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The second European Championship ended in Kaunas, which was formally held without the Russians, but in reality – with them, but speaking for other countries. It became another excellent illustration of what awaits Russian figure skaters who are eager to change the national team, as well as those who do not change it and wait until they return to the international arena. Neither one nor the other will be greeted with flowers.
The path to a dead end
A little less than two years ago, Maria Pavlova and Alexey Svyatchenko paired up under the leadership of Dmitry Savin and Fedor Klimov on the ice rinks of the Olympic Park in Sochi. The hit turned out to be successful – the partners suited each other perfectly and after just a few months of joint training and performances they were selected to participate in the European Championship.
Pavlova and Svyatchenko went to Finland for Euro 2023 to represent Hungary. By the time the duet was formed, the partner was already a citizen of this country, and the decision to represent the Hungarian flag seemed quite logical – especially taking into account the removal of the Russian team. However, despite the clean performances of the two programs, the new Hungarians remained only fifth. At the same time, losing to those who, figuratively speaking (although in reality, in reality), were picking the ice – two Italian couples and one German.
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“For me, at the box office, Maria and Alexey champions,” he said then in a commentary for Klimov. “I think the grades are not the ones they deserve.”
But experts working with figure skaters explained that the judges' skepticism towards them was more due to the fact that debutants are always perceived with caution. “It is clear that they are a new couple, unknown to anyone, such arrogant upstarts,” Savin noted in an interview. “They represent a country that does not have much authority in figure skating. But we have this path, and we are following it. And we understand that Only with pure performance and arrogance can we take ours.”
Well, a year has passed, and we have to admit that while following this path, Pavlova and Svyatchenko continue to run up against the stubbornness of the judges, who categorically do not want to give them normal grades. At the second European Championship in a row, based on the quality of their performances, the Russian Hungarians deserve gold, but are left empty-handed. And the highest-ranking medals will again go to Italy in 2024. This country was once considered an analogue of football Malta in pairs skating, but the purge of Russians from this sport has led to the fact that it is now the elite in Europe. The last word, of course, should be in quotation marks.
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“If last year I said that for me Maria and Alexey are champions, now I will say that for all objective reasons, that is, according to the rules of the ISU (International Skating Union), they should be in first place,” Klimov, Olympic champion in Sochi, in 2024, he strengthened the rhetoric of 2023. – In no way do I belittle the merits of other athletes, especially with Matteo Guarise (he became a champion in tandem with Lucrezia Beccari – editor's note) we have been friends for a long time, and I am very happy for him “, he walked for a long time towards this success, but objectively others were stronger. Perhaps, according to the final table, it will seem that this European Championship was a triumph of Italian pair skating, but in fact this is also not the case.”
This fact is noteworthy: the European Championship gold was taken by a couple that has existed for approximately the same amount of time as the duo of Pavlova and Svyatchenko, that is, less than two years. This, at a minimum, suggests that the reasons for the judicial lawlessness in relation to the Russian Hungarians may not lie at all in their little experience of skating together. Namely, if we say directly what everyone is thinking about – in their origin.
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“I would really like to think that this is not so, but, however, the judges themselves suggest such thoughts,” Klimov admitted, answering the question of whether he allows discrimination on the basis of nationality. “If you analyze the assessments in detail, they will not stand up to any criticism. There is no difference of six points (between Pavlova/Svyatchenko and other leading pairs) in components, I can say this both as a specialist and as a person who is not the first day in figure skating.To state that this is discrimination on some basis , I won’t, but I didn’t see objectivity either.”
“Russophobia has not been canceled”
Well, let's pay attention to women's single skating – a discipline in which the very bright Russian figure skater Anastasia Gubanova competes at the European Championships under the flag of Georgia for the third year in a row. Gubanova made her debut for her new country in the 2021/2022 season in Tallinn, where the Russians were still performing, and there they had not yet paid much attention to the judging in her regard, although it was already possible – Gubanova’s components began to be cut mercilessly immediately after her appearance under the Georgian flag.
After the Russian national team was suspended at the 2023 European Championships in Finland, Gubanova won a victory that warmed the souls of many of our fans – Nastya continues to live and train in St. Petersburg with Evgeniy Rukavitsyn, and many remember her bright junior career: she won medals for Russia Grand Prix Final. But, hand on heart, we have to admit that Gubanova became the European champion thanks to the fact that the Belgian Luna Hendricks, who became the main favorite in the continental tournaments, was much more mistaken. The judges had nowhere to go – it was impossible to bring the so-called “sex symbol” of European figure skating to first place with her falls.
At the current European Championships, Hendrix began to hang gold before it even started – ISU posted her photo in the gallery of champions on social networks instead of Gubanova and corrected the mistake only after intervention – no, not from fans in the comments, as many thought, but from completely different people. But the signal was still clear: the Moon would be left without Euro gold only if it lay down on the ice and did not get up.
We must give the Belgian her due: having removed the lion's share of her trademark looseness, she concentrated as much as possible on performing technical elements and, one might say, succeeded in this at least within the bounds of decency. Hendrix did not fall at this European Championships. But the absence of falls does not mean the absence of mistakes – and there were plenty of them in the box office in the form of completely obvious under-rotations on jumps. Needless to say, the referees almost all ignored them – they gave one “quarter” in the short program and one “daw” in the free program. Although in fact there should have been four times more of these symbols. At the same time, they poured in the ingredients from the heart – not to the point at all.
