Translated material
Didn't slide like a child
Young debutants distinguished themselves at the first stage of the Grand Prix
The opening stage of the Grand Prix brought the Russian team one prize. Series debutants Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov won awards in pair skating. In total, figure skaters from seven countries took part in the division of four sets of awards; most of the rounds went to the hosts of the competition. The Americans won four medals - two gold, a silver and a bronze. Japan (gold and silver) and Canada (gold and bronze) have two medals each, and the Chinese (silver), the French (silver) and the Italians (bronze) have one each. .It is premature to draw any conclusions after the first stage of the Grand Prix, since many athletes are actually presenting new programs to the audience and judges for the first time, which will undergo serious modifications and even alterations as the season progresses. Let us confine ourselves to stating that for the Russian team of 2007, a bronze medal in pairs skating is an undoubted success.
With the departure of Olympic champions Tatyana Totmyanina and Maxim Marinin from amateur sports, the Russians have a gap in this form of figure skating, which was successfully filled last season by Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov. Now young athletes have come to their aid. In January next year, Vera Bazarova will turn 15 years old, her partner Yuri Larionov will be 21 years old. In the last two seasons, at the stages of the junior Grand Prix series, the skaters twice won prizes, won the tournament in Sheffield and were silver medalists at the World Junior Championships. The couple trains with Lyudmila Kalinina in Perm. And this is one of the few geographical names on the map of Russia where the traditions of pair skating are still preserved along with the two capitals - St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Bazarov and Larionov skated both programs - short (“Love Story” by Francis Lay) and free program (music for the film “Eragon”) cleanly and confidently. However, in the current situation, in order to move forward, athletes will have to make them more difficult. According to another Russian coach, Tamara Moskvina, this is exactly the path all Russian couples have to go through in order to move up the hierarchical ladder and take their rightful places. There is not much time left before the Olympics in Vancouver, which will be held in 2010, and, therefore, this process needs to be accelerated, which, on the other hand, entails negative aspects. Any complication of programs is fraught with injuries to athletes.
At the next stage of the Grand Prix, which will be held this weekend in Canada, Moskvina's students will perform - Japanese Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov. In their free program, set to the music “Love Story,” they included an ultra-B element - a quadruple throw, which the athletes performed well at the recent skate in Novogorsk. The plot of this program is also curious: the dancers are rehearsing in the ballet hall, between whom feelings flare up. “We tried to expand the scope of the theme stated in the title. This is the mutual sympathy of two young people, and the love of ballet, and the love of the Japanese figure skater for Russia. In short, everyone in this program will see what is closest to them,” explained Tamara Moskvina.
By the way, the last stage of the Grand Prix showed that in the pursuit of complexity, the themes of the programs as such did not just fade into the background, they were not traced at all. Solid sets of complex elements, connections, steps, in which artistry and emotional component are lost. Even original elements do not eliminate this feeling. Of the three dance duets that shared the medals in Reading, only the free dance of the bronze medalists of the 2007 World Championships and the winners of the last stage of the Americans Tanit Belban and Benjamin Agosto, set to the music of Franz Liszt, really corresponded to what is meant by the traditions of figure skating. Similar programs of two other duets - the French Nathalie Pechalat - Fabien Bourzat (silver) and the Italians Federic Faiella - Massimo Scali (bronze) were more interesting from a technical point of view. Russian dancers Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer, despite obvious progress, finished the stage in eighth place.
In single skating, Russians Alexandra Ievleva and Andrey Lutai are listed seventh in the final protocols. The women's tournament was won by American Kimmy Meissner, who, compared to last season, has changed so much in appearance that she is hardly recognizable. 2007 world champion Miki Ando from Japan won silver, losing not so much to her opponent as to herself. This is already the second award at the Grand Prix stage for Russian coach Nikolai Morozov, who has been working with Japanese athletes for several years. The day before, his student Daisuke Takahashi won the men's tournament. The bronze medal went to world junior champion Caroline Zhang. The Chinese woman, born in Boston, shocked the audience with her “non-childish” skating, although she turned 15 in May of this year.