Challenger Series Wraps up in Croatia

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Carolina Kostner returns to competition as Italy wins three golds; another disappointing men’s competition is offset by another better ladies competition.

While some of the world’s top skaters were in France competing in the Grand Prix Finale, the Challenger Series too wrapped up, with the Golden Spin of Zagreb. The timing of the event unfortunately limited the amount of attention paid. The horrible quality of the livestream didn’t help. But for the second time this decade, the weekend of the Grand Prix Finale witnessed the return of a reigning Olympic medalist at a lesser event. While Zagreb didn’t get nearly the mass media the 2012 NRW Trophy did when Yu-Na Kim returned, it proved a comeback worth watching. A few other top skaters to didn’t make it to Marsaille also entered, but not all of them showed.

Men

Originally the top name in the men’s field was Denis Ten of Kazakhstan, but he had a bad short program and withdrew. He wasn’t the only one to struggle. In fact, none of the event’s top contenders were able to put two good programs together. Israeli Alexei Bychenko came the closest. He was fourth after the short, where his quadruple toe loop attempt didn’t go very well. In the free, he landed it, both alone and with a triple toe. Later in the program he fumbled one triple axel, fell on a second, and doubled a lutz. This cost him the segment, which went to young Russian Alexander Petrov.

But Petrov was too far behind after an eleventh-place short where he fell and blew a spin. Bychenko did well enough to win by two points over his countryman Daniel Samohin. Samohin had won the short thanks to his own successful quad toe-triple toe combination, but he fell attempting a quad salchow, and also lost a point when a piece of his costume fell off. His lead over second place Keegan Messing was still six points though. He needed it, too, since his seventh-place free included falls on both his quad toe attempts and only two clean jumping passes, though they were a triple axel and a quad salchow.

Messing took second in the short mainly because he didn’t actually fall on his underrotated quad toe, though he came close. He underrotated the only one he went for in the free too.  He fumbled some of his other jumps as well, and fell on his would-be triple axel combination. This cost him the silver, which went to Samohin. But it was still good enough for fourth in the segment, and to win bronze ahead of Petrov. In a competition where most of the men’s frees weren’t good at all, Petrov’s was wonderfully clean, although it was also quadless. It got him painfully close to medaling. But ultimately, he came up just .38 short, and finished fourth.

Ladies

Like in Marsaille, the ladies proved better than the men. Up until this week, their event was heavily anticipated for two reasons. The first was that the top two American girls were both planning to compete. But then Ashley Wagner decided she’d rather hunker down at home and prepare for Nationals. Gracie Gold showed up, had two more bad skates, and finished sixth. But neither of them were the most anticipated name anyway. That was Carolina Kostner, the Italian bronze medalist from Sochi. She was competing for the first time since 2014, after serving a shortened ban for lying to doping officials about her then-boyfriend’s whereabouts.

Kostner’s artistry and beauty were back with her. Her technical content was another matter. Not only did she not try any combination harder than a triple toe-triple toe, she didn’t even try any of the hardest triple jumps. She did this triple-triple very well in the short, where despite some rough spots she won the segment, and well enough that it got her the gold. The weak technical content of her free program, weakened further by a handful of rotation issues, forced her to concede that segment to her fellow former world champion Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. Nonetheless, the performance of it was still brilliant.

Tuktamisheva too is doing the triple toe-triple toe, which she pulled off well in both programs. But in the short she singled a lutz, leaving her in fifth, and while her free program was very good, it wasn’t clean. A fall on a loop kept her from beating Kostner by more than three points, not enough to pass her overall. In fact, she only got past Alena Leonova for silver by less than a point. The former top Russian, amid all her present-day struggles, suddenly had a competition where she landed everything. Not absolutely cleanly, but so close to it as to not really matter. The triple toe-triple toe has always been her triple-triple of choice, and she too landed it in both programs. Third in the short and second in the free, she took bronze less than a point behind Tuktamysheva.

Two other girls landed more difficult triple-triples, but they both made too many mistakes elsewhere to properly benefit. American Amber Glenn did get second in the short out of it, but multiple errors in her free ultimately dropped her to fourth.

Pairs

The battle for gold between Italians Nicole Della Monica & Matteo Guarise and Russians Kristina Astakhova & Alexei Rogonov was a crazily close one. This did not make it entirely good. The highlight was Della Monica & Guarise’s clean short program, where they landed side by side triple salchows. But in the free, she fell on them, and then again to cost them their jump combination. They landed their throws, but those were easier. Astakhanova & Rogonov ended up a little bit behind in the short when they also landed the salchows, but fell on a throw triple lutz. They landed that throw in the free, where they went for harder triple loops, which she doubled and he stumbled on. He also stumbled on their triple salchow-double toe-double toe combination, and their closing spin was invalidated. But they got just enough of an advantage, winning gold by .16.

New American team Ashley Cain & Timothy le Duc had the most ambitious programs of the competition. In the short, they landed clean side by side triple loops, but had a trouble with their split triple twist and throw triple lutz that left them in fourth. Their free did not start or end well, with more trouble on their twist and another invalidated pairs spin. But in between, they did the throw lutz clean, and the loops even better. They didn’t managed to rotate their double axel-loop-triple salchow combination, but the successful content plus their good presentation helped them take second in the segment (by .02) and win bronze over countrymen Haven Denney & Brandon Frazier. Poor Denney & Frazier, second alternates to the Grand Prix Finale, came in arguably the favorites, but their skating was bad even by the standards of the weekend.

Dance

Reigning champions Charlene Guignard & Marco Fabbri came back to claim a third gold for Italy in the dance. It was a field where the top two stood above the rest. Even when the top three teams matched each other in technical tariff in both segments, there was still considerable distance between second and third. Guignard & Fabbri did have to hold off Americans Kaitlin Hawayek & Jean-Luc Baker. The smooth execution and energetic performances of both of their programs helped them do so. Hawayek & Baker might have, at points in time, not been as technically seamless. On the other hand, their free dance contained many breaking moments. They lost that segment to the Italians by only sixth tenths of a point. They lost the short by a little more; Guignard & Fabbri’s final winning margin was about three points.

Turkish team Alisa Agafonova & Alper Ucar were a little closer to the those below them, especially in the free. The technical tariff helped them get a comfortable distance in the short. It also helped them keep the edge in the free, as did an emotional performance. Ultimately, they took bronze by a little less than four points.

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

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