The Memorable, the Messy, and History Mix at the Grand Prix Finale

A good ladies event makes up for an underwhelming men’s one; Russian team pulls an upset in the pairs; Virtue & Moir win the one big dance title they’d been lacking.

The first ever Grand Prix Finale was held in Paris in February 1996, but it hasn’t been back to France since 2000. Finally, this year, it came to Marsaille. Sadly, the only French skaters to qualify for the senior event suffered a disappointment when they failed to win the title. Nonetheless, there was plenty for the French audience to enjoy, from an excellent ladies competition to a couple of world record scores, if also a few unpleasant events, such as the men’s competition, they had to endure.

Men

(Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

It was the fourth title in a row for the Olympic champion, Yuzuru Hanyu winning by a combination of short program score and skating decently in both programs. In the short, even he more or less pulled everything off, including his quadruple loop jump and quadruple salchow-triple toe loop jump combination, although the former involving a little flailing. In the free, his quad loop was a little better, and he also landed a solo quad salchow and toe. However, he went down on the would-be quad salchow combination, and late in the program struggled with his free jump before popping a lutz. It wasn’t enough to keep the rest of the program from being beautiful, but it did make it a third-place one.

He was lucky it wasn’t a good men’s event. The only other man to skate clean in the short was Patrick Chan. He gave a grand performance, landing a quad toe-triple toe and taking an easy second in the segment. But then in the free, he fell on the quad toe and then on both his triple axels. Not even a beautiful quad salchow and the best artistry in the field could keep him from dropping to fifth. Fernandez was in third after a short where he landed the same quad-triple, but nearly fell on the quad salchow, and did fall on his triple axel. In the free, after tripling a quad toe, the same two jumps afflicted him. The Spaniard merely underrotated the solo quad salchow, but the axel he again fell on. He did land a quad salcow-double toe, but barely. He finished fourth.

(Photo credit should read ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images)

This opened the door for the currently arriving generation. Nathan Chen came to the Grand Prix Finale now saying he’d never left Rafael Arutunian at all, and is merely also working with Marina Zueva. He then went for his usual ridiculously hard quad lutz-triple toe combination and solo quad flip, turning out between jumps in the former and underrotating and falling on the latter. That left him in fifth, a point behind Shoma Uno, who’d landed the quad flip, but fallen on a fully downgraded quad toe to lose his combination.

But Chen won the free skate, opening with the same hard quad and combination, following it up with a solo quad toe after a slightly crazy quad toe-double toe-double loop combination, all four landed. When he then proceeded to nail the rest of the program, his tech score broke 110. Uno, second in the free, was nearly as good. He too managed his quad flip clean, a solo quad toe with a slight turnout, a perfect quad toe-double toe combination, an also ridiculously hard triple axel-loop-triple flip combination, all his triples landed, and presentation so superior to Chen’s it almost made up the technical gap. When the numbers crunched together, Chen squeaked ahead for silver by .34. Uno settled for bronze.

Behind them all, Adam Rippon’s long awaited Grand Prix Finale debut disappointed heavily. With no quad in the short, an underrotation in his combination was bad enough. Falling on a fully downgraded quad to open the free was also bad. A second half of the program that included another fall, a near fall, and double was worse still. He probably couldn’t have medaled even had he skated clean, but with those mistakes he was left out of it completely.

Ladies

(Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

The ladies skated much better than the men did. Evgenia Medvedeva’s short program especially was exquisite, from the opening triple flip-triple toe to the closing layback spin. It even got her a world record score, just shy of 80. Her free wasn’t quite as perfect. In fact, she stumbled on the opening flip. But this didn’t even cost her the difficult triple-triple. She just did it later in the program, where her solo flip had been planned, along with the triple salchow-triple toe. When most of the program was her usual technical brilliance, she won by nearly ten points.

Initially after the short Katelyn Osmond was second, with Satoko Miyahara and Anna Pogorilaya at her heels. The Canadian had been clean and strong, completely with a triple flip-triple toe combination. Miyahara had skated clean with a triple lutz-triple toe combination, but lacked Osmond’s power. Pogorilaya, skating through an injury to her back she got while getting on the ice, also landed her triple lutz-triple toe, but stepped out of her loop.

(Photo by Joosep Martinson – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

Osmond’s free still had that triple-triple and some of her power. But it also had two doubled triples and a singled double in her other two combinations. Meanwhile, Miyahara shone in her free program from her triple-triple onward, suffering the consequences only of one underrotated flip. Pogorilaya also powered through her triple-triple again, and them proceeded to dramatically power through the rest of her program as well, landing everything. She finished behind the music but still within the official time limit. She rose to silver and Pogorilaya to bronze, as Osmond dropped to fourth.

