Russian jumping championship among figure skaters ended on Sunday in Moscow team tournament.
Dmitry Kozlovsky's team won against Alexander Gallyamov's team, and the competition could be called successful if not for the terrible fall in the last round of 12-year-old figure skater Elena Kostyleva.
Tuktamysheva chose the “red” Team captains at the Russian jumping championship announced in advance Alexander Gallyamov and Dmitry Kozlovsky – perhaps the most important rivals in our figure skating right now. On Saturday, colors were assigned – Gallyamov's team was assigned red, and Kozlovsky's – blue. On Sunday, the captains recruited their skaters. Kozlovsky won the lot and was the first to invite the winner of the personal jumping tournament, Margarita Bazylyuk, after which Gallyamov chose the champion of Russia in classical, so to speak, figure skating, Adelia Petrosyan. Sofia Muravyova and Maria Gordeeva also went to the “blues”, and Elena Kostyleva and Ekaterina Koltsova to the “reds”.
Gallyamov was the first to choose men to even the odds, and he started with the newly crowned Russian jumping champion Arseniy Fedotov. Vladislav Dikidzhi and Petr Gumennik also became “red”. Kozlovsky’s team included Lev Lazarev, Evgeny Semenenko and Ivan Popov. The last pairs were distributed – along with Mishina and Gallyamov, the team included Elizaveta Osokina and Artem Gritsaenko, and with Boykova and Kozlovsky – Ekaterina Chikmareva and Matvey Yanchenkov. Finally, two invited skaters – Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Dmitry Aliev – chose their own teams. The ex-world champion became “red”, and the ex-European champion became “blue”.
The girl gave the boys a master class. The first round was left to the sports couples, and Boykova and Kozlovsky started it. On Saturday, Alexandra (on her birthday) and Dmitry were unable to conquer the quadruple throw that they were preparing for this tournament. It didn’t work out for the former European champions on Sunday either. But their two clean triple twists and the high-quality execution of their elements by Chikmareva and Yanchenkov helped the “blues” be one and a half points ahead of Gallyamov’s team, in which not everything worked out for Osokina and Gritsaenko.
From the second round, single skaters entered the fight. The task before them seemed to be simple – to do two different triple jumps. But suddenly the most experienced stars were overcome with excitement. Tuktamysheva failed in the lutz, Aliev failed in the axel, and they also made mistakes on the elements of Gordeev and Koltsov, which were simple for them. But Muravyova and Dikidzhi did their triple axels cleanly, scoring maximum points for their teams. As a result, the Reds overtook the Blues at the turn – however, they were less than a point ahead of their competitors.
The only girl in this six gave the boys a worthy master class – she performed a quadruple flip, which no one else tried. Adelia also managed the quadruple sheepskin coat. Looking at such a performance by Petrosyan, the representatives of the stronger sex got excited and also did not miss a single jump. Lazarev performed quadruple lutz and toe loop, Popov – salchow and toe loop, Dikidzhi – lutz and salchow, and finally, Semenenko and Gumennik performed each loop and salchow. As a result, after three rounds, both teams scored almost the same number of points – the “reds” were ahead of the “blues” by only 27 hundredths.
“Blue” revolution Before the fourth round, the ice for the participants was tidied up with a pouring machine – after all, the most complex cascades require an ideal surface. But suddenly, not everything turned out smoothly for the participants with an understanding of the regulations – it stated that they were allowed to perform no more than one combination. But Arseny Fedotov and Sofya Muravyova did two of them each – and as a result, some of the jumps they performed were not counted.
After the presenters pointed out to the athletes that they need to jump what they are supposed to do, and not what they want, everything went as it should – but before Semenenko was the last one on the ice in the round. The two-time Russian champion achieved little of what he had planned – and as a result, Gallyamov's team ended up being four points ahead of the competition before the final stage.
This was the most significant advantage of the entire team tournament, and many felt that the outcome was a foregone conclusion – especially after Ivan Popov and Arseniy Fedotov received approximately the same points for multi-jump cascades, which were the focus of the last round. All that remained was for Bazylyuk, Kostyleva, Lazarev and Gumennik to perform their elements – and these skaters practically did not fail during the entire tournament.
The outcome was dramatic. Bazylyuk scored a whopping 57.08 points for her cascades, and her principle rival in children’s tournaments, Kostyleva, fell on her first quadruple Salchow and injured her hand. The 12-year-old figure skater doubled over in pain and moved up to the side, but the doctors immediately put her in a freeze, and she went for a second try. The jump again ended in a fall – and it became clear that if the last figure skater from the “blue” team, Lev Lazarev, copes with his nerves, then the “red” ones will lose for the first time in the history of team tournaments in recent years in Russian figure skating.
And so it happened – Lazarev jumped back with a bang, after which Kozlovsky loudly shouted “home”, and Gumennik was imperfect in his attempts that were no longer decisive. The “blue” team won with an advantage of more than 50 points and took the main prize of five million rubles. Gallyamov’s squad received three million for all of them.
If anyone was expecting “fire” from the captains’ press conference, as happened three years ago after the debut Channel One Cup, where the teams were led by Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva, then there was none. Kozlovsky and Gallyamov were emphatically correct in relation to each other, although there are certainly some nuances in their relationship. And rightly so – the last thing is remembered, and the ending of the tournament turned out to be sad due to Kostyleva’s terrible fall. There was clearly no time for verbal “battles,” although Gallyamov read his traditional rap. The jumping tournament has ended, but questions about it remain – and they, of course, should be the topic of a separate discussion.
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