Out of line: how Davis and Smolkin's victory at the Challenger changed the balance of power in Russian ice dancing

They don't fall in dancing. So, at least, says a common expression in curly circles, the meaning of which is not literal, but rather implies a fairly wide range of concepts. According to these concepts, a dancer should be able to wait for his turn. You can create spectacular programs, come up with unique acrobatic supports and, in general, jump over your head in every possible way, but this does not mean at all that the "queue" will let you go ahead - in this respect, the world of ice dancing can be much tougher and intolerant than a professional bicycle peloton ...

Additional options are almost always required for an exception to occur.

For example, a strong and influential federation.

Or a coach-strategist who knows how to make friends, negotiate, give in, persuade.

In a word - to build your own game without risking being eaten.

Although it is always more difficult for singles in this chain.

It is believed that the new refereeing system, which came into use after the dance-scandalous Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, was invented precisely in order to minimize bias in this form.

The old rules really looked odious.

For example, line judges were not required to give identical marks to two different pairs.

And this led to the fact that even before the start of the competition, almost each of the referees kept the final protocol in his head and handed out points “according to the list”.

Just from those times, the mantra about the dance queue originates.

There were so few people who blew up this line in the entire history of ice dancing that not a single precedent was left unattended.

Is it possible to assume that such an “explosion” took place at the tournament in Warsaw, where the rather distant rating Russian duo Diana Davis - Gleb Smolkin scored incredible points for each of their dances, comparable to the results of the world leaders of ice dancing?

Probably, after all, no.

In order to really compare the strengths of several dance couples, at least one condition must be met: these couples must compete with each other within the framework of one tournament. Another question is that any outstanding results always get stuck in the mind, especially - such as those of Davis and Smolkin in their first adult season. The couple scored 81.30 points in Warsaw in the short dance (with a personal record of 73.37) and 118.60 in the free dance, while the previous achievement of the duet was 111.25 points.

According to the final result, Igor Shpilband's wards recorded another personal record (199.90), which was only 39 hundredths lower than the result shown by the winners of the last three European Championships Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin at the Grand Prix stage in Grenoble.

Many people involuntarily asked themselves the question: who, in fact, will be the second pair of the country by the beginning of the Olympic Games in Beijing, if we assume that the progress of debutants is really so irrepressible?

And will it not turn out that in Russian ice dancing, a little over two months before the Olympic Games, such an unexpected castling will take place?

Sounds absurd?

Don't tell.

To begin with, you need to abstract from any personal factors and just put yourself in the shoes of the leaders of the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) - after all, they will have to make decisions and, to some extent, be responsible for the result of the Olympic season.

Currently, there are only two combat-ready dance duos available: the 2021 world champions Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, as well as the winners of the last three European championships Stepanova and Bukin.

The third dance pair Tiffany Zagorski - Jonathan Gureiro (tenth place at the 2021 World Cup), most likely, will not have time to properly recover for the Olympic selection due to a serious illness suffered by a partner.

At the same time, Katsalapov's chronic back injury periodically aggravates, and it is logical to fear that the body may simply not allow the skater to skate two programs in the Olympic team tournament and almost immediately after that perform twice in the “personal”.

How it might look in practice, we all saw in 2014 on the example of Evgeni Plushenko.

In other words, ice dancing is becoming for Russia the very kind where you need to insure yourself, make a substitution in the team tournament, and the most powerful one, so as not to lose the chance to fight for gold medals.

But there is a pitfall here: Stepanova and Bukin are not "judged." This is not the first season, it just became especially obvious now. Despite the fact that Sasha and Vanya have excellent performances, and the athletes themselves have noticeably improved over the past two weeks in speed, cleanliness and presentation, their scores in Grenoble (200.29) remained about the same as they were at the Grand Prix stage in Turin (202.18). Approximately the same level was shown at the stage in Vancouver to Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri.

This means that under a certain set of circumstances (for example, a not very supportive refereeing team or a technical panel), the second Russian duo, if not to fight for it, may concede in Beijing not only to the French, Canadians and Americans, but also to the representatives of Italy, who are now inferior to Stepanova and Bukin only in terms of components, surpassing them in technical complexity.

The Italians (unlike the Russian duo) have excellent chances to get to the Grand Prix finals, which means that with a successful performance there, the pair's second mark has the prospect of growing.

Can the leaders of the FFKKR disregard the likelihood of such an option?

Unlikely...

And at this very moment, at a completely secondary tournament, a duet suddenly cuts through, which, judging by unprecedented estimates, is adored by both referees and the technical panel, headed by one of the most influential specialists in world ice dancing - Galina Gordon-Poltorak.

It is hardly worth discounting the personality of the coach: the very presence of Igor Shpilband at the board has been perceived for many years as a kind of quality mark in everything related to technology.

This has been the case since the times when Tessa Virtue performed - Scott Moir, Meryl Davis - Charlie White, and Igor himself worked in tandem with Marina Zueva, therefore, to assert that Davis and Smolkin received their points "for nothing" (even though that the fairness of the dance judging in Warsaw remains in question) is probably not worth it.

All this, of course, is just theory - reasoning that has only one start.

It is quite possible that at the December national championship in St. Petersburg, the debutants will be treated much more harshly than in Poland, and the question of their participation in the Olympic Games will disappear by itself.

But what if not?

In this case, the most intriguing dance alignment of all possible can await us.