Alexandra Trusova did not have enough turnover – Newspaper Kommersant No. 202 (7403) dated 10/31/2022

The stage of the Russian Grand Prix series in figure skating in Sochi turned into a fiasco for the silver medalist of the Beijing Olympics Alexandra Trusova. The figure skater, whose main weapon has always been considered quadruple jumps, fell from a single declared quad at the current tournament and, moreover, could not cope with simpler elements. Trusova finished third, much behind the leaders. From the winner of the stage – juniors from the group of Eteri Tutberidze Adeliya Petrosyan – she was 30 points behind, and she lost more than 10 points to Sofya Samodelkina, who became the second.

The second stage of the domestic figure skating Grand Prix series, which took place on the Iceberg ice rink in Sochi with half-empty stands, turned out to be extremely poor in intrigue. In three of the four competitive genres, the favorites, who broke away from their competitors after the short program, only increased their advantage the next day.

Mark Kondratyuk, who won the championships of Russia and Europe last season, and then took the gold of the team tournament of the Beijing Olympics as part of the Russian team, with not the cleanest performances, outperformed his closest pursuer Alexei Erokhov by almost 40 points. The 2020 European champions in sports pairs Alexander Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky – albeit with a mistake on the throw – easily dealt with junior rivals, as well as the dancing duet Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Yegor Bazin, who looked experienced against the background of competitors.

But much more intriguing and interesting was the women’s tournament. In many ways – because of the appearance of Alexandra Trusova in the list of participants.

One of the brightest stars of the national team has not competed since the February Olympics in Beijing, where she scored an extraordinary achievement – she performed five four-turn jumps in one program, but, nevertheless, lost to her teammate Anna Shcherbakova and remained only with silver.

At the first start of the current season, Alexandra Trusova, a month ago interrupted cooperation with the coaching staff of Eteri Tutberidze, had to face one of the strongest students of the former mentor today – 15-year-old Adele Petrosyan.

And the very first start turned out to be a grand defeat for Trusova.

She fell behind Petrosyan after the short program. A foldable junior, whose height, taking into account the skates, slightly exceeds the height of the sides of the rink, brilliantly presented her program to the composition of the French performer Barbara Pravy “Voila”. In between elements, one of which is a complex axel of three and a half turns, the teenage girl even managed to sing along with the performer and playfully look at the judges. Meanwhile, Alexandra Trusova, over the past six months, even more stretched out and lost her sports shape, did not keep up with the pace of the program that she made in the new group of Svetlana Sokolovskaya some three weeks ago. The figure skater got stuck in steps, which sometimes seemed to be forgotten, and she could not cope with the most expensive element – a cascade of two triple jumps. On the sheepskin coat, which came out only double, Trusova could not resist.

The lag, which was more than 8 points, looked solid, but for Alexandra Trusova (it needs to be clarified – the sample of the last season) is by no means critical. She used to almost always have to catch up with competitors in a free program, since there, unlike a short one, quadruple jumps are allowed. And Trusova, whom fans have called the “queen of quads” for several years in a row, has always had plenty of them in her arsenal.

But now the figure skater, suffering from a back injury, did not have this weapon.

The only four-turn element – lutz – Trusova did not twist, as a result of which she flopped onto the ice.

Moreover, the athlete made a huge scattering of mistakes that were not typical of her before: she made the so-called “butterfly” on the rittberger, that is, he came out double instead of triple, then doubled the salchow in the cascade. The figure skater lost some points on the track, which the judges rated as the second level out of four possible. Trusova received another penalty point for finishing the program later than music.

As a result, the vice-champion of the Olympics (208.55) lost not only to Adelia Petrosyan (239.31), but also to Sofya Samodelkina (218.73). The athlete, meanwhile, did not look annoyed or surprised, like her new coach. Svetlana Sokolovskaya, who met the broadly smiling figure skater from the ice, told her: “Everything will be fine! And what arrived – smart girl.

Ekaterina Remizova