A few minutes before the girls were supposed to go out on the rolling with free programs, a press conference of couples ended at Yubileiny, where Dmitry Kozlovsky said that the Russian championship in the Olympic season is the most difficult and most terrible competition of all that you can imagine.
The phrase could be considered on duty, if not for one "but".
The skater, who had just qualified for the Olympic team with his partner, did not allow a single mistake in the program, but who became the second, had the eyes of a person who went through hell and survived.
There was no need for any additional questions to understand: an even more terrible test is to be faced this evening for those who will fight for three tickets to the Games in the women's tournament.
The Olympic qualifying championship is a competition when for the strongest almost everything fades into the background: pain, injuries, everyday troubles, certain third-party hindrances and interests.
All that remains is the willingness to seize your chance by all means.
Whatever it takes.
When you understand all this, you no longer wonder why Alexandra Trusova, who has just recovered from a serious leg injury, declares a triple axel in the short program, and five quads in the free program.
And it does not seem at all unnatural to talk about the fact that the European champion Alena Kostornaya, if she really wanted to, could well compete in St. Petersburg, despite a broken arm.
Sounds crazy? Nothing like this. Similar precedents in single skating happened, and more than once, otherwise - yes, it hurts, yes, uncomfortable, but who takes into account the pain when the Olympics are at stake? After all, we still do not really know what pain Evgenia Medvedeva had to go through in December 2017, and at what price the same Trusova or Kamila Valieva are now renting. And if these girls continue to climb this peak, regardless of the price paid for the sporting triumph, does anyone have the right to condemn them?
On Friday at Yubileiny, many sympathized with Elizaveta Tuktamysheva.
Formally, Lisa had not yet missed the chance to qualify for the only Olympic Games in her life, but in fact it was clear that the train had left.
With all her unique background, the 25-year-old figure skater certainly deserved to be on the Olympic team, but to be completely honest, throughout the past season, Elizabeth worked rather to maintain her positions, and not to rise to a new level for herself.
In this case, even those who just recently seemed not too dangerous begin to bypass you, but what can be opposed to this wave, if of all the trump cards - three triple axel attempts, one of which was thwarted in the short program?
On Saturday, Lisa fought as best she could. With you, with two triple axels (successful), with every landing, every exit. For the free program, she received 153.12 points, almost repeating her personal best, dated 2019. The assessments, nevertheless, left the feeling that the Saturday breakdown of the axel and, as a consequence, only the seventh result, switched some kind of toggle switch in the judges' brains. In the final, they judged Tuktamysheva extremely harshly, reducing points for all under-rotated and underexposed positions where possible. That is, exactly like any other skater who does not have even half of Liza's merits, no longer considering the ex-world champion as a contender for an Olympic vacancy.
Or maybe, the factor of not the strongest warm-up just affected.
But this definitely shouldn't have been offended: in the battle for Olympic vacancies, the victims are not spared - they are simply taken out of the battlefield.
Despite the absolutely amazing rental of Kamila Valieva, who predictably raised the hall, Trusova equally became the heroine of the evening.
There were four quadruple jumps in her program, and not five, as indicated in the preliminary application, Sasha fell from the sheepskin coat, but the flip and two lutz, performed in a cascade, and the second of them, in the second half of the program, were landed more than confidently.
Sasha scored more than a hundred points for technique (for comparison, Anna Shcherbakova had a technical sum of 82.51) and, leading the course of the struggle, made it clear ahead of schedule that no one would deprive her of her place in the Olympic team.
Shcherbakova remained fourth in the free program, losing to junior Adelia Petrosyan: she performed two quadruple rittberger in the program, while Anya began skating with a fall - she could not resist after her only quadruple jump - a flip.
The proprietary cascade of triple lutz - triple rittberger also turned out to be minuscule.
But it was here that the reserve came in handy, with which the skater was more than generously endowed in the short program: in terms of the total score, Shcherbakova bypassed Petrosyan by 5.59 points, and from the point of view of the image, it was, of course, a fundamental moment.
Although the world champion lagged behind Trusova by 16.34.
As for Valieva, she competed in her own league that evening.
Three quadruple jumps, 113.90 for technique, 26 “tens” in components, 193.10 for the free program with a personal record of 185.29.
The total score was also a record and amounted to 283.48.
Although the records of the national championships cannot be considered official, it is time to start betting on the fact that Valieva will become a figure skater who will be able to step over the bar of 300 points.