Successful premiere: Shcherbakova took the lead at the French Grand Prix with a new short program

In the Grand Prix series of this season, the first finalists in men's and pair skating, as well as in ice dancing, have already been determined. As for the girls, none of their skaters has yet officially received the coveted ticket. This should be corrected by the stage in Grenoble, where two iron candidates for a trip to Tokyo arrived at once - Anna Shcherbakova and Alena Kostornaya. Ksenia Sinitsyna became the third Russian participant of the tournament in Grenoble.

With her, the girls' competition began. A student of Svetlana Panova performed in the short program to the accompaniment of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Lullaby and immediately set a decent bar for the following rivals. All jumps, including the flip and the lutz-toe loop cascade, she performed flawlessly, and for the spins she received the maximum fourth level of difficulty. The 17-year-old figure skater lacked only one thing - authority in the eyes of the judges. Sinitsyna received very low components for her rental, which is why she lacked only 11 hundredths to break the mark of 70 points, which she had already obeyed at the stage in the USA.

Sinitsyna's leadership lasted quite a long time.

Many figure skaters with a big name could not get around her.

American Mariah Bell fell during the cascade and scored only 60.81 points.

Her compatriot Starr Andrews, who performed with her own vocals, could not cope with the rittberger and interrupted the program.

She, putting her hand to her chest, talked to the judges and withdrew from the competition.

In the strongest group, the Japanese woman Wakaba Higuchi, who recently began to get a triple axel, could well bypass Sinitsyna.

Thanks to him, she is even one of the three best figure skaters of the season for the performance of the short program.

But the attempt to replicate the element in Grenoble failed.

Higuchi made a "butterfly" for which no score is due at all.

Another figure skater from the United States, Karen Chen, also lost to a Russian woman.

Twice the winner of the fourth place at the world championships made small mistakes in jumping and doubled the toe loop in a cascade.

Chen earned 64.67 points and was also inferior to Korean Park Young-jong.

The road to the intermediate Russian podium was open.

Alyona Kostornaya could have shown the triple axel, which Higuchi did not succeed in, to the fans.

However, in the morning, the execution of this jump was in question.

The student Eteri Tutberidze fell off him in training, which in her case almost certainly meant the rejection of the element.

As a result, Kostornaya really started her program to the song New York, New York with an axel of two and a half turns.

But the refusal from a more difficult jump literally spread the skater's wings.

When Kostornaya does not feel too much pressure, she can show clean and incendiary programs, which the judges will surely appreciate.

For all jumps, she received very high bonuses, especially for the flip-toe loop cascade in the second half.

If it were not for the third level of the step sequence, the performance could be called ideal - none of the arbiters gave marks for elements below two.

Decent components were added to the good points for the technique, which Kostornaya did not have at the Grand Prix stage in Vancouver.

Her final score was 76.44 points - for a program without ultra-si elements, this is one of the best results of the season.

The fans were looking forward to Shcherbakova's performance with special impatience.

The world champion decided to change the short program, choosing the place of the music of Kirill Richter, the composition of Inon Zur.

Also, many were interested in whether the Lutz-Rittberger cascade, which Shcherbakova could not do at the stage in Turin, would return to her rental, although later in the free program it turned out.

The skater did not return this combination.

She attached a triple toe loop to the lutz, without risking too much.

But otherwise, there could be no questions about the rental of Shcherbakova.

She succeeded in all jumps, and all non-jumping elements received the highest levels of difficulty.

The most pleasant thing for the athlete was to find out that the judges gladly accepted her new program - for the components she received 36.34 points, and this is the best indicator of the season for short skates for girls.

Before that, Kamila Valieva became the best.

In total, Shcherbakova received 77.94 points and came out on top - for rentals without ultra-s, this is also the highest figure this year.

On Saturday, the Russians will try to rise from the intermediate podium to the real one.