Will Trusova be able to impose a fight for a medal in Krasnoyarsk: Kondratyuk let his back down

So he came, the national figure skating championship, which usually becomes a fierce battle of nerves. The girls enter the fight on Friday. Kamila Valieva, Alexandra Trusova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Sofia Akatieva or her namesakes Muravieva and Samodelkina, Adelia Petrosyan? There are many options for distribution on the pedestal. Twisted intrigue and single men.

The battle in Krasnoyarsk is already underway, the first part of the biathlon was overcome by dancers and singles. Elizaveta Khudaiberdiyeva and Yegor Bazin won the dances with two serious mistakes, they again fell, as in the Grand Prix stages. Moreover, their current stock of points allows them to feel quite calm before the free program – four points. Elizaveta Shanaeva and Pavel Drozd are in second place, and Elizaveta Pasechnik and Maxim Nekrasov are in third place, they are separated by crumbs.

In the men’s top three, Petr Gumennik (the judges awarded 104.47 points (57.88 for technique), Evgeny Semenenko (99.15 points) and Andrey Mozalev (98.70 points). Each of them performed two quads in the program Piotr brought the audience to violent emotions, and coach Veronika Daineko to tears.

The goose admitted that he was very happy: for the first time on adult ice, he did everything in the best possible way. “Usually after each rental there are still mistakes, you start to regret.” This time, he can allow himself any emotion, except for a feeling of regret.

Mark Kondratyuk was outside the top ten (12). He said that he still had back pain, because of which he had to spend some time in the hospital, he doubted whether it was worth participating in the Russian championship at all. And the first quadruple jump after the injury did only on the eve of the start. And yet the choice fell on “act”.

However, everyone knows how skaters can turn the situation in a free program – both in their favor and in someone else’s. But the men’s short program in Krasnoyarsk is a gift to the stands. In fourth place after the first day of the competition was Matvey Vetlugin, then Alexander Samarin, Artem Kovalev, Makar Ignatov, Ilya Yablokov, Dmitry Aliev, Gleb Lutfullin. Between fourth place and tenth – 14 points.

Tomorrow the single skaters will take to the ice. Fate has twisted so many “side effects” in our women’s singles off-ice skating (it makes no sense to go into details, Beijing 2022 is still triumphant and wounded by events for skaters) that today, after any forecasts, you can safely put a question mark.

Will Kamila Valieva win? If Camila does not make mistakes and performs ultra-si, then the rivals will have to fight for the second or third places. Krasnoyarsk is the third Russian championship for the figure skater. Or just the third. Such assumptions would have been impossible before the last championship, when Camila’s superiority (not even an advantage) over her rivals was deafening.

These same words would have been impossible at the beginning of the season, when Valieva performed without ultra-c elements at all. But today’s form, the return of the quadruple (eight clean sheepskin coats in four turns in the jumping tournament out of eight) and, it seems, the returned axel (showed in training) – aren’t these arguments? Those elements that are not related to jumping, Camila always does exquisitely, her high components are known.

Alexandra Trusova? At the last championship of Russia, she took second place. The hardest Games were left behind with an achievement that stunned with negativity. This season is developing for Sasha … I wanted to write “hard”, but I thought that, in fact, it goes the way Sasha also puts it together.

The autumn transition to another coach was added to internal problems. The approaches to the training process in the team of Eteri Tutberidze and Svetlana Sokolovskaya are different, and the transition always takes time to get used to. Then – voiced back injury. And – a lot of things that are not connected with ice. One of the Olympic champions, known for his activity outside of sports, once said to me in a conversation: “and then I realized that there were too many of me.” Just such a “lot” happened to Sasha, but it’s hard to say how the athlete herself evaluates this.

But, as they say, the bottom line at the moment is not at all what we would like: the usual Sasha, or at least her worthy performance, we have not seen in the season. And Krasnoyarsk is also an opportunity to understand: this season was conceived by the skater as a light-recovery one? Or, nevertheless, the Russian championship will see Trusova, who does not want to just serve the number on the ice.

Elizaveta Tuktamysheva on the eve of the Russian Championship celebrated her birthday: 26 years old. She was the champion of Russia only once, but she became a prize-winner four more times. Then the invasion of young figure skaters, who burst onto the ice with ultra-c elements, persistently blocked the road on the pedestal. But it’s Lisa! She knows how not to give up and surprise. And this season shows great shape. And, it seems to me, many will not understand it if Tuktamysheva does not take risks and does not go in a free program to perform a quadruple sheepskin coat.

Whoever follows figure skating remembers: Lisa has already inserted this jump into the program. It was again in Krasnoyarsk, when the city met the Russian Championship-2019. So it seems it’s just fate to try again.

True, fate sometimes also needs to be kept within reason. If the competitive alignment is in favor of entering the top three, it may be worth betting on the cleanliness of the program with two triple axels. In any case, there is no doubt that Lisa and coach Alexei Mishin will calculate the risks. Yes, and rivals will give food for the development of tactics.

And there are many rivals. Here we are looking at the declared content of the short program for the single skaters at the Russian Figure Skating Championship in Krasnoyarsk. Kamila Valieva, Sofya Akatieva, Sofya Muravyova announced the same set of jumps: triple axel, triple flip, triple lutz cascade – triple toe loop. Alexandra Trusova has the same, but the axel in the application is double.

Adelia Petrosyan: triple axel, triple lutz, triple flip cascade – triple toe loop. Adelia at the Grand Prix stage in Sochi for the first time performed an axel in three and a half turns at the start. But the injury prevented her from performing at the second stage of the Grand Prix, there was no athlete at the jumping championship either. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva: triple axel, triple lutz combination – triple toe loop, triple flip. Sofia Samodelkina: triple axel, triple flip, triple lutz combination – triple loop.

Impressive? Not that word. It remains only to wait for us to say the same word after the performance of short programs.