Russia Less Dominant Than Usual at Junior Worlds
By Isobel Moody
Americans come from behind to win men and dance; Russia wins only the ladies; Australians make history in the pairs.
The World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Taipei this week was not the smoothest event. There were a couple of organizational oddities, such as one warm up group in the ladies short program having five skaters and the next seven for no apparent reason, and a bird even landing on the competitive ice. There was a good deal of messy skating as well, especially in the pairs. But there was also some memorable performances, especially in the singles. There was also a change of pace: the Russians only won half the medals, and one of the golds. Elsewhere, the pairs winner made history for their country.
Men
The men’s competition was probably the best of the event. Not all the top skaters delivered, but plenty of skaters did. The short program saw one of the cleanest top twelves in memory, without any quadruple jumps, but with the top eleven all landing triple axels, though some had to hold on to a jump or two. Favorite Dmitri Aliev was among the latter with his combination. But having artistry and skating ability above the rest of the field still gave him the lead. Perhaps the man who delivered the most was Jun Hwan Cha, who beamed all through his near-flawless skate for second. Close behind in third and fourth, Aliev’s fellow Russians Alexanders Samarin and Petrov really had to hold on to their loops, Samarin especially. Between Aliev and Petrov there were only about two points.
In the long, mistakes started to creep in, except for Vincent Zhou. Lower presentation scores than he perhaps ought to have gotten left the American a bit behind in fifth following the short. But then he forced the judges to take notice when he opened his free with a quadruple lutz. For good measure, he threw in two quad salchows, one in combination with a triple toe. When the rest of the program was done equally well, he broke 100 points technically. With only an opening quad toe, Aliev didn’t stand a chance. It didn’t help he nearly fell on it, or that he underrotated a late flip. More or less managing everything else in the artistically strongest program of the night got him silver. But Zhou won gold by over ten points.
Samarin won bronze a couple of points behind Aliev, and a couple ahead of Petrov. The two Alexanders’ skates were again pretty similar. Samarin went for two quad toes to Petrov’s one, though. He stumbled on his quad triple, but landed his solo quad. Petrov put a hand down on his only quad. Both men more or less managed the rest of their programs, though they both had to do some fighting, Samarin especially. Cha came in in a point behind Petrov. The Korean was more ambitious, going for two quad salchows. He landed one in combination, but fell on the other, one of two underrotations. He also finished behind the music, which perhaps was a reason his presentation scores didn’t save him. Although one does question whether maybe they should have, since he does out-perform the Russians, and did not get rewarded for it at all.
Reigning champion Daniel Samohin had yet another very bad skate in his short program again. But unlike at Europeans, he still qualified for the free, down in sixteenth. He made use of the opportunity, skating a second-place long where he landed the quad toe with a triple and the quad salchow solo, though he went down on his third quad and had a bit more trouble by the end. He was the only skater besides Zhou to go for three quads. It got him up to sixth. Reigning silver medalist Nicolas Nadeau went the other way, dropping from seventh to twelfth with a fifteenth place free riddled with multiple extremely costly errors. His two fellow Canadians finished behind him, costing them a berth to next year’s competition. Top name Roman Sadovsky finished seventeenth with about his most disastrous free ever. And that’s saying something for him.
Samohin might have made the free this time, but one of the Americans didn’t. Andrew Torgashev came in with hopes of improving on his tenth place finish from two years ago, at the very least. But he suffered two singles and a fall, and painfully missed the cutoff by a point. Alexei Krasozhon made it fine in eighth. He even managed to stay there, though a fully downgraded quadruple loop and another technical penalty in his three-jump left him without the technical or artistic content to finish higher than tenth in the segment.
Ladies
The ladies weren’t quite as strong as the men. But the short program still had a clean top five, and the medalists were impressive. Top two Alina Zagitova and Marin Honda especially were pretty much both perfect throughout. Reigning champion Honda was the best performer of the event, delivering two artistically spectacular skates. Her short program might have been the best show all week. Perhaps her presentation scores weren’t sufficiently higher than Zagitova’s, honestly. But Zagitova’s winning on her technical content was more than fair enough. Honda was no slouch, with her triple flip-triple toe combinations in both programs. But Zagitova followed a triple lutz-triple toe in the short with an even harder triple lutz-triple loop in the free, and did every single jump in the back half of her programs.
