Icebook of victories: Russians won eight medals at the Tokyo tournament

Russian figure skaters won eight of the 12 medals at the Kinoshita Group Cup in Tokyo. Vladislav Dikidzhi won the men's single skating. Alexandra Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky won the sports pairs competition, where the Russians took the entire podium.: Ekaterina Chikmareva and Matvey Yanchenkov won silver, Anastasia Mukhortova and Dmitry Evgeniev won bronze. Alexandra Trusova won silver in women's single skating, Anna Frolova — bronze. Evgeny Semenenko and the dance duo Vasilisa Kaganovskaya won two more awards./Maxim Nekrasov.

The Japanese woman was stronger

One of the main events of the tournament for the Russian audience was the performance of Alexandra Trusova, who returned to the international arena after a long break. At the end of the short program, she was fourth, behind Kamilla Nelyubova, as well as Japanese Mao Shimada and Ami Nakai.

In the free skate, Trusova has noticeably improved. She performed a quadruple lutz, a triple toe loop, a triple salchow, as well as two double axels, one of which was in a cascade with a triple lutz and a triple salchow. The judges rated the rental at 146.14 points, and according to the sum of the two programs, the Russian received 221.06.

Interesting fact: Alexandra became the first figure skater in history to land a quadruple jump at international competitions after giving birth to a child. Before the two remaining participants went on the ice, the Russian woman took the first place. It was obvious that the medal at the Challenger in Tokyo would not go anywhere, but I would like to consolidate the historic quadruple with the highest standard award.

Unfortunately, the dream of gold was taken away by Mao Shimada, who performed a quadruple sheepskin coat and a triple axel (231.32 points). But no one else could displace Trusova. Nakai, who performed last, fell off the trixel and allowed a step-out on the cascade.

"It's the second one again," Alexandra said, smiling. — But actually it feels normal. I practice as well as I perform. We will work and improve. It's good for September. I was objectively assessing my own strength and Mao Shimada's. She was stronger. I'm glad I'm in the top three, and so is Anya Frolova. It's really cool, we're best friends.

Frolova performed a triple Rittberger, a triple lutz cascade — a triple toe loop, a triple flip, a sequence of a triple flip and two double axels (the last one is minus), a triple lutz and a triple salchow. The figure skater received 134.20 points for the free skate and 207.86 in total. She was only 0.14 points ahead of Nakai, who allowed the fall.

"I'm happy with everything," Anna emphasized. — At the moment when I entered the cascade, I thought that if I made a mistake, I would lie down and not get up and would not go on. In my case, it's psychologically important, it's like a point. If I do, it's easier to ride. If I don't, then the opposite is true. When I made it, I exhaled a little. I got high at the very end."

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Full pedestal

A historical moment has also occurred in pair skating. According to the results of the short program, the leaders of the Russian national team, Alexandra Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky, took second place. Although they were only five hundredths of a point behind the leaders Ekaterina Chikmareva and Matvey Yanchenkov, it was noticeable that Boikova and Kozlovsky were ready to take risks in the free skate.

The main event of their rental was the purest quadruple ejection. This element has not been performed at international competitions since 2018.

"Let's not be modest: It was perfect. No one, I think, has done better and is not doing better," Kozlovsky colorfully commented on him after the performance.

The pair almost did it with the jumping part too: the triple salchow — double axel was perfect, but on the triple sheepskin coat Alexandra allowed herself a step-out. In total, Boikova and Kozlovsky scored 131.41 points in the free skate and 203.66 in total. That was enough for the gold.

"We're talking about losing 7-8 points, but for the start of the season and for our age, we showed a good result. Considering that the rules have changed, expensive items have been removed, and the ratings are excellent. Now they have dropped by ten points compared to the same performances earlier," Dmitry told reporters.

Chikmareva and Yanchenkov, on the contrary, decided not to take any chances and abandoned last year's production. The rental was generally successful and there were no major mistakes. The performance earned the pair 130.25 points. It wasn't enough for first place, but it was enough for silver.

Anastasia Mukhortova and Dmitry Evgeniev rounded out the top three. From the jumps, they performed a cascade of triple salchow — double sheepskin coat and triple sheepskin coat without any problems. But the outliers failed: a fall from Lutz and a step-out on Rittberger.

However, even such a rental allowed him to win the bronze medal by a wide margin. The American couple Chelsea Liu and Ryan Bidard, who took fourth place, lagged behind the Russians by as much as 34.24 points. Predictably, we got a full podium of our skaters.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaya and Maxim Nekrasov won another medal for Russia. They won silver in dancing, losing to Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin from Georgia.

The first spare

Vladislav Dikidzhi, Evgeny Semenenko and Petr Gumennik represented Russia in men's single skating. The latter would probably like to forget his short program right away. The Russian fell twice and eventually took only 13th place. Humennik got a clean rental, but already in the free program. Peter performed to the soundtrack of the film Hamnet: The Story that Inspired "Hamlet" performed by Max Richter. He did five quads: flip, toe loop, lutz and salchow, and also performed a cascade of quadruple lutz — triple toe loop and triple axel. As a result, the Russian received 170.71 points for the free program and 236.25 for the sum of the two programs.

Humennik even took the lead for a while, but soon he was pushed up the table by Korean Mingyu So. And then Semenenko came out on top. It's also hard for Evgeny to add a short program to his asset. During one of the jumps, he fell and was so upset about it that he didn't even talk to reporters in the mixed zone. In the free skate, Semenenko performed cleanly the quadruple Rittberger and sheepskin coat, the cascade of quad-salchow and triple sheepskin coat, quadruple salchow, triple axel — oiler — triple salchow — double axel, triple axel. The skater scored 178.89 points and 253.30 in total.

Nevertheless, Evgeny was soon ousted by Japanese Xiong Sato (255.92). But Vladislav Dikidzhi remained the main favorite among the Russians, who took second place in the short program. In the free skate, he performed quadruple lutz, flip, salchow and cascade quad-salchow plus a triple toe loop, as well as two triple axels. Dikiji scored 176.89 points (265.68 total) and began to expect Rio Nakata's performance: the 17-year-old Japanese was the last skater who could deprive Vladislav of gold.

Rio started confidently with a quad salchow. The 4+3 cascade of sheepskin coats also came out well. But on the solo quad, a "butterfly" happened. This shook the Japanese's position. The fall in the cascade from the last salchow put an end to the question of the championship.

As a result, Dikidzhi stayed in the first position, and Semenenko — in the third. Humennik finished sixth. It's funny that Vladislav was declared a reserve and went to Tokyo due to the suspension of Mark Kondratyuk's neutral status.