Translated material
Deputy Plushenko
Frenchman Brian Joubert became world champion for the first time
At the World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo, Frenchman Brian Joubert won gold for the first time in his career, scoring 240.85 points. The silver medalist was Japanese Daikushi Takahashi with a score of 237.95. Bronze went to Swiss Stefan Lambiel, who lost to the Japanese by more than four points. Russian singles skaters Sergei Voronov and Andrey Lutai finished their performances in Tokyo in 19th and 20th places.Few doubted that it was the French figure skater, two-time European champion, who would win the championship title at the 2007 championship. This season, the 23-year-old native of Poitiers has not lost a single tournament in which he took part. Joubert won two stages of the Grand Prix, the final of the championship series, the European Championships in Warsaw, and at the end of the season he took the championship title from its two-time winner Stephane Lambiel from Switzerland. In the history of French figure skating, Joubert became the second skater to win this title. For the first time this championship title was brought to France by Alain Calmat in 1965.
Taking advantage of the temporary absence of Evgeni Plushenko, who may yet return to amateur ice, it was Joubert who took the place of leader in men's single skating, the most technical of the four, which dictates the fashion for all figure skating. Singles programs are a kind of standard for others, since they are the most technically complex.
However, if the Russian school of figure skating was distinguished by the fact that technique and artistry were considered an inextricable whole, then Joubert decided to follow a different path. The barrage of criticism that fell upon the athlete after the Olympics in Turin, where Joubert, contrary to promises, only came sixth, only provoked him and added motivation. Having confessed to the fans in his autobiographical book “Fire on Ice,” Joubert gained serious motivation. Together with the new coach Jean-Christophe Simon, the skater relied exclusively on technique, more precisely, quadruple jumps. At the Grand Prix stage in Moscow, in the free program, he performed three different jumps with four rotations. Apart from the Frenchman, no one dared to do this this season.
On the one hand, Joubert can be reproached for his lack of artistry. The skater’s former choreographer Nikolai Morozov once said that working with a skater is extremely difficult, in the sense that classical programs absolutely do not suit him. On the other hand, Joubert is one of the few athletes who consistently performs difficult jumps. The new rules of the International Skating Union (ISU) mean that the base cost of other elements is effectively equal to the jumps, so to avoid mistakes, many athletes prefer to perform simpler jumps.
Something similar was observed at the World Championships in Tokyo. Apparently, looking at his opponents, Joubert also decided not to take risks. In the free program, he performed only one quadruple jump and seven triple jumps, and this circumstance dropped him to third place. However, in the sum of two programs - free (157.21) and short (83.64), in which Joubert was in the lead, he was ahead of the rest of his competitors. “I was confident in my own abilities and could not lose,” admitted the newly crowned champion after the competition.
One of his main rivals, Swiss Stephane Lambiel, won a bronze medal. There was no award of this value in his collection. However, Lambiel regarded third place as an undoubted success. For various reasons, he missed the entire current season with the exception of one Grand Prix stage, where he became first.
The favorite of the local public, Daisuke Takahashi, became the silver medalist of the championship for the first time in his career. Previously, at the world championships, Takahashi took 11th place in 2004, and two years ago he was 15th. However, it was this skater who was singled out from the general cohort by Russian coach Alexei Mishin. “This guy, unlike the others, chose the right direction,” says the Russian professor. Unfortunately, so far neither Mishin’s student Andrei Lutai, nor his student Alexei Urmanov’s mentee Sergei Voronov have been able to please the fans with their results.