The main question that most domestic experts have been asking on the sidelines for the past year is how soon the athletes who have already passed a year in isolation from the “rest of the world” will return to the cage and in what condition.
In this context, a rather fundamental point has gone by the wayside: namely, that skaters will have to return (regardless of when exactly this happens) in an extremely truncated format, having one quota in each of the four disciplines.
And the battle to become at the right time that “one”, whatever one may say, is already underway.
The dance tournament of the Grand Prix Final, compared with the other three, could be considered nothing more than a warm-up, anticipating the most important matches of Sunday.
But it suddenly ended with a sensation: the victory of the debutants of the adult season Vasilisa Kaganovskaya and Valery Angelopol.
Perhaps the battle for the championship could be aggravated by the participation of the country's champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdiyeva and Yegor Bazin in the competition, but with the same probability one can assume otherwise.
Namely, that Lisa, who is experiencing a whole range of psychological problems this season, would once again be incapable of an unmistakable performance, respectively, the duet risked losing.
In dancing, defeats are dangerous because even once you fall to the second position, you may never rise to the first.
In this sense, it is absolutely impossible to overestimate the significance of the victory of Kaganovskaya and Angelopol.
Not to say that such a result was completely unpredictable.
The rhythm dance was left in St. Petersburg for Elizaveta Shanaeva and Pavel Drozd, but the microscopic, 0.45 points, advantage of these dancers over Vasilisa and Valery said that any little thing in the final performance could lead to castling.
What happened: Anzhelika Krylova's wards were the first to skate their production to the music of Vangelis, earning 122.70 - a grandiose amount that could well allow them to become third at the last European Championship.
And it is quite possible to say that following the results of the final start of the season, Kaganovskaya and Angelopol finish the season with the first pair of the country.
The women's competition began with an unsuccessful attempt by Sofia Samodelkina to cope with a quadruple salchow in a free program.
Having fallen on the first attempt, the athlete went to the salchow again, and fell again.
Was the game worth the candle?
Definitely yes: right now in women's single skating, older skaters are fighting to remain among the leaders, while maintaining ultra-si.
That is, the ability to perform quadruple jumps.
And for this they need to jump in competitions.
The question of who exactly on Sunday will emerge from the battle with the quads the least injured was the main intrigue of the women's tournament.
And at the same time, he suggested that the removal of Russian figure skaters from international starts could hit women's single skating most hard: the gold-bearing and not implying too long career system built by Eteri Tutberidze least of all implies the option of being paused for an indefinite period.
Perhaps that is why, for the first time in many years, women's competitions were inferior in intensity to what was happening on the men's ice and in the sports couples tournament.
The short program was left on Saturday for the tiniest of the participants, Adelia Petrosyan, who showed her best performance.
But the question immediately arose: where is the guarantee that this athlete will be able to withstand more than a season in adult skating, if Akatieva does not always cope with this task due to injuries?
But it was Sophia who most recently predicted the status of Valieva's successor.
That's why I wanted to understand, first of all, which of the adult participants in the final can be capable of a long-term, and at the same time stable career in terms of competition.
According to the results of the first group of participants, the best result was shown by the St. Petersburg single skater Ksenia Gushchina, but it was clear that the real struggle for the women's podium had not even begun yet.
In the strongest six, the aforementioned Akatieva made a very powerful bid for victory, performing four ultra-si at the box office at once: two triple axels and two quadruple toe loops.
The second of these jumps did not work out very well for Sofia (she did not fall, but she did not really save the landing), but this did not stop the skater from scoring 90.34 points for technique and leading the protocol with a total of 241.09 for two programs.
Sofya Muravyova, like Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, limited themselves in their application to a slightly simpler jump set compared to the representatives of Khrustalny - they included two triple axels in their programs.
However, Muravyova did not go for the second triple axel, which immediately affected the technical amount.
In the mixed zone, however, Sofia did not look upset.
“There was no second trixel, there are reasons for this.
I'm having leg problems again.
These are old problems.
Plus, I also got sick ... But I’m glad I didn’t give up, ”the figure skater explained.
In the free skate, Evgeni Plushenko’s ward lost not only to Akatieva, but also to Gorbacheva (the junior, as promised, presented two quadruple salchows to the public, thanks to which she “gnawed” 0.06 points from Muravyova).
But then events began that deserve a separate scenario and separate compliments.
Valieva, whose every start this season is perceived as an incredible overcoming of herself and her own abilities, lost 1.90 points to Akatieva, although it would seem that Sophia should remain inaccessible in terms of the complexity of her free program.
Accordingly, according to the sum of the two programs, Camila became the leader.
She also became the first of the adult figure skaters who managed to perfectly perform two quadruple jumps.
And it looked like a much more significant achievement than the incredible, but still junior difficulty that Petrosyan demonstrates this season.
No less sensational was the performance of Tuktamysheva.
At the age of 26, Liza is having one of the best seasons in her career, which was confirmed by the final start.
