Junior World Champions Compete at Junior Grand Prix in Ostrava

Reigning champions triumph in pairs and dance; Russians triumph in singles again.

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The second event of the Junior Grand Prix this year was the Czech Skate in Ostrava. Thankfully it went by better than the first. This time there was a withdrawal in the ice dance when the airline lost someone’s skates, but no one got sent to the hospital.

The competition itself was headlined and highlighted by some already well-known names. They even included a couple we saw last week in St. Gervais.

Men

OSTRAVA, CZECH REPUBLIC – SEPTEMBER 03: (R-L) Alexei Krasnozhon of the United States, Dmitri Aliev and Roman Savosin of Russia pose after the medal ceremony of the junior men free skating on day three of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating on September 3, 2016 in Ostrava, Czech Republic. (Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

Russian Dmitri Aliev came here to reestablish himself following his disappointing sixth place finish at the World Junior Championships last year. He had no problem with that here. In terms of skating technique and expressiveness alone, no one here could touch him, even when he showed some fatigue late in his free. He wasn’t perfect technically. He had a spin go wrong in the short, and a couple of underrotations in the free, one on his quadruple toe-double toe attempt. But even then, with his solo quad in the free landed clean, he was still above everyone else technically there. He took his third JGP gold by nine points over American Alexei Krasnozhon.

Krasnozhon too came in with an ambition. After a clean short, he started his free going for the quadruple loop jump, which has never been landed in international competition. It was not today; he fell, and then saw it fully downgraded to the worth of a triple. However, he filled the rest of his skate with strong triples, and despite a stumble on a double axel took silver, his second JGP medal. Competing for the second week in a row, Roman Savosin did better with his triple axel this week, landing it on all three attempts, if not very prettily. On the other hand, after landing his quad last week, he underrotated and fell on it this week. He had other penalties on his jumps exacted by the technical panel as well, and finished a distant third. However, with gold and bronze at his two events, he is very likely to make the JGP Finale in December, although he is not yet locked.

Ladies

OSTRAVA, CZECH REPUBLIC – SEPTEMBER 03: (L-R) Rika Kihira of Japan, Anastasiia Gubanova and Alisa Lozko of Russia pose after the medal ceremony of the junior ladies free skating on day three of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating on September 3, 2016 in Ostrava, Czech Republic. (Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

The Ladies competition was not the prettiest of shows. Even the top three, all of whom were making their JGP debuts, had their struggles. Japanese skater Rika Kihara won the short program by virtue of skating clean with a strong triple lutz-triple toe. Her elements in both her programs were very sophisticated, though her skating is still developing. Fully developed skating-wise is Russian skater Anastasia Gubanova, who in her short personified Camille Saint-Sans’ The Swan-until she fell on her own triple lutz-triple toe.

Three points behind going into the free, Gubanova would fall attempting that combination there too. But would later in the program she instead landed a triple lutz-triple toe-double toe, as she came back strong, showing off just how high and strong her jumps can be, as well as her other elements and skating. Kihara, meanwhile, attempted to become only the seventh lady in history to land the triple axel in international competition, resulting in a nasty fall. She landed another triple lutz-triple toe shortly after, but some trouble on her three-jump ultimately proved fatal, as she slipped behind Gubanova, losing to the gold to her by a tiny eight hundredths of a point.

Bronze went to Gubanova’s fellow Russian Alisa Lozko. She too showed some refined technique, and the best spins in the competition. But while she impressed by raising her arm on multiple jumps, she underrotated seven of them. These included the second jump of her own triple lutz-triple toe attempt in the short, and a solo triple lutz she fell on in the free. She was fortunate, perhaps that in fourth and fifth, Japanese skater Yuna Aoki and Korean skater Hanul Kim had similar struggles, and could not match her presentation abilities. Aoki also attempted the more difficult triple lutz-triple loop, which she also failed to rotate. The only skater besides Kihara to land a triple lutz-triple toe was Latvian Diana Nikitina, who did so in both programs, only to struggle in the rest of her free program and finish seventh.