Newly senior Russian Maria Sotskova wasn’t favored for a medal, but she probably would’ve liked to have rotated everything. She landed her triple lutz-triple toe in both programs. But in the short she underrotated both her solo jumps, and in the free she underrotated both triples in her three-jump. She landed her other jumps in the latter, but in this field it was only good enough for fifth. Elena Radionova, meanwhile, was much more disappointed. She followed the triple lutz-triple toe in her short with only one underrotation. But she started the free by underrotating and falling on the lutz, later tried to do the triple-triple on her second lutz only to underrotate the toe, and failed to even partially rotate the salchow in her three-jump. She finished last.

Pairs

(Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

There may have been the fall’s top teams, but the pairs event proved one where success was built on the easier elements. Not entirely; surprise winners Evgenia Tarasova & Vladimir Morozov did pull off a quad split twist in the free. But the won the shorter by skating clean with relatively easy jump elements. Xiaoyu Yu & Hao Zhang took second the same way.  The same approach even got Cheng Peng & Yang Jin close to third, though ultimately a lower technical tariff left them behind Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford. The World Champions had gone for the harder elements, falling on an underrotated throw triple axel, and their side by side triple lutzes weren’t clean either.

In the free, even after narrowly pulling off the twist, Tarasova & Morozov struggled with their side by sides. Their solo salchows were fully downgraded, and he didn’t managed the second double of their three-jump either. But they did their easier throws beautifully, as well as most of the rest of their program. Meanwhile Yu & Zhang went for easier side by sides, and then didn’t rotate their triple toe-double toe combination. Then, after she’d gracefully dragged him through to the end, he fumbled the final spin and she fell on her final pose. They were third in the segment, though they held on to second, if by less than a point. Winning bronze, Duhamel & Radford landed a beautiful throw lutz and a throw quad salchow with a wild hand down, but she doubled the lutzes and didn’t properly do the three-jump.

(Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

Cheng & Jin fared far worse. They didn’t try harder elements either, but she still went down on both their side by sides, and he nearly dropped her out of a lift. It was bad enough they fell to last. Like their fellow Canadians, Seguin & Bilodeau tried the harder elements. In the short, they paid the price, falling on both underrotated salchows and the throw flip. They had a much better fourth place free where they landed both those elements. But when they lost their combination to a fall from him, they finished fifth, just behind Nataliia Zabiiako & Alexander Enbert. The replacement Russians didn’t do too badly for themselves, all together. Both their programs were good, though neither were perfect. The hardest thing they tried were side by side salchows in the free, which he doubled.

Dance

(Photo credit should read ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images)

Once again, the reigning world champions took on the returning Olympic champions, this time on home ice. And once again, it wasn’t even close. In fact, this time, not only did Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron come in firmly below Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir, they even faced a brief challenge from Maia & Alex Shibutani!  While the Canadians were making history breaking 80 in the short dance, even getting the highest score possible for a step sequence to die for, a pair of mistakes in their partial step sequence caused the French to only get level two on it. The Shibutanis said they’d come in working on their levels. In the short dance it served them well. A very dapper program earned a technical tariff that matched Virtue & Moir’s, and from there they were good enough to sneak ahead of Papadakis & Cizeron by .11.

All three teams gave spectacular performances in the free dance, their best yet. Even a mishap with starting their music didn’t phase Virtue & Moir at all. Arguably the Shibutanis were the most beautiful. Nonetheless, their tariff dropped. They managed to max out the score on one of their lifts, but Papadakis & Cizeron maxed out the score on two of theirs. The Americans couldn’t stay ahead, and so their first ever Grand Prix medal was bronze. But Papadakis & Cizeron still couldn’t match the tariff of Virtue & Moir. Perhaps, also, their same-themed free dances are losing their impact a little. The Canadians maxed out only their opening lift, but they still did everything, technically and emotionally, more than well enough. The Grand Prix Finale was the one major title Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir hadn’t won, and now they’ve taken it with a world record total.

(Photo credit should read ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images)

The back half of the field did not skate their best. Ekaterina Bobrova & Dmitri Soloviev took fourth on the strength of their short dance, getting a lead on the other two American teams when Madison Chock & Evan Bates suffered a fall from her on a transitional move. Even there, Madison Hubbell & Zachary Donohue didn’t do too badly, especially with a much improved revamped short dance. The Russians got their advantage mostly on presentation scores, possibly helped by reputation, or maybe just sheer dramaticism.

They were fifth in a free dance where they added to their usual intensity a bit more connection to their music, but their twizzles weren’t pristine and one of their lifts got a little hairy. They might have even slipped behind Hubbell & Donohue, who continue to make their free better with their expression, except she went awry in their own twizzles. Chock & Bates came back with a stronger and boldy done fourth-place free, but even they were a little weak in their steps and their speed. Ultimately, they remained in sixth, behind Hubbell & Donohue by .27. It’s the first time the latter team has beaten them since 2012 Nationals, and whether it will be the last is anyone’s guess.

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View full results here, including forthe Junior Grand Prix Finale, which we will be dealing with in a separate article. Now most of the world’s skaters will spend the next two months preparing for an competing at their country’s national championships, before the ISU championships get underway.