In free skating, the figure skater showed the fourth result and won bronze, ahead of Akatieva in the sum of two programs by 0.52.
Petrosyan emerged victorious from this fight.
She coped with the flip, which did not work on the rollout, then with the sheepskin coat in the cascade.
The third quadruple jump was performed with a step-out, and Adelia generally fell from the triple axel, but the total technical amount was more than enough to get ahead of Valieva, Tuktamysheva and Akatieva (the trio finished within the interval of 0.67 points), even with adjustment for a low second estimate.
The tournament of sports couples came down to the usual confrontation between Alexandra Boikova - Dmitry Kozlovsky, Evgenia Tarasova - Vladimir Morozov and Anastasia Mishina - Alexander Gallyamov (in this order, the duets settled down after the performance of short programs).
They all had a great season and, of course, were filled with the desire to put a beautiful end to the Grand Prix final.
A nostalgic touch to what was happening was given by the fact that for Tarasova and Morozov the start in St. Petersburg would most likely be the last in their careers.
The couple spent the post-Olympic season on some decline, although, perhaps, such an impression was formed not at all because Evgenia and Vladimir began to lose ground.
Just noticeably added their rivals.
The final rental from Tarasova and Morozov did not work out.
Vladimir doubled the first jump, Zhenya fell from the second, then landed on two feet from the ejection.
Against the background of the absolutely flawless performance of Mishina and Gallyamov, the mistakes of the most experienced of the Russian couples looked especially depressing.
In general, the competition turned into another grandiose triumph for the coaching staff of Tamara Moskvina: the free program remained with the ex-world champions, and the former European champions won the highest award with an advantage of less than a point.
Kozlovsky called his result a victory of willpower over probability.
According to the skater, the final stage of preparation for the tournament turned out to be too difficult to be sure of success.
So the victory happened rather in spite of.
It is interesting that the battle of these athletes next season promises to become even more spectacular and intense.
In order to get busy with new productions as soon as possible, Alexandra and Dmitry did not even apply for participation in the show programs tournament.
And if now the rivalry between the two St. Petersburg couples fits into the wording "Moskvina's headquarters against Moskvina's headquarters", then next season, "Krylova against Krylova" will be added as an additional emphasis to this: it is this specialist who will become the author of the short program of Mishina and Gallyamov and the free program - Boikova and Kozlovsky.
The men's competitions became the only type of program where skaters from the first warm-up could well intervene in the distribution of awards - the difference in points after the short program completely allowed this.
Dmitry Aliyev was the first to apply for a return to the elite.
He received almost “cosmic” 195.90 points for his rental, just at the moment when the ratings lit up on the scoreboard, no one could have imagined that this particular performance would become the biggest sensation of the tournament.
The entire current season has become extremely interesting for the guys in terms of the variety of performances, but the entire first men's warm-up (as well as similar ones in the three previous types) nevertheless suggested that, in relation to the Grand Prix finals, it might be more correct to reduce the number of participants.
Limit yourself to the strongest "six", as is done in the Grand Prix finals at the international level.
This was supported by the fact that, with the exception of Aliyev, neither Alexander Samarin, nor Artur Danielyan, nor Andrey Mozalev managed to avoid serious mistakes and thereby globally improve his tournament position, although the former tried very hard.
He indicated his intentions with a magnificent cascade with a quadruple lutz, but in the second part of the program he performed double “butterflies” twice, after which all hopes for success went to dust.
On the other hand, Aliyev greatly embellished the competition, spinning the entire male plot with his performance.
In the final group, Ivan Popov (35.69 behind), Artyom Kovalev (51.21) failed to surpass the leader’s result in turn, and then the reigning national champion Evgeny Semenenko also fell victim to the quadruple sheepskin coat: even a huge , almost 14 points advantage earned in the short program.
The second of the students of Evgeny Rukavitsyn, Makar Ignatov, followed the example of Dmitry all-in, but outwitted himself: in pursuit of maximum complexity, he lost his calculations, repeated the triple axel twice, although the program had already made one repetition allowed by the rules, as a result, Makar flew away in the free program to the sixth position.
When more than a dozen applicants apply for a place on the pedestal, there will always be someone who will allow a minimum of blots.
This role in the strongest group was taken by Peter Gumennik.
And, as it turned out, he was the only one, besides Aliyev, who coped with the final performance without errors, although with a number of light blots.
The current season has become, perhaps, the key one in his career for a student of Victoria Daineko: Gumennik is remembered not only for his complexity and stability, but for his ability to build an incredibly clear strategy for his own performances.
Compared to the December championship of Russia, Peter eased the complexity of the free program by almost three points, rightly believing that it makes no sense to take the maximum risk in the current situation.
This tactic brought the athlete the title of champion.
The final rental of Mark Kondratyuk turned out to be far from being as high-quality as the short one, and turned out to be only a bronze award for the skater.
However, against the background of all the previous problems of the winner of the Olympic team tournament in Beijing, the main of which was a serious back injury, the performance in St. Petersburg can be regarded as an absolute achievement.