Russians Dominate Junior Grand Prix Finale

Russians win three of the golds and seven of the medals, but manage no sweeps; ladies event goes on without either of the two top names.

Typically, at the Junior Grand Prix Finale, the Russians win most of the medals. Sweeps are far from uncommon, especially in the ladies and pairs. This year in Marsaille the event went as usual, although ultimately there weren’t any sweeps.

Men

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

In the men, gold was a battle between two Russians.  Dmitri Aliev and Alexander Samarin both had more or less clean shorts which they expressed hard in their very different styles, though Aliev’s was much more beautiful and effortless. It left them within half a point of each other. Their frees weren’t all that different either technically. They both landed most of their jumps, not all of which were their best, though Samarin’s in general were a little rougher. They both had a single fall, though in Aliev’s case, the jump involved was also fully downgraded to a double. Samarin also landed two quadruple toe loop jumps to Aliev’s one. This resulted in Samarin having the higher technical score. But Aliev’s artistry preserved him, and he took a narrow win.

After the short program, another Russian, Roman Savosin, was in third.  But he had a Korean and an American on his heels. His short had been clean, if a bit tight. Jun Hwan Cha and Alexei Krasnozhon both got through theirs with a single stepout of a jump. But in the free, Cha was the one to rise to the occasion. His musicality sang in a free program which included a clean quad salchow, if a fall that cost him a combination. Savosin underrotated two quad toes, and the rest of his jumps weren’t enough when he couldn’t match Cha artistically. When Krasnozhon couldn’t match either of them in presentation, and had three underrotations, including on his quad loop attempt, and a fall in his steps, he stayed in fifth, Savosin dropped to fourth, and Cha won bronze.

In sixth, Ilia Skirda might have actually given the best performances. He landed everything in both his programs, and he thoroughly entertained the crowd. However, without even the triple axel, let alone any quads, he simply wasn’t competitive with the other five.

Ladies

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

Fans had hoped after the JGP series for a battle between junior skating sensations Polina Tsurskaya and Marin Honda. But ultimately neither even made it onto competitive ice. Tsurskaya had pulled out a week ago, and then the morning of the short Honda was forced to withdraw with the flu. Of the five girls left, only one put two top notch programs together back to back. Russian Alina Zagitova started with a strong, clean short which included a triple lutz-triple toe. Her free was very similar, although she underrotated on an ambitious triple lutz-triple loop attempt. It was a win in both segments and overall.

Kaori Sakamoto also skated a clean short, complete with a triple flip-triple toe. That got her second in the segment when all three of the other girls fell on their lutzes to lose their combinations. But she had a little more trouble in her free. She landed her triple-triple again, but underrotated and fell on her solo flip, and had a couple more glitchy jumps. Meanwhile, Anastasia Gubanova, who’d been in third, came back with a knockout free that included a clean skate, her triple lutz-triple toe, a triple lutz-triple toe-double toe in the second half of the program, and her beautiful skating style. It sent her shooting way past Sakamoto for silver.

Sakamoto held onto bronze by about a point ahead of her fellow Japanese skater Rika Kihara. That was probably a bigger disappointment for Kihara when her bad showing at Japanese Junior Nationals last month means her season ends here. But she did at least get third in the free. Her opening triple axel attempt ended with a fall and a full downgrade. But she more or less pulled everything else off, including her triple lutz-triple toe, getting stronger as the program went on. Replacement Russian Elizaveta Nugumanova had a not dissimilar trajectory. But her opening featured two falls on a lutz underrotated and a flip fully downgraded. Successful triple loop-triple loop and double axel-triple toe-double toe combinations weren’t enough to make up for that.

Pairs

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

Although the pairs competition had some ugly moments, for the top two, things went very well. In the short program, Russians Anastasia Mishina & Vladislav Mirzoev and Czechs Anna Duskova & Martin Bidar both skated well, and landed throw triple lutzes.  However, the reigning Junior World Champions had trouble touching down on their split triple twist. Mishina & Mirzoev went completely clean, and so took the lead. In the free, they underrotated their most ambitious element, the side by side salchows, but made their other elements, including the throw triple flip, look very good, as well as their skating in general. Duskova & Bidar fought through twist, triple salchow-double toe-double toe combination, and throw triple lutz, before going down on the easier throw salchow. General quality of elements and presentation carried the day for Mishina & Mirzoev, who won gold, leaving the Czechs with the silver.

For the next two Russian teams, things were more of a mixed bag. A clean short of easier elements initially gave Alina Ustimkina & Nikita Volodin a three-tenths advantage over Aleksandra Boikova & Dmitrii Kozlovskii. Boikova & Kozlovskii landed a throw flip, but had issues with multiple other elements. But in the free, Ustimkina & Volodin failed to do their combination, and she fell on their solo double axels. Boikova & Kozlovskii also had a fall on a throw salchow, but were the only couple in the event to successfully landed side by side solo salchows. A generally neater program also helped them get past Ustimkina & Volodin to win bronze by about a point and a half.

For Australians Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya & Harley Windsor in fifth, and final Russian team Amina Atakhanova & Ilia Spiridonov in sixth, things went very badly. Their short programs weren’t complete disaster zones, though they both fell attempting harder throws. But their free programs were. Atakhanova & Spiridonov especially had a scary fall on a lasso lift, although thankfully they both seemed to get up without trouble.

Dance

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

Dance was expected to be a battle between the top two American teams. Instead it was a battle between one American team and one Russian one. Alla Loboda & Pavel Drozd won the short with a high energy performance that got them the highest presentation scores. They didn’t get the highest technical tariff, though. That went to Rachel & Michael Parsons, who also performed well, which kept their lead to a little over half a point. In the free, while Loboda & Drozd, they maxed out the possible score for their twizzles, their tariff dropped a little too low.  Another similar performance couldn’t make the gap up when the Parsonses came out with a beautiful performance of probably the best free dance program of the event. They were the ones a little more than half a point ahead overall for the gold.

Their level issues might not have stopped Lorriane McNamara & Quinn Carpenter from winning their individual events, but mistakes here were another matter. Their tariffs came up slightly short of the top two in the short, and a bit more in the free. That would’ve been hard enough to overcome even had they skated flawlessly. But when they had a moment of difficulty going into one lift in the short and coming out of another one in the free, they were truly doomed to bronze. And even with the mistakes, their lower presentation scores were downright alarming for a team trying to stay at the very top of the junior scene.

The back half of the field was never really in contention for the podium, barring major disaster from the top three that didn’t happen. However, the third American team, Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko, performed both of their programs with a technical ease and maturity of expression that bodes well for their future. They even beaten McNamara & Carpenter’s technical score in the free. Home team Angelique Abachkina & Louis Thauron delighted with their performance ability, but less developed technique and lack of speed, as well as a lower tariff in the free dance, kept them in fifth. In sixth, Anastasia Shpileva & Grigory Smirnov lacked either the technical or emotional sophistication of the top teams, and were really just happy to be here.

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

We will see plenty of these skaters at the World Junior Championship in February. We can’t see all of them, of course, because Russia can only send three in each discipline.