Trump complexity of Mishina and Gallyamov
The first day of the NHK Trophy tournament was overshadowed by an injury that happened during a girl's warm-up with Daria Usacheva. Very few people manage to avoid problems with muscles, ligaments and joints, speaking at the highest level, but when the injury occurs actually on the air, it always makes you think about the price that you have to pay for success. And about what level of risk athletes have to walk on.
Pair skating in this regard is no less traumatic than single skating. Perhaps even more, since to the constant risk factor are added supports and twists performed at high altitude, and throws, where the success of an element depends on the skill of both athletes. Attempts to maximize complications happen here as well. I remember fresh quadruple throws performed by Yuko Kawaguchi - Alexander Smirnov, as well as attempts to master quadruple throws and twists by Chinese athletes, but these elements never got widespread in pair skating. Probably just because the likelihood of being seriously injured is much higher than the benefit that the high base cost of quads can bring.
For the maximum sophistication of the programs, nevertheless, everyone is chasing. The highest and unmistakably implemented basic difficulty on the ice became the trump card last season that helped Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov become world champions. In terms of the base, the St. Petersburg duo surpassed the two-time world champions Sui Wenjing and Han Tsun by almost three and a half points.
At the beginning of this season, Tamara Moskvina's wards were more often criticized for their not very successful, at first glance, choice of music for an arbitrary program, but in Tokyo hardly anyone dared to call the program unsuccessful. In their first start at the stages of the Grand Prix, Nastya and Alexander scored more than ten points for the technique of an arbitrary program than two-time European champions Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, actually reproducing both in complexity and performance their champion rental of the World Cup model - 2021, including the most difficult cascade of triple salchow - oiler - triple salchow worth 9.10 points.
It is interesting that both pairs, point to point, repeated their results shown at the start of the season at the Finlandia Trophy in Espoo.
And, if we continue virtual comparisons, it is worth noting the fact that Mishina and Galliamov are still ahead of the strongest Chinese pair in absentia: Sui and Han twice showed a lower overall result at the Grand Prix stages.
The second of the Russian duets fulfilled its main task at the tournament - it was selected for the final of the championship series, although the free skating was not very successful for Vladimir and Eugene: in a cascade of three jumps, the partner doubled the first sheepskin coat, in the emissions Zhenya landed on two legs twice.
Perhaps this is precisely why the second mark suffered greatly: at the first stage in the USA, it was 73.03 points for Tarasova and Morozov, and 71.28 in Tokyo.
Nevertheless, it was precisely this component of the result that allowed the second Russian pair not to concede to the Japanese in the free program: Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara scored 0.58 more Russians for the technique and, in the overall standings, quite rightly became the third in this elite company, by 6.63 points ahead of Americans Ashley Kane and Timothy Leduc.
In the overall standings of the Grand Prix, Tarasova and Morozov occupy the second line (28 points).
The pair skating rating with the maximum total (30) is topped by Sui Wenjing and Han Cong.
Only Mishina and Gallyamov can repeat this result, if they win after the Tokyo stage at the end of November in Sochi.
In addition to the aforementioned pairs, bronze medalists of the European Championship - 2020 Daria Pavlyuchenko and Denis Khodykin (13 points after the first stage), continental champions Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky (11 points and good chances to win a stage in Grenoble) and Miura and Kihara, who have asset 24 points.
The victorious premiere of Sinitsina and Katsalapov
The dance tournament, divided into two parts by a warm-up, was held in the best traditions of a good theatrical performance: each section had its own plot and its own culmination.
In the first part of the competition, it was necessary to understand how random (or not random) was the debut result of the Japanese duo Kana Muramoto and Daisuke Takahashi, who began rhythm dance on Friday as the second pair of the country, and finished first. Still, the arbitrary part of the program makes much more demands on the partners 'skewness, besides, right before the troublemakers' release, veterans of Japanese dances, three-time champions of the country Misato Kombatsubara and Tim Coleto, performed their dance very soundly and harmoniously.
The impression was powerful. Someday "La Bayadère" by Muramoto and Takahashi will surely be recognized in ice dancing as one of the best ballet performances of recent years (who has not seen, it is definitely worth watching), and most importantly, it very accurately coincided with the inner potential of the skaters - it showed their best sides, without leaving the slightest hint that the skaters together skate without a year for a week.
The 2010 world champion in single skating, who passed into a new form for himself, perhaps unwittingly, dealt a decent blow to the foundations of ice dancing, where at all times it was considered: the path to success lies through years of performances, dozens of programs and a long the turn of those who stand in front of you. It remained only to guess who was cooler in the ability to bypass this tail - Takahashi himself or the coach of the couple, the outstanding master and strategist Marina Zueva, who, even during her work with Tessa Virtue - Scott Moir and Meryl Davis - Charlie White admitted that none of the productions happens to her random.
The strongest warm-up started, as expected, at a higher level of results, although as the first three duets performed, it was involuntarily striking that Takahashi and Muramoto lost to them at their debut box office, first of all, according to the second assessment and not because skate worse, but due to a not too solid background. In terms of the technical amount, the Japanese even managed to bypass the Spaniards Sarah Hurtado and Kirill Khalyavin.
But the central event of the tournament was, of course, the performance of the two strongest duos. Interest in the battle for medals and rating points was greatly fueled by the fact that the rhythm dance world champions Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov finished, as they say, head to head with the American duet Madison Chock - Evan Bates. According to personal records for free dance, the Russian duet had a solid advantage (133.02 against 129.01), but this is a fairly conditional criterion in figure skating to be taken seriously.
Bates made it much easier for the world champions to score the maximum 15 points for the stage - he fell at the very beginning of the program.
In such failures, oddly enough, there is always some plus: a gross mistake almost always removes the psychological block and jitters, and the skaters begin to skate more relaxed and more emotional.
Therefore, the program, despite the fall, played: the Americans could bypass even very strong rivals with such a rental.
The debut show of the free dance by Sinitsina and Katsalapov went off with a bang.
The staging was really a success - there was almost enough knack, but this was just not too disturbing: after all, the skaters entered the season too hard, and their Tokyo performance was a serious overcoming.
A little alarming was the not too great advantage of the Russian dancers over the second-rated American couple in terms of their technique scores: it was 0.41 points.
Losses were admitted in the track performed on one leg (the first level for Vika, the second for Nikita) and the track in a straight line (the second level versus the third level for the Americans).
The total difference in the result was almost five points, which meant that the Russian duo did not have to worry about their position in the world hierarchy.
At least in the near future.