Translated material
Japanese premiere
A figure skater from the Land of the Rising Sun brought an award to Russia for the first time
Four medals - two silver and the same number of bronze - were won by Russian figure skaters at the Grand Prix stage in Moscow. The best results were shown by dancers Oksana Domnina - Maxim Shabalin, as well as sports couple Maria Petrova - Alexey Tikhonov. The bronze medalists of the Moscow tournament were Ilya Klimkin and series debutants Yuko Kawaguchi - Alexander Smirnov.After winning the Chinese Grand Prix, the second place of Domnina and Shabalin can be regarded as a defeat. Moreover, in Moscow, after the compulsory dance, Alexei Gorshkov’s students were in the lead, leaving behind their main rivals, the Americans Tanit Belban and Benjamin Agosto. The castling took place after the original dance, at the beginning of which Shabalin fell while performing a twizzle. “What happened happened—a fall,” the partner commented on what happened. “This has never happened to me in competitions, and I hope it never will.” According to Shabalin, it was especially difficult for him to skate after such a mistake, because he was consciously afraid of making mistakes. The fall of their partner dropped the Russian duo to third place, and only after the free dance, which they won, did the Russians manage to rise to second place in the sum of three programs, gaining 185.34 points. The winners of the tournament were the Americans Belban-Agosto (186.33). Third - the French Isabelle Delobel - Olivier Schonfelder (183.53).
Commenting on the results of the dancers’ competition, the coach of the American duo, Igor Shpilband, said that “the first Russian couple has improved a lot this year. In the skating of Domnina and Shabalin, we can feel progress in everything - in technique, artistry.” And the mentor of several foreign dance couples, Nikolai Morozov, added that “Domnina and Shabalin skated very well. No one can explain why the partner fell. Perhaps it was influenced by the fact that the skaters began to compete with the leading couples at the same level. And for now it is psychologically difficult for them. It takes some getting used to. But the progress of the Russian couple is obvious.”
The silver medal in pair skating was won by Russians Maria Petrova - Alexey Tikhonov, who scored 178.03 points in the sum of two programs. Lyudmila Velikova's students lost just one point to the German pair Alena Savchenko and Robin Zhelkov, who added Moscow's gold to the bronze in Nanjing. After the competition, Alexey Tikhonov said that he and Maria needed to complicate their programs and try to avoid mistakes. In the free program, Tikhonov fell on the triple sheepskin coat, missed the exit on the second jump - the double sheepskin coat, the partners also separated during the rotation and did not meet the musical segment of the “Moonlight Sonata”.
True, the Germans were not flawless in their free program performance. Savchenko did a double sheepskin coat instead of a triple one, touched the ice with her other foot during the throw-out, and her partners made mistakes in rotation. “We don’t have enough time to “clean out” all the elements,” admitted Savchenko. “But I think these are the best programs we’ve ever done.”
The third prize-winners of the sports pairs tournament were Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov. In the free program to the music of Saint-Saëns, they actually made no mistakes, except for the fact that during the release the partner touched the ice with her hand, and then the rotations were “blurred”. Otherwise, the debutants of the series were in no way inferior to their experienced opponents. This was confirmed by the fact that Tamara Moskvina’s students bypassed the strong Polish couple Dorota and Mariusz Zydek, who were located behind them.
After the end of the competition, Yuko stated that her main goal was to go to the Olympics in Vancouver and in order to achieve this she was ready to change her citizenship. “I would like to make a request to the Prime Minister of Japan that, as an exception, I be allowed to have dual citizenship. This will be the best option,” Yuko said. According to the athlete, who speaks good Russian, she has been visiting Japan for the last eight years. “All my friends are in Russia, and I have absolutely no fear living here,” she admitted. Yuko's parents treated their daughter's decision with understanding. Mom teaches English, dad is a businessman.
The Japanese woman has been skating with her current partner Alexander Smirnov for five months. Before that, I tried with an American, but came to the conclusion that the Russian figure skating school is the best in the world. The figure skater calls Moskvina mom. And Yuko is not afraid of the loads that the coach offers.
In recent years, they have been training with Smirnov at the same skating rink. And when they first became a couple, Alexandra’s mother said that the guys looked good together. “My parents didn’t figure skating, but they loved the sport,” said Alexander. - Mom is a volleyball player, dad is a hockey player. But not only my mother played a role in the formation of our couple. I saw what Yuko did with her American partner, what ultra-si elements she did, and this captivated me. In the near future we plan to master a complex element that she has already done - a quadruple throw.” In modern figure skating, only a few perform this.
The second sensation of the Moscow stage was the victory of the Frenchman Brian Joubert. According to the sum of the two programs, he scored 237.83 points and was almost 40 points ahead of his closest pursuer, American Johnny Weir. This is the Frenchman's second consecutive victory at the Grand Prix this season. In his free program, Joubert performed three quadruple jumps, and now he plans to master the flip, along with the Salchow and sheepskin coat, in order to demonstrate various elements of this level. According to Joubert, the main reason for his transformation was his collaboration with a new team - coach Jean-Christophe Simon and choreographer Kurt Browning. “I myself turned to Simon for help. And now I can confidently say that this is the coach I’ve been waiting for a long time and who I need,” said the Frenchman.
His opponent, American Johnny Weir, was unable to perform all the stated jumps. But he was pleased with his collaboration with the new choreographer Marina Anisina. The skater believes that working with Marina is incredibly interesting. “When everything works out for us, I call her Goddess. When not, then Genoy is like a crocodile from the cartoon about Cheburashka.” According to Weir, Anisina supported him in the most difficult moments of his life and instilled confidence in him, infecting him with her energy and performance, for which the athlete is very grateful to her.
The best Russian figure skater Ilya Klimkin earned his first bronze this season and looked much better than at the tournament in Paris a week ago. He performed quadruples without mistakes, but then he was simply not enough in the free program. “I was tired and made ridiculous mistakes,” Klimkin said. Sergey Dobrin, the winner of the stage in Paris, this time became eighth, following Andrey Gryazev. Dobrina's coach Zhanna Gromova is sure that her ward was simply burned out and could not cope with nervous tension.
Among the Russian girls, Elena Sokolova had the best result - fourth. The athlete complained that the judges were unfair to her and withheld their scores. After two operations, Victoria Volchkova is still skating through pain, she is eighth. And the programs of stage debutant Arina Martynova, who became seventh, according to her new coach Marina Kudryavtseva, need significant improvement. However, the most unpleasant thing is that none of the Russians made it to the Grand Prix final, which starts on December 15 in St. Petersburg. And this is probably the saddest result of the Moscow competition.