Four Russian couples against two-time world champions of the Chinese duo Sui Wenjing and Han Cong - this is the initial alignment for the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final (these competitions will be held in Osaka in the second week of December). It is clear that with such a competition, everyone should be in the best possible shape (as much as possible), since this start is a kind of harbinger of the Olympic selection. Moreover, we are talking not only about a trip to Beijing, but also about the Olympic team tournament, where Russia is promised gold medals in advance and not without reason. And now you can try to reflect on the chances of each of the couples.
The current world champions Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov won all the starts this season in which they participated: the Finlandia Trophy challenge tournament and two stages of the Grand Prix in Tokyo and Sochi. The same duo owns the highest sum of points both according to the results of performances at the most prestigious tournament, and at a separate stage. At the same time, Mishina - Gallyamov beat everyone in the basic complexity of the free program (60.0), in points for the components and in the purity of the elements.
The only drawback could be considered controversial, judging by the reviews, an arbitrary performance to the music of Sviridov, but the performance of the skaters in Sochi smashed the critics to smithereens: the program did not just play, but left a very powerful energetic impression. In other words, she made her admit that Tamara Moskvina, having insisted on this production, was once again right.
The second duet of the legendary mentor and Artur Minchuk, European champions Alexander Boykov - Dmitry Kozlovsky reached the final from fourth place and, it seems, they are the ones who will have to argue for a place in the Olympic “commanding officer” with two-time, but already ex-continental champions Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov ... Neither pair played in Sochi; within the Grand Prix, the skaters crossed paths only once - at the Skate America tournament, but it was simply too early to draw any conclusions there.
Tarasova and Morozov started the season earlier than anyone else.
By the time of the start in Las Vegas, they had two victories in the secondary competitions - in The Hague and Boston, while Boykova and Kozlovsky did not have the opportunity to check the programs at all before the start of the Grand Prix.
Evgenia and Vladimir have the highest result in the short program within the season (80.36), but the world record in this category is held by Alexandra and Dmitry (at the winning European Championship in Graz, the couple scored 82.34).
In general, the strengths of the two duets look equal, but there is a nuance: Petersburgers started the season with obvious flaws and are gradually gaining shape, which cannot yet be said about Tarasova and Morozov, who, on the contrary, went downhill.
Now in the already large coaching staff of the pair, in order to stabilize the jumps for the partner, another specialist, ex-world champion Alexei Tikhonov, is involved, but how well this task can be solved is an open question. An attempt to resolve the problem through a large number of competitions (to date, the ex-European champions have accumulated six of them) has not met with great success so far.
Does this mean that Tarasova and Morozov can be conditionally put in the Russian rating on the third position behind the pairs Moskvina and Minchuk?
Absolutely not.
Despite the fact that Evgenia and Vladimir won their last victory at the European Championship almost four years ago, in January 2018, the skaters still have a high second mark and, perhaps, none of the rivals are able to surpass these skaters as a whole series technical elements when they are performed at maximum amplitude and without errors.
In addition, the presence of Tarasova and Morozov in the Olympic team tournament for the new coaching staff headed by Eteri Tutberidze is a matter of professional prestige.
If Zhenya and Vladimir fail to justify the hopes placed on them, this will mean not so much their personal failure, but above all the coaching failure.
Silver medalists of the Sochi stage Daria Pavlyuchenko and Denis Khodykin look like the weakest link in the Russian doubles chain. At the first of their stages of the Grand Prix this year, the wards of Sergei Dobroskokov and Sergei Roslyakov also became the second, and therefore easily qualified for the final, but if we talk about the quality of skating, both times it looked rather sloppy. Compared to last season, the skaters, according to them, have made it difficult to enter the elements by adding acrobatics to the program, but this did not give a qualitative increase that would be reflected in the result.
Moreover, in their first adult season two years ago, Dasha and Denis skated a slightly more difficult version of the free program due to the fact that they performed a triple flip in it as a solo jump, and not salchow. According to a personal record, Pavlyuchenko and Khodykin are not much ahead of the very quickly progressing debutants of the final from Japan Riku Miuru - Ryuichi Kiharu, and the task of not letting these rivals go ahead can be quite difficult for Russian skaters.
How dangerous are Sui Wenjing and Han Cong in this company?
You probably don't need to be a visionary to understand that the Chinese are interested in only one start this season - the Olympic Games.
It is for this purpose that all forces and means are thrown, especially since the two-time world champions will have to compete, ending their careers, at home.
The Grand Prix final for them is just a training session, and the couple has not yet decided whether they will take part in this tournament, or give way to the reserve Russian participants Yulia Artemyeva and Mikhail Nazarychev.
Although it is worth remembering that the previous similar tournament in Turin in 2019, Sui Wenjing - Han Cong won with a rather serious advantage, leaving behind both Boykova - Kozlovsky and Mishina - Galliamov.