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Tournament with the proud name “Russian Jumping Championship” started a week after the European Championships in Kaunas . Sports are figuring out what’s wrong with this delicious spectacle.
Anchors, where are you?
We generally believe that tournaments abroad are questionable in their level by default, while how our competitions, in the language of memes, should be assessed only this way: “Cool! Yes, this is cool!”.
But is it deserved? Depends, perhaps, on how this jumping championship is consumed. There is a feeling that the mastermind and main broadcaster of the tournament decided to follow the path of Eurovision, where everything is done for the sake of a beautiful picture on television screens. The atmosphere of the show in the hall for those who have purchased tickets is also there, but in a truncated format – the artists look into numerous cameras, and not at the fans who have come, and the stage itself is due to the abundance of various filming equipment and the so-called green room from the audience quite far away.
This year's jumping championship faced similar difficulties. Not in the literal sense, of course, but in terms of the detachment of what is happening on the ice from those who seem to be closest to it. For the television audience, all the nuances of what was happening were analyzed in as much detail as possible by commentator Alexander Grishin and legendary coach Tatyana Tarasova. Even people who accidentally wandered into the broadcast hardly had any questions about what this or that skater jumped there and why exactly he made it to the next stage.
At the same time, on Saturday, during the personal tournament, when spectators were finally allowed into the stands, the presenters and organizers did not provide any special entertainment. By the way, there were four presenters, all of them stars of the first magnitude: Alexey Yagudin, Maxim Trankov, Anna Shcherbakova, Alina Zagitova. It seems that in such a company no omissions, misunderstandings and awkward silences in pauses between jumps are simply impossible. So, right?
Actually, no. During the performance of the couples (they skated first), there were no explanations at all from the presenters about what was happening on the ice. Couples come out, do something, and in response – ringing silence. What was the function of such a vast team of star presenters at that moment? A question to which, most likely, no one will ever give an answer.
Although it is worth admitting that the broadcaster still listens to the voice of the public. For example, during qualifying the day before, fans and journalists complained a lot about the unpleasant sound after the athletes’ mistakes. The organizers played strange sounds that would probably be more appropriate somewhere in a circus. At some point, the skaters themselves began to pay attention to this, and the winner of the Russian Grand Prix in Omsk wrote on social networks that after one of these interactive elements he wanted to “leave or fail.” On Saturday, however, all this sound tinsel was removed. All that was left was the cry of “wow” after the most successfully executed elements.
The syndrome that covered the tournament
Although the tournament itself doesn’t exactly inspire a “wow” exclamation. Towards the middle of the day, the presenters still pumped up, but not very much. And Zagitova and Shcherbakova even began to freeze from the abundance of free time. In any case, by the end of the competition the girls were both already in outerwear. But these are all trifles; a much more significant flaw can be considered the imperfection of the regulations. For example, in the final of the men's personal tournament, such a curious situation occurred – Arseny Fedotov performed two solo quadruples (Lutz and flip), as well as two cascades with a quadruple Lutz. In this case, the published regulations for the final are as follows:
“Two solo jumps
– One cascade or one combination of no more than two jumps (oiler – jump);
– One cascade or one combination of no more than five jumps (oiler – jump).
The solo jump and the first jump in one of the cascades or combinations must be different jumps.”
And how should this be understood? That Arseny did not follow the rules? Or that the wording of the document is non-specific, that they can be interpreted in depending on the situation and personal preferences? And this is by no means a reproach to Arseny – firstly, he spoke in such a way that there are no and cannot be any questions about his colossal superiority over his rivals, and secondly, he had a similar story two-time champion of Russia Evgeniy Semenenko. The document is simply not drawn up clearly, and there is further justification for the situation (for example, that the judges supposedly have their own separate regulations, and also that in fact it is forbidden to repeat jumps if the series begins only with a solo element) this is only confirmed.
In general, the second time syndrome seems to have hit the jumping championship after all. And it’s a shame that this happened. Because the performances of the participants themselves were close to phenomenal.< br>
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