The season in figure skating is gradually approaching its climax - the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. Less than four weeks are left before the start of the team tournament in the capital of China, and exactly a month later the winners among men will be determined. Fans continue to wonder what scenarios the most prestigious competitions will take place, and in Russia, traditionally, special attention is paid to women's single skating - the most popular type of program in the country.
All leading countries have already hosted national championships, which resulted in a circle of future participants in the Olympics.
The European Championship and the Championship of Four Continents still remain on the calendar, but many of those who are going to play in Beijing will not go there.
Tournaments in Tallinn will miss a number of stars due to injuries and inconvenient logistics, and besides, it is far from the fact that someone will not have to withdraw from the competition at the last moment due to the coronavirus.
It is already known that leading figure skaters from the USA and Japan will not fly to Europe.
Instead of them, athletes from the second squad of the national team will perform in Estonia.
So, the upcoming competition will no longer give a complete picture of the balance of power, and what the main rivals of the Russians are capable of can be judged just by the recent qualifying starts.
The composition of the US team for the Olympics was determined last week at the national championship in Nashville.
Even before the New Year, it was known that the current title holder Brady Tennell would not perform at them.
Throughout the season, one of the best singles, who does not own ultra-si elements, suffered from injuries and, as a result, could not recover.
Failure also befell the most dangerous American figure skater for Russian women, Alice Liu.
She performed in the qualifier with a short program in which she fell off a triple axel and then withdrew due to a positive coronavirus test.
She was nevertheless included in the Olympic team for the most difficult content for American women, but this season she does not always show it.
Liu hasn't tried quad jumps for almost two years and it's been the same amount of time since her last successful trixel.
In addition to Liu, the American national team included champion Mariah Bell and silver medalist Karen Chen, but both of them can hardly be called real rivals of Russian athletes. The girls did not score even 220 points on the sum of the two rentals, which, adjusted for home refereeing, cannot be considered a successful result. If Bell was still able to please with almost flawless, but not very difficult performances, then Chen did not finish many of her jumps and lost points on this.
In parallel with the US Championship in Canada, its championship was held.
Four years ago, the country at the Olympics in Pyeongchang was represented by Caitlin Osmond, who became the bronze medalist.
But now hardly any of the Canadian girls can be considered a medal contender.
The winner of the competition, Madeleine Skisas, did not even score 200 points and was rightly awarded the only female quota - other girls could not apply for it with all due respect.
Korean Yoo Yeon should have slightly more prospects than American and Canadian women.
She, too, last week showed her readiness for the Olympics in the national selection.
In the short program, she scored 76.55 points thanks to a good triple axel.
This, for example, is more than that of Alexandra Trusova in St. Petersburg with her unsuccessful attempt at this jump.
Yoo Yeon did not succeed in repeating his crown element in the free program.
She landed the trixel, but did not tighten it.
In total, the Korean woman scored 221.49 points, and these are pretty serious numbers considering that she has room to grow.
If a girl performs both programs perfectly, and one of the Russian women does not cope with their rentals, Yoo Yeon may turn out to be taller.
It will still be possible to check this at the championship of the four continents, where the 17-year-old figure skater still plans to compete.
It remains to be glad that at least in the team tournament, Yoo Yeon will not be a competitor - there her national team will not compete and will not apply for points from other teams.
In addition to her, Kim Ye Rim will perform in Beijing, but her content does not leave an opportunity to fight for personal medals.
Perhaps the most dangerous for Russian skaters are Japanese ones.
Their selection took place back in December, simultaneously with the tournament in St. Petersburg.
Rika Kihira, whose promising career was ruined by injuries, did not participate in the competition, but other girls also showed themselves excellently.
Kaori Sakamoto without ultra-si elements scored 234.06 points due to the highest components - this is 5.5 points less than Anna Shcherbakova had.
The results of Wakaba Higuchi and Mana Kawabe were more modest, but both have a triple axel in their arsenal, and the latter performs this element very confidently.
If anyone can prevent Russian women from taking the entire Olympic podium, then the closest to this should be the representatives of Japan.
Both in theory and in practice, they have confirmed this in the current season.