Kaori Sakamoto, too, skated clean throughout to get Japan the bronze as well as the silver. She didn’t dazzle like the top two, and she finished behind the music in the free. But her short program especially had energetic expression enough. It also had her triple flip-triple toe in the back half. She opened with it in her long, where she also included an impressive double axel-triple toe-double toe. Nor was Korean Eunsoo Lim too shabby in fourth. She delivered a bright short with a triple lutz-triple toe, and her long had it as well, although it also had a fall and only one other combination. In fifth, third Japanese skater Yuna Shiraiwa landed the same triple-triple in both programs. But her long had a fall and three underrotations, including on in her triple flip-triple toe-double toe attempt.
It was the other two Russians who had the biggest disappointment. Most painful of all was Polina Tsurskaya. She ought to have been contending for gold. But instead she rotated none of the triples in her short, where she also fell. Her free wasn’t much better. Two attempts at her triple lutz-triple toe both failed, and outside those she rotated only one clean triple. She finished tenth. Stanislava Konstantinova, whose being here was a touch controversial, did land that triple-triple in the short. But there her loop went horribly wrong. In the long the triple-triple attempt only resulted in a single lutz, and she had a singled axel and underrotation in her third combo late.
She did just enough to stay ahead of American Bradie Tennell for sixth. Tennell tried the same triple-triple in both programs, underrotating it in the short and failing to do the second jump in the free, where she too had an underrotation in a late triple-double. Late replacement second American Starr Andrews may have expected a little less, but was still the bigger disappointment. In the short she tried only a triple toe-triple toe, which she held onto, but had trouble on her loop. For the free she started more ambitious, going for a triple-triple double, but that had one of three underrotations. Since she also singled both her axels, she ended up down in twelfth.
Pairs
The pairs short, too, ended with one Russian entry leading and the other two unexpectedly both out of the top three. But in this case none of the three skated clean. Aleksandra Boikova & Dmitrii Kozlovskii got through their program with a hand down on a throw triple flip. It got them a narrow lead over Yumeng Gao & Zhong Xie. Gao & Xie’s program was the most beautifully done of the night, to the point it got them into second even when their technical content was easier than the other top teams, with only side by side double loops, while the other top teams did axels. The only other team to match Boikova & Kozlovskii’s content was that of Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya & Harley Windsor. They skated clean, though it was close on the flip, which got them within a hair of Gao & Xie.
Amina Atakhanova & Ilia Spiridonov tried to match the content of their countrymen. But they went down on the throw flip, and then had to abort a lift. That left them all the way down in eighth. Alina Ustimkina & Nikita Volodin had small errors on both their jump elements, which left them in fourth. They were just ahead of Americans Chelsea Liu & Brian Johnson, who underrotated and went down on their axels, among other difficulties.
None of the notable teams skated a clean long program. Atakhanova & Spiridonov came the closest, nailing most of their elements, but he singled the second jump of their double axel-double toe combination. They also were arguably the most artistic, but between them and Gao & Xie that was almost a matter of taste. They were the ones who got notably higher presentation scores than everyone else, though, which was the main reason they won the segment. But they hadn’t done anything more difficult than a throw triple lutz, and they were too far behind. Fourth was as high as they could manage.
Alexandrovaskaya & Windsor went for the hardest jump content this time. They combined salchows with a three-jump and throw flip, and did them all easily. Then she went down on the easier throw salchow, as they started to lag at the end. But while Boikova & Kozkovskii did the same side by sides, they did easier throws, and they had glitches on the salchows, and the throws, and multiple non-jump elements. Meanwhile, Gao & Xie’s already weaker content was decimated when he doubled both the toe in their combination and their solo salchows. Relative smoothness of their other elements and superior musicality helped them beat Boikova & Kozlovskii in the segment. But they were left about a point behind them overall for bronze, the Russians took silver, and, two points ahead, Alexandrovaskaya & Windsor won Australia their first ever gold at an ISU Figure Skating Championship.
