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Russian Figure Skating Championships started with ice dancing and immediately became mired in controversy and bewilderment . Sports tell you what it's all about.
In terms of media weight, ice dancing is usually underestimated. But in vain – in terms of scandals, news stories and sometimes even in performance, in comparison with other types of dances, dances are sometimes far superior not only to pair skating and men's singles competitions, but even women's singles. What just recently would have sounded like nonsense, but now sounds like an impending reality. Still, of course, not yet fully advanced, but looming more and more clearly on the horizon.
So the Russian Championship in Chelyabinsk did not start with a discussion of the luxurious (although today, to be honest, not very much) men's skates and not from the everyday furor in couples, but from ice dancing with its ambiguous tendency in evaluation. Even before the start of the tournament, the General Director of the FFKKR Alexander Kogan announced “objective judging”, and it seems that the dancers are still feeling it to the greatest extent.
The fact is that the ratings of the season's leaders suddenly stopped growing sharply, and in some places even went into the minus at comparable rentals. An unspoken, but not particularly hidden tradition of judging domestic tournaments is that the scores reach their peak for the Russian Championship, even if the athletes’ form and the depth of their programs do not really correspond to such generous assessments. The tournament takes place on New Year's Eve, a festive mood is in the air, and the judges seem to want to turn on their inner Santa Claus at this moment and give generous gifts to those who behaved well.
But this year, traditional values in figure skating are under threat. It’s incredible, but true – none of our leading duets’ scores increased on the first day of the Russian Championship. Even Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin, who are usually diplomatic and streamlined when communicating with the press, this time noted the refereeing anomaly – they say that at the last national championship we received more than 88 points, and now suddenly 86. Although even in the current season at the Grand Prix stages They have had Russia at 87. “I want to grow,” said Alexandra with a soft smile and carefully hidden disappointment in her voice.
Last year's national champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva/Egor Bazin even tried to outdo Stepanova/Bukin in diplomacy. Egor said that minus one point to their best result of the season does not bother him, he needs to look at the printouts. But Elizabeth restrained herself in front of journalists with a noticeable effort: “I can say something now, of course. But Yegor is already pinching me in every possible way. Therefore, it seems, you want to express something, and then you think, “Yes **** * (why) is it necessary?”.
The results of the bronze medalists of the last Russian Championship Elizaveta Shanaeva/Pavel Drozd have also gone down. And, it seems, for everyone in general – except for the debutants of the adult level Sofia Leontyeva/Daniil Gorelkin , who immediately climbed to intermediate third place. It seems that the federation deliberately wanted to support the young guys, and the rest…
Here, on the contrary, there was the opposite feeling – as if the leadership of the FFKKR began to receive signals that the situation regarding admission to international competitions in the near future is no longer so hopeless. This means that everyone who can show at least some result “there” here and now must begin to be brought to their senses, so that later it will not be, as they say, excruciatingly painful. Because even Stepanova and Bukin, receiving points at the Russian Championship higher than second place in the international Grand Prix final, with overly loyal internal judging during the “coming out”, risk facing such a powerful wave of disappointment that no breakwater can handle it. So it’s better to start extinguishing all these waves in the bud.
At this stage, all this is just fantasy and speculation, of course. But if suddenly they receive real confirmation, then the federation can be praised for such a step. There is no question here, the work is competent and far-sighted, and this is obvious even to those who observe what is happening from the outside.
But they are there. Why? The question has an asterisk, but purely as an assumption, the “scandalous” reputation of the partner comes up, although she has not done anything particularly scandalous. A couple of years ago she gave a loud interview in which she did not humiliate or insult anyone – she simply said that yes, there are behind-the-scenes judging games in our dances. Yes, coaches sometimes “put” their less experienced pairs under titled competitors in order to bargain for extra points for the leaders of their groups. And yes, for a young dancer to wallow in all this is harmful to the psyche and self-esteem.
But for some reason the federation did not like Sophia’s sincere speech very much at the time. And even in the fall, when a new interview with the guys was being recorded, the question was asked, as if by chance – are you even ready to be “choked” at competitions for what you said?
Sofia then answered, that she had nothing to fear anymore. But fears seem to be coming true in one form or another. And if suddenly in a free dance during the skate without catastrophic mistakes they again fly into the abyss, each of us will have to ask ourselves the question:
Do we really want people to be punished for telling the truth?
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