Russian Junior Nationals took place between the 1st and 5th of February. After the European Championships and while people await for the Four Continents, all eyes were on Saint Petersburg particularly for the ladies event, which is always of remarkable quality in Russia. Nevertheless, ice dance was also an interesting competition especially because of the closeness of some teams that could have made the team for Junior Worlds. Here are the results of the competition: On what concerns the review of the competition, I will comment on what went down with the main teams and will highlight the couples that I really liked. I will be talking about them by the order in which they started the short dance, with the exception of the first couple which only competed the short dance. Ekaterina Andreeva / Ivan Desyatov
Yana Buga / Georgiy Pokhilyuk
Evgeniia Lopareva / Alexey Karpushov
Eva Kuts / Dmitrii Mikhailov
Sofia Shevchenko / Igor Eremenko
Daria Rumyantseva / Dmitry Ryabchenko
Sofia Polishchuk / Alexander Vakhnov
Angelina Lazareva / Maxim Prokofiev
Elizaveta Khudaberdieva / Nikita Nazarov
Anastasia Skoptsova / Kirill Aleshini
Arina Ushakova / Maxim Nekrasov
Polina Ivanenko / Daniil Karpov
Anastasia Shpilevaya / Grigory Smirnov
Alla Loboda / Pavel Drozd
Ksenia Konkina / Grigory Yakushev
Overall, this competition was quite exciting and I think the judging was better than in the senior competition (there was not a large inflation of marks). Moreover, the fact that Shpilevaya/Smirnov earned the title with strong performances may be an indication of what will happen at Junior Worlds. One thing is certain: this is a team that next year will be on the podium. Another couple standing out was Polishchuk/Vakhnov, as they were quite close at making the team for Junior Worlds. With Lodoba/Drozd moving to the senior ranks next season, this team will be given more opportunities to gain experience.
Finally, one thing than concerns figure skating fans is which teams will probably be present at the Junior Grand Prix circuit next season. Based on the results, the teams that will make it may be: Shpilevaya/Smirnov; Skoptsova/Aleshin (I think their best bet would be to move to seniors this year, just like Pogrebinsky/Benoit of the USA did last season, but I don’t think it is going to happen); Polishchuk/Vakhnov; Konkina/Yakushev; Shevchenko/Eremenko; Khudaberdieva/Nazarov and Ushakova/Nekrasov (this couple has not been showing that great results, so maybe Lopareva/Karpushov may have a chance, while I would prefer Kuts/Mikhailov). One team I would love to see would be Ivanenko/Karpov. I guess the last spot will be decided in Test Skates between them, Lopareva/Karpushov, Ushakova/Nekrasov and Kuts/Mikhailov. Moreover, Andreeva/Desyatov may also have a say, because they did well in the short dance and did not perform the free, so if they show they are reliable they may be assigned a Grand Prix.
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Between the 20th and 26th of December all eyes were in Russia due to nationals. In this case, however, only senior teams competed, as the junior nationals would take place from the 1st to the 5th of February. Here are the results: Right now I will be commenting on what went down. Short Dance:
Free Dance:
The European Championships took place between the 25th and the 29th of January. While the winners of the Ice Dance event were the ones expected, it did not come as easily as one might have thought. The podium was easy to guess, even though the distinction between silver and bronze was minimal.
Some surprises were in store for the Russian teams, with the second and third places at Russian Nationals having lower results than expected. For Israel, however, this championships turned out to be quite successful. The results are presented below: The European Championships started yesterday with the ladies and pairs short programs. Today, the dance event begins with the short dance. Hence, let’s take a look at the most prominent couples in this competition. 1st: Being two times European and world champions, Gabriella and Guillaume are the front runners to get the gold medal. This season, they have only lost to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada, which are not present here. In fact, their main competitors are North American teams, which causes little doubt that they will be the winners, being, in my opinion, light years ahead of any of the other partnerships in this competition. However, it will be interesting to see what changes did they make to both their short and free dances, since they are playing catch-up to the Canadian team. The scores they get here will have to make a statement that they will be going to worlds to win, so great performances from them are to be expected. 2nd: The World Champions of 2014 did not have a great start of the season, mainly because they encountered Virtue/Moir and Chock/Bates in Skate Canada and both Virtue/Moir and Papadakis/Cizeron in the NHK Trophy, missing the grand prix final. However, they had enough time to improve both dances. Moreover, their free dance is endearing, receiving a great deal of support from the audience. They will be battling the silver alongside Bobrova/Soloviev. The reason I put they first is because, even if they fall behind in the short dance, I’m expecting them to move ahead in the free dance. 3rd: This team won the Russian Nationals again, being the first in line to place well at Worlds. As a result, they will want to score higher than their best achieved at the Rostelecom Cup this season. However, falling short of this in the Grand Prix Final may pose a question mark as to how they will do here. Having improved a lot since the beginning of the season, they are going to make it difficult for the Italian team to get the silver. 4th: Another team with great progress this season, Stepanova/Bukin will likely get the fourth place here. This is a team to keep an eye on. After all, they are the second Russian team and they have been getting better and better scores. They still have a lot to improve, but the speed with which they perform each element is quite impressive, aiming at getting higher grades of execution. 5th: This is a risky prediction, putting them in front of Sinitsina and Katsalapov. Nevertheless, the latter got the place here in a non-incontestable way. If you ask me, Ilinykh/Zhiganshin would likely do better here. This Italian team has been proving its value, with a fantastic free dance last season and great programs this season, showing how versatile they are. If they manage to get great levels in their elements, they will likely end up in fifth. 