This coming weekend in St. Petersburg will host the finals of the Russian Grand Prix, which will close the season of official starts for domestic athletes.
Yes, there is also a show program tournament in the FFKKR calendar, but its very name speaks of a minimal sports component.
So it is in the Northern capital that all the strongest figure skaters of the country at the moment should gather.
But, as usual, even the main starts are not without losses.
In total, six athletes and four duets who have passed the crucible of qualification will not perform there at once.
The loudest was the refusal of Alexandra Trusova, who referred to a back injury.
As the head coach of the national team Elena Chaikovskaya noted, the federation had known about this for a long time - probably since the beginning of February, when the final lists of participants were compiled - but the athlete herself preferred not to announce this publicly.
When on February 14, during the festival “In Love with Figure Skating,” she was asked about the upcoming final, Svetlana Sokolovskaya’s ward answered with a vague phrase: “You will see everything.
I never talk about my plans and I won’t now.”
For medical reasons, three more athletes will have to miss the tournament - Anastasia Zinina, Ksenia Sinitsyna and Ilya Yablokov.
The 2020 Youth Olympic silver medalist continues her rehabilitation after suffering a stress fracture of her tibia in early January.
Because of the injury, Sinitsyna refused to perform at the Channel One Cup, and she started training on ice only in early February.
At that time, the doctors did not give Ksenia the go-ahead to participate in the competition, so she did not get into the final application.
Zinina, in turn, has not yet fully recovered from a hip injury received at the PDA in January.
Then she unsuccessfully fell after performing a triple lutz and could not even get up on her own - she left the ice with the help of doctors.
The initial examination showed a bruise, but subsequently the situation became more complicated.
“A second MRI showed that the problem still exists and is quite serious, so the doctors did not give permission to compete, she will not be able to participate in the final,” said her coach Alexei Vasilevsky.
Yablokov, who underwent surgery on his leg in August, had an aggravation of the injury.
He had to interrupt training and go to rehabilitation, but the measures were insufficient - in mid-February, his mentor Victoria Butsaeva announced that she would miss the upcoming championship.
Two more skaters decided to apply due to their suboptimal physical form.
Gleb Lutfullin did not study for a long time due to illness, and Mikhail Kolyada is going through a protracted crisis.
He, like Trusova, missed the Russian Championship in Krasnoyarsk and has recently been skating only in shows.
On this occasion, he is often criticized: they say he made the wrong choice between sports and performances.
But, according to Tatyana Mishina, Mikhail is simply a maximalist and therefore refuses to compete in tournaments with a lightweight program, and a full-fledged rental with quads is not pulling yet.
Therefore, Alexei Mishin even asked Ilya Averbukh to include his ward on the tour before the New Year, when he withdrew from the Russian championship.
“Just Alexey Nikolaevich asked me to support him and take him to performances.
<...> So that he does not vegetate, because he can’t get in shape due to a series of illnesses, ”said Averbukh.
A deplorable situation has developed in ice dancing.
After the December national championship, two strong couples broke up at once - first Annabel Morozov and David Narizhny broke up, and after that Irina Khavronina refused to work together with Dario Chirizano and paired up with Narizhny.
Another duet - Alexandra Kravchenko and Alexander Shustitsky - withdrew from the competition due to an aggravation of the partner's injury.
And the newly-baked champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Yegor Bazin, as it turned out, did not plan to participate in the final stage of the Grand Prix at all.
Not without failures among sports couples.
Ekaterina Chikmareva and Matvey Yanchenkov performed on two fronts throughout the season - both for adults and juniors - and they preferred to hold the final among their age group.
Apparently, they decided to add another victory to their piggy bank, because at the recent junior national championship they confidently became champions.
However, despite all the losses, the competition in St. Petersburg is expected to be very high, because the main leaders of the season are in the ranks.
Among the girls, Kamila Valieva, Sofya Akatieva, Sofya Muravyova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Sofya Samodelkina will compete for the victory.
In men, the top 5 of the Russian championship - Evgeny Semenenko, Petr Gumennik, Alexander Samarin, Dmitry Aliev and Artyom Kovalev - will be supplemented by ex-European champion Mark Kondratyuk, who has healed a back injury.
In pairs, all the strongest will also take to the ice - Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky, Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov, Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, as well as Yasmina Kadyrova and Valery Kolesov, who are stepping on their heels.
Of course, Russian champions will be missed in dancing, but Vasilisa Kaganovskaya and Valery Angelopol, who conquered the audience in the fall, will present their programs.
The guys, due to the illness of their partner, could not compete with Khudaiberdiyeva and Bazin in Krasnoyarsk, and now they are probably eager to show themselves in all their glory.
The winners of the Chechen Republic Elizaveta Shanaeva and Pavel Drozd, as well as Elizaveta Pasechnik and Maxim Nekrasov are also ready to fight them.
Tatyana Tarasova noted that the level of the tournament would not fall due to the absence of a number of athletes, because the line-up is already “very beautiful” and worthy.
And it's hard to disagree with the famous coach.