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Russian Jumping Championships among figure skaters will be held in Moscow this coming weekend. Compared to a similar event, the organizers changed the rules. Now, if everything goes smoothly, there will be no need to change the regulations during the tournament, and the confrontation between team captains promises to become fundamental for many years to come.
The jumping tournament was held as a separate competition last year for the first time. Despite the fact that he attracted all the current stars of Russian figure skating, he left an ambivalent impression. On the one hand, the attempt to refresh and enrich the calendar for athletes suspended from international tournaments, and at the same time give them the opportunity to earn money, aroused deep respect. Although, in fact, this is not an invention of modern creative people – jumping tournaments were held 20-25 years ago and even had international status. But is it in vain that there is a saying that everything new is well forgotten old.
However, the regulations of the first Russian jumping championship turned out to be so “crude” that they changed the rules right during the tournament. So, in the team competition in the final round they suddenly decided to play for double points – but this, however, did not help Eteri Tutberidze’s team catch up with Evgeni Plushenko’s team, which won. In the individual tournament, not everything was smooth either – Kamila Valieva and Grigory Fedorov won, in fact, thanks to one jump: the first constantly performed a quadruple toe loop, the second – a quadruple lutz. Finally, a super final was supposed to take place between them, but they decided to cancel it.
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“It’s better to give flowers to girls, rather than compete with them,” admitted Fedorov, who presented the Olympic champion with a bouquet.
The second national jumping championship was supposed to be held at the same time and on the same dates as the first – that is, in early December in St. Petersburg. However, for an officially unspoken reason (unofficially – due to the busyness of the Yubileiny Sports Palace), the competition was moved to the end of the second ten days of January in Moscow. Perhaps for the better: in December 2022, coaches complained on the sidelines that the jumping tournament was not entirely appropriate on these dates due to the overlap with the preparation cycle for the Russian Championship.
It is already known that Valiev will not defend the champion title. Rumors that the figure skater would withdraw from the jumping tournament began to circulate shortly after the New Year, and on Thursday they materialized in a message from the athlete’s fan group – Kamila will not perform for health reasons. The organizers refused to officially confirm the information, but in the end Valieva herself did it, reposting a post from fans on the social network. As for the reason, it may not lie in a medical plane. Still, the Olympic champion never fully recovered the quadruple sheepskin coat, not to mention the three-and-a-half-turn axel, which she did not try to perform at the tournaments of recent months in principle.
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There are also other losses. In particular, Russian junior champion Alina Gorbacheva announced her withdrawal from the tournament, explaining the decision with a cough and high temperature. Andrey Mozalev, who transferred to Eteri Tutberidze’s group at the beginning of the week, will also not perform at the championship – he, apparently, has no time for it. Alisa Dvoeglazova is missing from the list of qualifying participants. But there is also an acquisition: ex-world champion Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, who missed the first half of the season, will compete in the team tournament.
The final composition of the participants will become clear based on the results of Friday's qualification. The expanded list, which includes more than two dozen skaters for both men and women, should turn into a final list of no more than a dozen in each discipline. As for sports pairs, there are already eight duets in the preliminary composition. According to the regulations, this is how it should be.
There are two main changes to the tournament rules. First, it’s no longer possible to win the individual competition with one jump. In each round, skaters will be required to demonstrate a variety of elements. For example, in the final, those who reach it through the tournament bracket will need to perform two solo jumps, one cascade or one combination of no more than two jumps, as well as one cascade or one combination of no more than five jumps. In this case, the solo jump and the first jump in one of the cascades or combinations must be different. The combination of elements will change from round to round. As before, the jumps will be assessed by a panel of judges according to the ISU system.
The second change is related to the team tournament. If last year three groups of participants, led by Eteri Tutberidze, Evgeniy Plushenko and Alexey Mishin, fought for the title, now the organizers decided to arrange a rivalry between the teams of two captains, who will be Alexander Gallyamov and Dmitry Kozlovsky. And this choice is not accidental. Now in figure skating this is the most acute confrontation – or, to put it in a capacious foreign word, “rivalry”. Of course, not yet at the level of Plushenko versus Yagudin or Zagitova versus Medvedeva, but the country’s two strongest teams at the moment can provide fire. Well, since the jumping tournament is still a show, the composition of the presenters is important – and it is stellar: Olympic champions Alina Zagitova, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexey Yagudin and Maxim Trankov.
The main thing for the tournament participants is that their financial interest remains constant. As last year, the winners of the individual competition in each discipline will receive one million rubles. For second place they will be awarded half a million, for third – 250 thousand.
The team that wins the championship title will divide five million rubles among all its participants, the team that takes second place will receive three million. There are bonuses for the best performance of various elements. Finally, it is noteworthy that not only adult figure skaters, but also juniors will be eligible for such substantial prize money: athletes born in 2011 and older are allowed to participate in the Russian Jumping Championship.
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