Skaters performed at the All-Russian Winter Spartakiad in Magnitogorsk

The figure skating tournament at the Spartakiad that ended on Sunday in Magnitogorsk was crowned with another triumph for the strongest Russian figure skater of the current season, Adelia Petrosyan. The 16-year-old athlete, who won the national championship a month and a half ago, improved her result and scored more than 250 points in the sum of two programs – this is the best indicator of the season not only among Russian figure skaters, but also among foreign ones. Currently, Adelia Petrosyan seems to be the only singles skater in the country who, if she returns to the international arena, is guaranteed to be able to qualify for medals.

The last Grand Prix final in figure skating, now integrated into the Spartakiad program, exposed a very serious problem. It made us remember that Russian figure skaters have been in isolation for the third year, and also showed that it is becoming increasingly difficult to motivate athletes with a calendar replete with all kinds of (classical, jumping and team) competitions, quite decent prize money, filled to capacity stadiums and other gizmos. . This is especially noticeable in the example of the female genre, in which until recently Russian women simply had no equal.

The intrigue that could potentially have started in Magnitogorsk died even before the start of the competition. The women’s entry for the second most important tournament of the season was missing several big names. For obvious reasons – in connection with the verdict in a doping case – Kamila Valieva disappeared, and the main star of Evgeni Plushenko’s group, Sofya Muravyova, also dropped out due to illness. Last year’s Russian champion Sofya Akatieva did not show up for the tournament either, having failed to recover from her injury.

Adelia Petrosyan, a student of the famous coach Eteri Tutberidze, acted as the savior of not only the Magnitogorsk final, but also the orphaned Russian women’s single skating in general.

The petite brunette, who had not made a single serious misfire throughout the entire season, only improved by the end of the year. At the Spartakiad, Petrosyan performed two amazing performances at once. In the short program, she, wearing a bright red jacket strewn with sequins, shot to a medley of Michael Jackson compositions and was the only one among all the participants to twist the most difficult axel in three and a half turns. And in the free program for “February”, Leonid Levashkevich was completely stunned by a hail of quadruple jumps. The first – a quad flip – the skater did not succeed, but two tall four-turn sheepskin coats were successful.

In total, Adelia Petrosyan scored 252.97 for two programs, surpassing her closest pursuers by three dozen points. Despite the impressive score, the athlete, always demanding of herself, admitted that she did not feel a sense of satisfaction. “Now we need to figure out what’s wrong with the quadruple flip. Most of all I believed in him. It’s important to show your performances cleaner, until this is not possible,” Petrosyan was upset.

Its competitors, who produced fairly clean performances without ultra-C class elements, were left far behind. Anna Frolova, who took silver in Magnitogorsk, and bronze medalist Ksenia Sinitsyna earned 225.97 and 224.65 points, respectively.

Now Petrosyan looks like the only singles skater in Russia who, if the Russians are returned to the international arena, will be able to fight for gold medals there.

The figure skater’s total points, even if we make allowances for home judging, look like an unattainable result for foreign figure skaters. For comparison: the European champion Luna Hendricks of Belgium earned 213.25 points in Kaunas, and the leader of the Four Continents Championship of Japan Monet Chiba received 214.98 in Shanghai.

The winner of the men’s tournament in Magnitogorsk was the current Russian champion Evgeny Semenenko, who trains in the group of Alexey and Tatyana Mishin. The judges were generous and awarded Semenenko 304.40 points for two clean performances – this is a record amount for domestic competitions. Silver went to Mark Kondratyuk (297.72), who experienced a local career renaissance. Throughout the season, the hero of the 2022 Olympics, who distinguished himself in the team tournament, could not collect himself, and at the Russian Championship he took tenth place.

Things turned out completely differently for tournament favorite Vladislav Dikidzhi (283.48): the athlete, who had generally impressed throughout the season with his stable performance of quadruple jumps, suffered a serious breakdown for the first time.

He flopped with a quadruple lutz at the very beginning of the program, but still managed to retain bronze thanks to a reserve in the short program.

It seems that the only people who don’t have problems with motivation today are sports couples, who are definitely not facing a crisis. Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov (239.11 points) added to their collection with another flawless performance, and at the same time gold. The bronze medalists of the 2022 Beijing Olympics and the 2021 world champions, who have long established themselves as reliable athletes without breakdowns, were again ahead of their sworn rivals – Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky (230.79). The last to fail was the parallel jump in the short program, and the lift in the free program. Now the question of which of the two duos is the undisputed leader of the national team seems to have completely disappeared.

Ekaterina Remizova