Culturess
Fansided

Olympic Champions Announced as Out, Biggest News of Busy Russian Weekend

By Isobel Moody

facebooktwitterreddit

News about Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov broken at test skate; other updates given and programs skated for the public for the first time.

The Russian test skates this weekend produced a lot of news and a lot of videos. After beginning the week with closed skates of their programs for federation officials, they did open skates of their short programs Saturday and their free programs Sunday for the public. Sunday was also when the biggest piece of news broke:

Olympic champions Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov out for the season

More from Sports

Asked about Volosozhar & Trankov, coach Nina Mozer told the media today they are not competing this season. By then this wasn’t really a surprise, especially since they were absent from the test skates without explanation. They were also already not doing the Grand Prix, saying they’d start at Nationals. Mozer gave no real explanation. It seems they just don’t want to compete. That raises the question if they’ll even want to compete in the Olympic season. This could easily be it for them. Even if they do come back, they didn’t do too well at Worlds last season after missing the season before. Out for another year, and would they do any better at the Olympics?

Some other teams were missing as well. Ksenia Stolbova & Fedor Klimov, now undisputedly Russia’s top pair, were still dealing with her inflamed leg, though they expect to begin their season on time. Their short was also revealed to be Debussy’s “Claire de Lune,” and their free to be “modern.” 2015 Russian dance champions Elena Ilinykh & Ruslan Zhiganshin chose to skip the open part of the weekend because of his knee issues. All in all, most of the top skaters who showed their programs to the world for the first time were ladies singles.

Evgenia Medvedeva

Choreographer Ilia Averbuch, who did world champion Evgenia Medvedeva’s program, claims they tried to branch out by getting her to skate a tango, and to the soundtrack of Gravity, but these choices didn’t suit her. So the actual music and choreography of these programs are what we’ve seen from her already. She’s certainly prepared, the way she skates here. There’s just one little new thing in her free program music…

Averbuch went into details about this. The music is from the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The idea is her significant other has gone off, a terrorist attack or similar happens, and she is left to agonize over his fate until the phone rings at the end of the program, when the phone rings with news. This kind of vocals and sound effects is always risky. Done wrong, it comes off as very corny. The words being hard to discern, as they are here, is a little less risky, though. A skater who can convey emotion without overdoing it might be able to pull this off. If Averbuch and her team were considering what wouldn’t work for her, they must believe this will. But are they right? Of course, if she keeps her technical brilliance, she might win everything anyway.

Related Story: Who Is The Voice Of The Female Sports Fan?

Elena Radionova

2015 World bronze medalist Elena Radionova perhaps should’ve also bailed out of the open skates; she too has health issues. It showed in the short she skated, and she didn’t skate her long:

On the other hand, this short is very snappy and cute, and Radionova could shine it in. Once she lands her jumps.

Anna Pogorilaya

The current world bronze medalist skated both their programs, but they honestly aren’t that impressive:

She described her free as telling a story about a Spanish woman waiting in vain for her love, but she doesn’t really convey that. And she definitely gets a penalty for unnecessary techno in the tango short.

Adelina Sotnikova

The Olympic champion might have failed to get much of anywhere in the current Russian ladies field last season, but she’s not giving up yet. She even had her short program costume already:

They too programs are in fact much more interesting and mature than the ones with which she won that gold. She needs to be that, to have any chance of making it back.

Julia Lipnitskaia

Coach Alexei Urmanov described Julia Lipnitskaia as 75% ready for her second attempt at a comeback season. Her short, the music for which was her style, she debuted already. But today, we got a look at her long program, the music for which is not her typical style:

She didn’t really connect to her here, but that can be blamed on her not being 100% yet. We’ll have to wait to see whether or not she can pull Kill Bill off.

Mikhail Kolyada

New men’s star Mikhail Kolyada is keeping his short from last year. He will skate only his new free:

The story going around is that the Russian federation didn’t like the new short program he arrived it, and forced him to discard it. One hopes they don’t try to force him into a preferred style of skating. He’s a showman, and this program is even built to showcase this. The Russian federation tries to turn him into something else, it’ll hinder his success

Evgenia Tarasova & Vladimir Morozov

Evgenia Tarasova & Vladimir Morozov were the highest-ranked pair to participate in the test skates. Their two programs present a contrast of styles.

The free program style is one they’ve done enough, but they’ve never done a competitive “fun” program like the short. For the moment they seem to still be developing their style there. They may well have it in place by the Grand Prix.

Next: Home Ladies Sweep Highlights Junior Grand Prix Yokohama

Victoria Sinitsina & Nikita Katsalapov

Of the most successful three Russian teams currently competing, one was out, and the other had debuted both their programs in shows earlier in the summer. The highest-profile new dance programs were the ones Victoria Sinitsina & Nikita Katsalapov had talked about earlier in the week

Coach & choreographer Marina Zueva knew what she was doing with these programs. They are both well-formed wholes, with the free being reflecting a tango in almost every move. They play to the team’s strengths too. Sinitsina & Katsalapov are currently dealing with their training issues, but they shouldn’t have any program issues.

Home/Sports