A completely Russian pedestal in women's single skating is no longer a rare phenomenon, but rather even commonplace. In recent years, domestic figure skaters have managed to take the first three places at the World Championships, and the European Championship, and in the Grand Prix finals, and at many other competitions. But there was still another type of competition, where it was not possible for a long time to conquer this height, which testifies to the complete domination of athletes.
These are the regular stages of the Grand Prix taking place outside of Russia. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, the hosts of the tournament managed to take all the medals for themselves in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and in 2016, and in the coronavirus 2020. But outside the country, any other tournament in the series remained unconquered. The fact is that the distribution of skaters is strictly according to the rating, so that the strongest athletes from one country do not gather in the same place before the Grand Prix finals. So, with all the desire to climb the podium, the three Russian women could only be helped by their own walls.
It was almost possible to break this wall a week ago at Skate America, when Alexandra Trusova, Daria Usacheva and Ksenia Sinitsyna were leading after the short program. But in the end, only the students of Eteri Tutberidze got the medals. A new attempt to conquer the podium was not long in coming - already at the next stage in Vancouver, the intermediate three again turned out to be Russian, only formed by Kamila Valieva, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Alena Kostornaya.
The two athletes still had a chance to break this trio, and a triple axel could help them - a difficult, but not at all rare jump for women's skating. Japanese Wakaba Higuchi did not try it in the short program, but used her trump card in the free program. This was her first successful performance of the ultra-si element and an application to win back a six-point gap from Kostornaya. True, this was still not enough. Although her program "The Lion King" was quite coherent, the judges had little complaints about the individual jumps and the artistry of the vice-champion of the world. Higuchi scored 205.27 points in total, which was not enough even to bypass Mai Mihara, who was in the lead without any ultra-si elements.
The next one to challenge the Russians was Alice Liu. In her junior years, she regularly competed with Valieva, but then she was helped by quadruple jumps. At the adult level, she left only the triple axel in her arsenal. True, in Vancouver, the 15-year-old American never showed it. At the beginning of her program, to the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Liu immediately fell without completing the jump. Taking into account all penalties and deductions, the element brought her a negligible 0.65 point. The cascades in the second half of the rental also did not work out as they should, and as a result, Liu also lost to Mihara, earning 206.53 points in two days of competition.
The reference point for Russian women, set by the Japanese figure skater, was 210.01 points. And doubts immediately arose that Kostornaya would be able to surpass him. She also failed her attempt at a triple axel, although she did without falling. The new program to the song Billie Eilish, which the European champion skated without her usual enthusiasm, did not add whists to her either. Fortunately, after a short program, Tutberidze's student had some backlog, and he allowed her to be taller than Mihara. Kostornaya recorded 214.54 points, although she earned a little more at the Finlandia Trophy three weeks earlier.
Tuktamysheva, who spoke next, showed how to perform a triple axel and delight the audience with her emotions. For the second time in a row, she managed to combine an incendiary program with two clean jumps, which became a guarantee of at least a silver medal. If it were not for the judges' nagging of the triple flip, where a tiny under-rotation was found under the microscope, the student of Alexei Mishin could have swung at a personal record, which she did not submit to her in Finland. Tuktamysheva scored 232.88 points: not enough points one and a half to show even more convincingly that at 24 she is at her peak.
Kamila Valieva was the last to come out on the ice to present her version of the classic Bolero. About her previous performance to this music, experts and journalists in chorus said that the program was chosen unsuccessfully, and the athlete herself could not stand the image. However, in her case, talk about this side of figure skating could be neglected, since the main thing for the student of Tutberidze is still the execution of her most complex content.
And with this, Valieva in Vancouver had almost no problems.
The quadruple salchow and the first cascade with a quadruple toe loop in a cascade even received an A from the Spanish judge, and the next combination of a quad sheepskin coat earned her 18.72 points and entered the top five most expensive elements in the history of women's skating.
It did not work out perfectly to execute only the triple axel, on landing from which Valieva was slightly led to the side, but she stayed on her feet and avoided a big deduction.
The technical score in the end turned out to be phenomenal and amounted to 106.15 points.
Whatever the marks for the components, this meant only one thing - Valieva again updated the world records for the free program and the total result.
The judges only had to decide how much.
And here a real bomb struck - Valieva's Bolero got 74.74 points, losing only to Alina Zagitova's component record.
No matter how criticized the student of Tutberidze, the judges this time gave a clear signal that it was one of the best performances in the history of figure skating.
The final score of Valieva was 265.08 points and exceeded the results not only of all girls on Skate Canada, but also of all men, with the exception of Nathan Chen.