olympic season under the leadership of a new coach, having won the not-too-significant American Cranberry Cup tournament, but Chelyabinsk was supposed to be the first truly important performance for skaters.

It was at the open skates that the wards of Maxim Trankov and Eteri Tutberidze had to skate in direct comparison with the world champions Anastasia Mishina - Alexander Gallyamov and the current winners of the continental championship Alexandra Boykova - Dmitry Kozlovsky.

Demonstrate yourself to the Russian (and not only) public after the global reboot, so to speak.

Such a set of participants could decorate a tournament of any rank and it looked like a kind of guarantee that all three pairs would be skating in full force without any discounts at the beginning of the season: for each of the duets, this worker was essentially a skate, without any exaggeration, the first step towards world domination, no less. Moreover, all three productions - "Swan Lake" by Boykova and Kozlovsky, last year's "Esmeralda" by Mishina and Gallyamov, "We. We believe in love ”by Tarasova and Morozov - turned out to be very powerful about perception. All three duos had flaws that were typical enough for the start of the season in the form of not too parallel spins and not too confident landings, but this did not hide the main thing: the fact that these will most likely dictate the rules of the game in the Olympic season and fight for the gold of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Russian couples.And already quite secondary, how exactly they figure out among themselves.

The final phrase is even more applicable to Russian singles. But this is a completely separate story, even on a Russian scale, even on a global scale.