Pairs

OSTRAVA, CZECH REPUBLIC – SEPTEMBER 02: (L-R) Amina Atakhanova and Ilia Spiridonov of Russia, Anna Duskova and Martin Bidar of Czech Republic, Chelsea Liu and Brian Johnson of the United States pose after the medal ceremony of the junior pairs free skating on day two of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating on September 2, 2016 in Ostrava, Czech Republic. (Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

Home team Anna Duskova & Martin Bidar came in as reigning Junior World Champions, but having never won a JGP event. For the most part they skated like it in the short, delivering a strong and solid performance. The program even had a difficult throw triple lutz in it. It gave them a huge seven-and-a-half point lead over Russians Amina Atakhanova & Ilia Spiridonov. Atakhanova & Spiridonov, themselves JGP gold medalists last season, were also impressive for parts of their short, and they too did a throw lutz. But they failed to execute their lift, which was the reason for most of the point gap.

Duskova & Bidar would ultimately need most of that gap to stay ahead. In the free they landed good side by side triple toe loops, and another throw lutz. But she disastrously singled out all three jumps on their triple salchow-double toe-double toe combination. They also struggled with their closing choreographic sequence, and got docked two points for an illegal element, although as I write this Saturday the public has not heard anything as to why. Atakhanova & Spiridonov, in their free, successfully landed their slightly easier triple toe-double toe-double toe combination. They then went for harder side by side triple salchows, and had they landed them, they would’ve won. But as they were fully downgraded to doubles, and their throw triple loop wasn’t clean, they didn’t quite make up the point difference. Duskova & Bidar held on to take their first JGP title by about a point and a half.

The rest of the competition was far messier. After the short three teams would be crowded together within a point of each other for third. Just holding onto it were Americans Chelsea Liu & Brian Johnson. She had gone down on their side by side double axels, and they, too, were docked two points, because they’d rotated their lift more than was allowed. Some of their other elements weren’t very strong either. But their expression of their Michael Jackson music was, and higher presentation scores gave them the edge over Russians Anastasia Poluianova and Maksim Selkin and Chinese Yumeng Gao & Zhong Xie. Poluianova & Selkin had skated clean, though their program had not been very neat. Guo & Xie skated similarly to Liu & Johnson, though she underrotated her axel instead of falling on it.

In the free skate, both the Americans and the Russians struggled with their side by side double-axel-double toes. Also, all four skaters fell on their solo side by sides. Liu & Johnson tried the harder salchows, while Poluionova & Selkin the toe loops, but practically that didn’t end up mattering much. Even in their cleaner elements, both teams were generally weak. In the end, it was again the presentation scores that decided it, Liu & Johnson’s expression helping them prevail. It was their second JGP medal. Guo & Xie went for harder triple toe-double toes, and triple salchows. But she doubled the triple and underrotated the double, which combined with weaker throws and other weaker elements left them behind technically, especially when she failed to do her salchow properly as well. They too fumbled their ending, and they finished fifth.

Ice Dance

OSTRAVA, CZECH REPUBLIC – SEPTEMBER 02: (L-R) Nicole Kuzmich and Alexandr Sinicyn of Czech Republic, Lorraine Mcnamara and Quinn Carpenter of the United States, Arina Ushakova and Maxim Nekrasov of Russia pose for a photo after the ice dance medal ceremony on day two of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating on September 2, 2016 in Ostrava, Czech Republic. (Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

The reigning ice dance champions from Junior Worlds, on the other hand, were completely unchallenged. Americans Lorraine McNamara & Quinn Carpenter first impressed with a short dance done with speed, power, and attitude. They followed it up with a free where they continued to do everything so well, even a level 2 spin and a result technical tariff two points short of the highest posted didn’t keep them from edging out the highest technical score. They claimed their third JGP gold by over fifteen points.

The highest technical tariff instead went to Czech silver medalists Nicole Kuzmich & Alexandr Sinicyn. They combined speed and expression well in both their programs with home ice advantage to set new personal bests, and by a wide margins. It is their first JGP medal. With last week’s fourth place they even have a chance to make the JGP Finale, albeit a very low one. Bronze went to Arina Ushakova & Maxim Nekrasov of Russia. In their international debut, they showed off an elegant skating style in the short dance, and their free was one of the most intense of the day, although their elements were not yet at the level of the other two teams.

You can view full results here.

Next: Coaching News for Two Canadian Skaters

Update from Anna Tarusina

A week after the bus crash that landed her in the hospital in need of surgery, Anna Tarusina has updated the world on her condition via social media. She leaves the hospital and goes home today. Her surgery seems to have gone off successfully, although she apparently is only now able to walk again. That she says nothing about her coach Sergei Davydov’s condition is probably indication that there’s nothing permanently wrong with him. Similarly, we can hope the lack of news about Latvians is also good news.

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