Alexandra Trusova jumps into the season – Sport – Kommersant

The second stage of the Russian figure skating Grand Prix series, which will be held this weekend at the Iceberg Ice Palace in Sochi, will turn into a serious test for two participants in the Beijing Olympics at once – Alexandra Trusova and Mark Kondratyuk. Trusova, whose preparation for the season was complicated by an injury and the departure of coach Eteri Tutberidze from the group, at the very first start will face the strongest ward of the former mentor, junior quadist Adelia Petrosyan. Meanwhile, Kondratyuk, who was considered one of the leaders of Russian men’s skating last season, will try to rehabilitate himself after a total failure at the autumn test skates.

The Grand Prix stage in Sochi – the second in a row in the domestic series – will be the first competition for Alexandra Trusova after the February Olympics in Beijing. There, the skater performed the most difficult program in the history of women’s single skating, successfully landing five quadruple jumps, but only the second remained. Trusova lost teammate Anna Shcherbakova, after which she threw a tantrum and stated that she “hates” figure skating and “will never go on the ice again.”

A lot has changed since then. Alexandra Trusova made a controversial transition – broke up with her mentor Eteri Tutberidze and joined the group of Svetlana Sokolovskaya, who never worked with elite singles athletes. At the same time, the girl noticeably matured and – largely due to a back injury – lost her former jumping power.

In Sochi, 18-year-old Trusova, who is the most titled and experienced among the participants, will not be easy. For the victory, she will have to fight with the junior Adelia Petrosyan, who was trained by Eteri Tutberidze.

Petrosyan is 15 years old, and if the Russian team had not been suspended from all tournaments, then now she would, like her predecessors, start storming international podiums. Petrosyan is distinguished by a small stature – a little over 1.40 m – and a rich jumping arsenal: quadruple flip, salchow, sheepskin coat and rittberger. Rittberger, the figure skater jumped at the competitions first among all women: Trusova, being at the peak of her form, showed him in training, but did not include him in the program.

Another figure skater claiming medals in Sochi is 15-year-old Sofia Samodelkina. When asked about who is her favorite skater, she always answered: “Alexandra Trusova.” Samodelkina’s free program is saturated, as her idol once was, with quadruple elements, and at the same time with triple axels. True, she often concedes to her rivals due to the fact that she performs ultra-c class jumps of insufficient quality, that is, with underrotations.

The headliner of the men’s competition will undoubtedly be Mark Kondratyuk.

Last season, he turned into the main star of the men’s team: first he won the Russian championship and the continental championship, then he took gold as part of the domestic team at the Olympic team tournament in Beijing, and in the spring he presented a super-difficult cascade of two quadruple salchows.

Things are not going so well for him this year. At the September test skates, the 19-year-old skater looked like the weakest link in the national team. He decided to take a chance and swung at five quadruple jumps, but such content simply did not pull and as a result he managed only one of them – salchow.

Kondratyuk, however, still looks like the main favorite of the stage. Among his competitors are Petr Gumennik, Alexey Erokhov and Artem Kovalev, who have much more modest experience of performing at the international level and, in addition, cannot boast of stable skating.

Ekaterina Remizova