Rolling Kaganovskaya - Angelopol and "base" Khabibullina - Knyazhuk: summary rating of couples and dancers in the 2022/23 season

Progress of Kaganovskaya and Angelopol

The uniqueness of the situation that has developed this season in Russian ice dancing is that all duets, with the exception of Elizaveta Khudaiberdiyeva and Yegor Bazin, have actually restarted their careers by teaming up with new partners.

And they started not only from scratch, but from fairly equal positions.

And all initially had a common and very significant drawback - the lack of rolling.

An exception could be called the winners of the fourth stage of the Russian Grand Prix Vasilisa Kaganovskaya and Valery Angelopol, who have been skating together for three years, but this plus is leveled by the fact that the skaters entered their first adult season without having any significant experience behind them.

As the coach of these dancers, two-time world champion Anzhelika Krylova, admitted, if it were not for the departure of the three strongest Russian duets from the stage, she most likely would not have sent Vasilisa and Valery to adult ice this season at all - their age quite allowed for another a year in juniors, so as not to get lost against the backdrop of the strongest duets.

But since the situation, in the opinion of the coach, quite allowed to argue for a place in the first dance trio, it was decided to take a chance.

And while there is a feeling that the risk has fully justified itself.

In terms of personal progress, Kaganovskaya and Angelopol have made a much bigger leap over the past three weeks than their rivals.

According to Krylova, a big role in this was played by the fact that the management of the rink where the group trains found an opportunity to provide athletes with extra time on the ice, including on the main arena.

Thanks to this, Vasilisa and Valery received the very watch that Anzhelika spoke about the lack of in an interview with RT three weeks ago and which the couple desperately needed to practice gliding, expressiveness and interaction.

In parallel with this, the skaters worked a lot with ballroom dancers, worked out the technique.

First of all, this concerned rhythm dance, since, as Krylova noted, the Latin American theme is quite complex in itself.

For someone, like, for example, the incredibly danceable and plastic Englishman Lewis Gibson, it is enough just to turn on the music, and this is already latin, someone, like Angelopol, has to explain some subtleties of style, placing accents in almost every movement.

The total score of Vasilisa and Valery for performing rhythm dance was 2.43 higher than at the first stage of the Grand Prix at Megasport, despite the fact that the performance was not the best: at the very beginning of the dance, according to the coach, everything went a little out of whack , but, fortunately, the skaters managed to quickly rectify the situation.

The overall result of the dancers increased by almost 10 points (198.59 versus 189.04), they came close to the level shown at the third stage in Kazan by the pair Annabel Morozov - David Narizhny, which means that in the final of the Russian Grand Prix, the students Krylova may be quite capable of fighting with the current duets for the second or third position.

At the fourth stage of the ISU Grand Prix in Sheffield, the above-mentioned Gibson and his partner Laila Fir surpassed the Canadians Marjorie Lajoie - Zachary Lagu, while both duets completely lost to the Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri.

They showed a higher complexity in both rhythmic and free dances, better rolling, which is not surprising for a couple who have had such an impressive period of joint performances.

In comparison with younger duets, the Italians were somewhat inferior in energy, but with a general skating class, they easily removed everyone from their path.

True, it is worth noting that in the first of the two dances, the British lost quite a bit to their rivals: against the backdrop of Gibson's amazing dancing skills, the Latin dance performed by the Italian duet did not look very advantageous.

Consolidated rating of dancers after four stages of the Grand Prix

1. (1) Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier (Canada)

2. (2) Caitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker (USA)

3. (3) Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Egor Bazin (Russia)

4. (7) Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri (Italy)

5. (4) Laila Fear & Lewis Gibson (UK)

6. (5) Carolyn Green & Michael Parsons (USA)

7. (6) Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Laga (Canada)

8. (8) Madison Chalk and Evan Bates (USA)

9. (-)

(Russia)

10. (9) Annabelle Morozov and David Narizhny (Russia)

The complexity of Khabibullina and Knyazhuk's programs

In the category of sports couples, as well as in the dance, this season has its own troublemakers - Natalya Khabibullina and Ilya Knyazhuk.

I wouldn’t talk about the rivalry of this pair with the 2021 world champions Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov, for this the figure skaters of Sergei Dobroskokov objectively lack experience and gloss, and in general, with their performance in Moscow, the figure skaters of Tamara Moskvina and Artur Minchuk confidently take the rating championship in hands, but it's interesting to look at the numbers. 

The debutants of the season showed a higher basic complexity of the free program (61.5 versus 60.3 for the bronze medalists of the Beijing Olympics).

And this is with a broken final support.

At the first stage of the Grand Prix in Megasport, where Khabibullina - Knyazhuk sensationally outperformed the vice-champions of the 2022 Games Evgenia Tarasova - Vladimir Morozov, their “base” was 64.40.

The coach explained the reason for the failure of the element.

According to him, in the short program, when pulling out a partner in support, Knyazhuk did not hurt his back too much, but extremely painfully - he pinched the nerve endings in the spine.

There was no talk of withdrawing from the tournament, but Ilya had to do the second of the rentals on painkillers, the effect of which, it seems, simply weakened by the end of the program.

So Natasha did not go to the element, intuitively feeling that her partner was not too ready for this.

The ending torn off by the skaters led to the fact that the couple finished the program six seconds earlier than expected, which, of course, did not add to the overall impression. 

But it is already becoming clear now: the bet on complexity is the very key to success that can play a key role this season.

Actually, it was on this that Mishina and Gallyamov themselves rode two years ago when they became world champions in Stockholm: they removed the future Olympic champions Sui Wenjing - Han Cong from their path precisely due to the technical base.

Pairs are the very kind of program, watching which, it becomes desperately sorry that Russian athletes do not have the opportunity to show themselves to the world.

The results of the parallel Grand Prix in Sheffield once again clearly confirmed this: the Americans Alexa Knierim and Brandon Fraser performed a little better than at their first stage in the USA, but by Russian standards this is not even the level of a junior national team.

On the one hand, this state of affairs can really shake motivation, especially when it comes to skaters who have already known the taste of great success.

On the other hand, everything that is happening in Russian figure skating now is nothing more than the contribution of skaters to their own future, regardless of how quickly the situation in the world normalizes.

Moreover, this applies to pair skating even more than singles: solo places in various shows for representatives of this discipline have always been limited, so becoming the best and most interesting sports duet in the country is the most winning move of all. 

Consolidated rating of sports couples after four stages of the Grand Prix

1. (-)

(Russia)

2. (1) Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky (Russia)

3. (2) Natalya Khabibullina and Ilya Knyazhuk (Russia)

4. (3) Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov ( Russia)

5. (4) Yasmina Kadyrova and Valery Kolesov (Russia)

6. (5) Anastasia Mukhortova and Dmitry Medvedev (Russia)

7. (6) Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara (Japan)

8. (7) Yulia Artemyeva and Alexey Bryukhanov (Russia)

9. (10) Alexa Knirim and Brandon Fraser (USA)

10. (8) Ekaterina Geinish and Dmitry Chigirev (Russia).