6th: Another team that got good results this season, Tobias and Tkachenko have two very different programs that are worth watching. Even though the free dance is set to the same tune as Guignard and Fabbri, they are quite different. The Italians got a better result at Skate America, and I am expecting the same to happen here. 7th: Having a not so great season, barely making it to this year’s Europeans, this Russian team wants to prove that the federation should send them to World instead of Stepanova/Bukin. Even though that seems highly unlikely, we never know. Moreover, they want to prove they are a force of Russian ice dance, proving the choice of sending them and not Ilinykh/Zhiganshin to be the right one. While Sinitsina is quite good in the short dance, having surprising me with a great midnight blues, the free dance did not have, until now, the perfection necessary to get solid results. Let’s see how much better did they become since Nationals. 8th: This Polish team has been impressing me throughout the season. While I love the Danish team better, I think the Polish will be ahead. But, who knows, I might be surprised. 9th: As much as I want them to place higher, they will have to nail their levels in the short dance, as they did in the Autumn Classic, and that they have not been able to repeat since. That being said, it is a quite entertaining and lovely short dance and they have a fantastic free dance. If they manage to get their levels, who knows, maybe they place ahead of Sinitsina/Katsalapov (a little delusional, I know). 10th: This will likely not happen, but I decided to risk it and predict that the second French team in the Nationals will close the top ten. Why? I really like their skating quality and they have been showing promise. If they manage to connect more with each other during their programs, they may end up higher than expected. So, I guess placing them here is not that farfetched as it may seem. They actually may be close to this placement. Other teams to watch:Predicting the podium of the US Nationals was easy. Nevertheless, the order of the teams could have been predicted based on a coin toss, as any of the teams could have won gold. Even though Maia and Alex Shibutani were the defending champions, nothing could guarantee that they would repeat as winners. All in all, the results might have been the same of last season for the top three, but this was a fantastic competition to watch, with the exception of the tremendous bad luck that Hubbell and Donohue but, especially, Hawayek and Baker had. Here are the full results: 9. Charlotte Maxwell/Ryan Devereaux – Total of 139.20 points
10. Elicia Reynolds/Stephen Reynolds – Total of 103.57 points 11. Kseniya Ponomaryova/Oleg Altukhov – Total of 93.29 points Although the field of American ice dance is amazing, the same can be said of the junior teams, which have been the talk of the town this season, with three teams making the Junior Grand Prix Final: Parsons/Parsons, McNamara/Carpenter and Carreira/Ponomarenko. Despite the favoritism of the first two teams, the quality of Christina and Anthony is reality high, so, like in the senior rank, any placement among these teams were possible. Here are the results from the competition: 9. Emma Gunter/Caleb Wein – Total of 115.90 points
10. Elizabeth Addas/Michael Valdez – Total of 108.02 points 11. Lydia Erdman/Alexey Shchepetov – Total of 106.31 points 12. Cassidy Klopstock/Jacob Schedl – Total of 96.20 points Canadian Nationals were highly anticipated worldwide. Expectations that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir would win their seventh title became a reality. On what concerns silver and bronze, Weaver and Poje edged out Gilles and Poirier for the second highest place of the podium.
The full results of the competition can be seen below: Recently, keeping up with the juniors has become much easier due to the live streaming of the Junior Grand Prix series on youtube. As a matter of fact, I have been paying a little attention since last season, so I knew that on what concerned the Canadian Junior Nationals, Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha would be the winners. The question was only what would be the margin they would have for the other teams. Other teams that competed at the Junior Grand Prix were Ashlynne Stairs/Lee Royer, Danielle Wu/Nik Mirzakhani, Olivia Han/Grayson Lochhead and Alicia Fabbri/Claudio Pietrantonio. I was particularly impressed with Fabbri/ Pietrantonio, so I was looking forward to seeing how well they were going to do here.
As the best teams are usually the ones sent to the Grand Prix Series, there was no surprise to see that out of the top five, there is only one team not mentioned above: Valerie Taillefer/Jason Chan. Here is the result of the fifteen teams that took part in the competition: The Grand Prix Final took place in Marseille, France, between the 8th and 11th of December, marking the end of the first half of the season. Relevant names like Weaver/Poje and Cappellini/Lanotte did not make the top six, so making it was already a huge accomplishment for couples like Hubbell/Donohue and Bobrova/Soloviev. However, everyone was in it to get the best placement possible, building momentum for the upcoming competitions.
Predictions ranged from Canadians Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir and French Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron for the gold, with the two American teams of Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani and Madison Chock/Evan Bates to be capable of challenging these two teams if they faltered. The results were the following: Between the 25th and 27th of November, the last event of the Grand Prix Series, the NHK Trophy, took place in Sapporo, Japan. This was a highly anticipated event by ice dance fans, as it would be the first time the World Champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, of France, would face the reigning Olympic Silver Medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, of Canada. The outcome of this competition will likely shape the rest of the season, so much attention had been given to it. Furthermore, Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, of Italy, the 2014 World Champions, were present to try and shake things up. The final outcome was the following: 4. Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker (USA) – Total of 169.75 points
5. Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov (Russia) – Total of 169.62 points 6. Marie-Jade Lauriault/Romain Le Gac (France) – Total of 149.99 points 7. Natalia Kaliszek/Maksym Spodyriev (Poland) – Total of 147.93 points 8. Anastasia Cannuscio/Colin McManus (USA) – Total of 139.47 points 9. Emi Hirai/Marien De La Asuncion (Japan) – Total of 120.35 points Kana Muramoto and Chris Reed (Japan) withdrew from the competition. |
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