Well, Gubanova, as expected, noted in the protocol all the shortcomings that they could find. As a result, it turned out that instead of gold, based on the results of the best skates in both the short and free programs, Anastasia received only silver. Which did not turn into dust only thanks to the incredible fighting character of the figure skater. There is no doubt that Gubanova would have been kicked out of the top three, as happened at previous tournaments of the season, if she had given even the slightest reason.
The figure skater’s coach did not openly criticize the judges, although in his words there was a hint that he had something to say. In response to the question whether Gubanova deserved gold, Evgeniy Rukavitsyn said: “I am generally satisfied with the result. Somewhere there were nuances or roughness in the short program, but I will not comment deeply, because everyone knows that our sport is very subjective.” .
Well, the specialist’s correctness can be understood – he still has to work with Gubanova in this already unfriendly, to put it mildly, environment. Figure skating is a sport where there are plenty of mechanisms to remove an unwanted athlete or a student of an unwanted coach. In addition to the notorious components, there are allowances for the execution of elements (GOE), and with the current procedures in the ISU, which do not provide for filing any appeals against refereeing, it is almost impossible to combat the lawlessness of the referees in any other way than to play by their rules.
There is, of course, one more trick that coaches of the old Russian school like to talk about – to be two heads taller than your competitors. But this is not given to everyone. And, most importantly, if you are not superior to your opponent by an order of magnitude, this does not mean at all that the judges can do with you as they please. The rules must be followed. And if they are not observed, then there is some reason why this is happening.
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“In my opinion, Gubanova was the best at the European Championships, and Hendrix had a lot of shortcomings. But everything was charged for her,” Honored Coach of Russia Alexander Zhulin called a spade a spade in a commentary. “The judges turned a blind eye to the mistakes of Hendrix, plus Gubanova – the surname is “not very good.” No one has canceled Russophobia.”
At the same time, Zhulin recalled the reason why Gubanova changed the flag – she had no chance of getting into the top three in Russia. “It’s difficult to evaluate, of course, but if you compare Adelia Petrosyan’s skating at the victorious Russian championship and Gubanova’s, then I think the difference would be 30-40 points,” the specialist noted.
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But here it is important to remember that the assessments of Petrosyan, like other Russian figure skaters, when they are finally allowed to perform on the international stage, will be subject to “deflation”. Let's say directly what we see with our own eyes – figure skaters who have a real connection to Russia are being “strangled”, and it is quite obvious that the lifting of sanctions, which is still far beyond the horizon, will not change this situation in any way.
Bridges are already burning down
On the other hand, after the last European Championship I just want to say – do we really need it? If we abstract from the status of this tournament and remove the loud name, then the essence will remain in the form of 95% of absolutely worthless skaters who will yield to any, even the weakest, participants in the Russian Grand Prix. The leaders of the December Russian Championship would have taken at least 11 out of 12 medals at this so-called European Championship.
Actually, this is why the ISU does not allow ours. So maybe if they ignore us, shouldn't we take the path of ignoring them? Even before the sanctions, many experts said that the International Skating Union was in crisis. Among others, its main manifestations are precisely the suboptimal formula for holding the World and European Championships, which unite both elite athletes and almost beginners, as well as callous and biased refereeing.
Here is the opinion of the European and World Championships medalist Povilas Vanagas, expressed in an interview. “We watch the World and European Championships and see girls or boys who, perhaps, do not perform quadruples, but do amazing programs in choreography and skating skills that give you goosebumps – and suddenly this is not noticeable in the ratings at all. And then “Buratins” come out, some robots, jump and get huge points. This is a nightmare for us,” he noted. “Of course, there are unique skaters who jump and show interesting programs, but this is more an exception to the rule. And we have always said: in order to get rid of this trouble from the ISU, we need an alternative federation. Or even several federations. So that athletes can choose whether to compete under the auspices of the ISU or some other federation, where there are other rules, other priorities in evaluations.”
So, at a historical moment when the ISU is canceling Russian figure skating, shouldn’t Russia lead those who want to cancel the ISU? In an era of global changes both in geopolitics and in sports, what is stopping us from uniting all those who want to see not total stumbling at the main tournaments, but high-quality skating and, as a result, exciting competition at the highest level? Over the past two years, our federation has organized a lot of interesting tournaments with various formats, which have attracted enormous attention from the audience, sponsors, and the figure skating stars themselves. Maybe it's time to take them to the international level?
Of course, there are a lot of pitfalls on this path. But one of them was recently removed – the European Court banned the punishment of athletes for participating in competitions that are not recognized by the ISU. Using the example of speed skating, a precedent was created that, naturally, also applies to figure skaters. So now you can at least try to take the initiative into your own hands. Yes, everyone won’t come to us right away. But, I think, we will not be left without stars who want to compete with the best, and not be the first guys in their villages.
On a global scale, in fact, only one thing can hinder us – excessive conservatism and We already have reverence for the ISU, which is visible in some statements of our leaders of this sport, apparently not wanting to completely burn bridges. But if you open your eyes and look at things without rose-colored glasses, it will become obvious that these bridges were set on fire by the ISU itself. And they are already burning out.
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