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On Sunday, the competitions of the All-Russian Winter Spartakiad ended in Magnitogorsk. Sports correspondent talks about how the last day of the tournament went, in which Kamila Valieva could not perform, but was not left without support.
«The circus is everywhere, I haven't seen the Spartakiad»
You remember at every step that Magnitogorsk is a hockey city. You get into a taxi and the driver asks: “Who are our guys playing today?”, seeing the Metallurg Arena on the screen as the destination. You walk into a cafe and on the wall there are photographs of hockey players who visited the establishment. Finally, you come to the Figure Skating Games, and the toys that fly onto the ice for the athletes are picked up not only by little figure skaters, but also by fellow hockey players. In full uniform and helmets, except maybe without sticks.
General Director of the Russian Figure Skating Federation Alexander Kogan at the end of the draw ceremony wished the participants of the Spartakiad:
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“Do everything to make city residents who have never seen figure skating live fall in love with your sport.”
And, apparently, this happened. The stands were filled almost 100% for all three days — although, by the way, there wasn’t much outdoor advertising in the city.
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“Posters with the circus are everywhere,” shared the same taxi driver. “Spartakiads I didn’t see it.”
The people came anyway — and on the whole they reacted to what was happening quite professionally. For example, I felt the crazy drive that Mark Kondratyuk caught in his free program — and gave the skater a standing ovation. Although, of course, there was also plenty of naive applause on catchy, but not too complex elements, such as lifts of varying degrees of grace and pretentiousness. It’s not scary — in the end, people themselves choose where and when to express emotions.
“Stupid and shameful mistake”
And the “uncomplexity” of supports is very relative. Indeed, on Sunday it was this element that decided the fate of first place in pairs skating. True, most likely, only in the free program. If Dmitry Kozlovsky had not put partner Alexandra Boykova on the ice early, losing control of the support during a change of position, the two-time Russian champions would likely have scored the best total points in this segment of the competition.
Topics nevertheless, there is no gap between them and their pursuers. It’s hard to disagree with Boykova, who noted in the mixed zone that she and Dmitry lose exclusively through mistakes. “Before this, mostly mine,” the skater clarified. Kozlovsky called the support failure “stupid and shameful, ruining the whole impression.”
In fact, there is nothing tragic in what happened, despite such harsh words from the skater. As he rightly noted, it’s better at a domestic start than at an international one. This is also an experience that all eminent colleagues without exception have. For example, Maxim Trankov dropped Tatyana Volosozhar and sat on the fifth point in the todes at the World Championships in Nice, Fedor Klimov and Ksenia Stolbova were disrupted. And what? Everyone remembers not these incidents, but their gold medals. They will also remember the victories of Boykova and Kozlovsky, which were and will continue to be.
Victory «February»
The Spartakiad in Magnitogorsk ended with the free program in women's single skating. As you know, within the framework of this tournament the Russian Grand Prix Final was held, for which Kamila Valieva qualified based on the results of the series stages. But at the end of January, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) disqualified the Russian figure skater for four years, starting December 25, 2021. And he deprived Kamila of the opportunity to perform at the Spartakiad.
Nevertheless, Valieva was present at the Metallurg arena — in the form of a photograph on a huge banner that the fans unfurled in the stands. “Camila is for love,” read the banner that appeared during the warm-up of the strongest group. In which, of course, Valieva would have performed if she had taken part in the tournament.
However, it would be unfair to say that without her the competition would not have been a success. Honestly, I had this feeling after the short program. But in the free program the skaters managed to create maximum intrigue. The tone was set by Daria Sadkova, who performed one of two planned quadruple toe loops. Her initiative was supported by Alina Gorbacheva, who succeeded in a quadruple Salchow for the first time this season.
They failed to be among the winners, and this is entirely due to the two girls who do not compete in the ultra-c jumps, but gain points thanks to other strengths — choreography and musicality. These concepts are officially included in the formulation of assessments for program components, but one can say it more simply — they take the soul.
We are, of course, talking about Anna Frolova and Ksenia Sinitsina, who, following the results of the short program, were in second and third places. Both handled the technical side of free skates practically without any mistakes. And what they did from an artistic point of view can be described as follows: they brought the stands into ecstasy. A small score is, in fact, a purely symbolic distance in this case between the two athletes. Both were good, but for the record: silver for Frolova, bronze for Sinitsina.
Adelia Petrosyan’s victory was predictable, and only the Russian champion herself could have prevented her — if she had suddenly made a mistake. But after the fall on the quadruple flip that opened the program, Adelia did not have a single blemish at the box office. But there were two clean quadruple sheepskin coats and soulful skating to “February” by Leonid Levashkevich, which the judges rated as the highest components of the day.
Nevertheless, the best figure skater in Russia came to the mixed zone without particularly joyful emotions.< br>
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"They’ll award me a medal, I’ll go discuss the rental. There is fatigue, but there is no satisfaction. At the last Grand Prix Final I was more pleased. We need to understand what’s wrong with the quadruple flip, I was confident in it,” stated Petrosyan.
This ended the serious competitive domestic season for the second year in a row. There are only two tournaments left to be held, which for the skaters will become more entertainment than a serious struggle. They will be hosted by St. Petersburg: first, the Channel One Team Cup will be held there, and then a tournament of show programs called “Russian Challenge”.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors
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