Ustimkina & Volodin tried to combine a triple salchow three-jump with double axels. She singled the latter and the second double, and their throws weren’t clean either. They dropped to sixth. Liu & Johnson, skating to “Beauty and the Beast” the weekend the live action film is coming out, did land their salchows. But three falls, on one of which she clearly hurt herself, weren’t even the sum of their subsequent problems. Eighth in the segment, they finished seventh.
Dance
The dance competition also had a few mishaps by the top teams. One of them nearly cost the favorites the gold. Rachel & Michael Parsons were already three tenths of a point behind Alla Loboda & Pavel Drozd going into the free dance. They’d skated their short dance well enough. But the Russians were brilliant in both programs, and their short especially stood out from the field with its maturity. The Americans had the superiority there with their free dance, but when their ending lift wasn’t entirely smooth, it momentarily looked like all might be lost. But ultimately, the sheer beauty of their program and the perfection with which they expressed it carried the day, and they moved ahead to win by a little less than half a point.
Reigning champions Lorraine McNamara & Quinn Carpenter finished off a disappointing season with yet more mistakes. Their short dance ended with her going wrong during their step sequence. Their free dance opened with him going wrong on their technical twizzles, and their easier closing ones weren’t their best either. They finished seventh. Also having a disappointing competition all together were French team Angelique Abachkina & Louis Thauron, who came in behind them in eighth. They took themselves out in the short dance, where he pretty much didn’t do their second set of twizzles. Their free dance was better, but didn’t have the goods to recover.
The third American team, Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko, also had weak twizzles in the short dance, leaving them sixth going into the free. Three points ahead of them, two Russian teams were barely a tenth apart from each other in third and fourth. Anastasia Skoptcova & Kirill Aleshin and Anastasia Shpilevaya & Gregory Smirnov ultimately both skated a pair of programs that were technically sound, but a little lacking in maturity at times. The former initially led the latter, but the latter then rode the energy of their free dance to finish ahead of the former. But their finishes were ultimately fourth and fifth. Carreira & Ponomarenko were flawless in their free dance, which was one of the most emotional performances of the night. They had no trouble making the gap up to win bronze.
View full results here.
Junior Berths for Next Season
Like the European and World Championships, the placements of the skaters at Junior Worlds determines what countries can send which extra skaters to what at the next Junior Worlds. But the placements also determine how many skaters they get to send to next year’s seven Junior Grand Prix events.
Assuming, pending the official announcement this summer, the current rules stay the same: all countries are guaranteed ones single and one dance berth in at least two events, and one pairs berths in three. All countries who participate but don’t place high enough are guaranteed one singles and one dance berth in three events, and all four in pairs. (However, everyone who participated in the pairs event this year earned at least two berths per event.) Higher placements can earn more. Host nations can have three entries in singles and dance, and as many as they want in pairs.
2018 World Junior Championships Extra Berths
Three berths: Russia (all four disciplines), United States (Men & Dance), Japan (Ladies), Australia (Pairs)
Two berths: South Korea (Men, Ladies, & Pairs), Canada (Men, Pairs, & Dance), France (Men & Dance), United States (Ladies & Pairs), Germany (Ladies & Dance), Israel (Men), Japan (Men), Ukraine (Men), Hong Kong (Ladies), China (Pairs), Czech Republic (Dance)
2017 Junior Grand Prix Berths
Three in each pairs event: Australia, Russia, China, Canada
Seven events, two entries: Russia (Men, Ladies, & Dance), Korea (Men, Ladies, & Pairs), Japan (Ladies & Pairs), United States (Men, Pairs & Dance), France (Pairs), Germany (Pairs), Israel (Pairs), Italy (Pairs), Spain (Pairs), Canada (Dance)
Seven events: France (Men & Dance), Germany (Ladies & Dance), Israel (Men), Japan (Men), Hong Kong (Ladies), United States (Ladies), Czech Republic (Dance)
Six events: Ukraine (Men & Dance), Canada (Men), Italy (Men), China (Ladies), Finland (Ladies), Sweden (Ladies), Great Britain (Dance), Japan (Dance)
Five events: Great Britain (Men, Ladies, & Dance), Chinese Taipei (Men & Ladies), Czech Republic (Men & Ladies), Italy (Men & Ladies), China (Men), Estonia (Men), Germany (Men), Norway (Men), Canada (Ladies), Mexico (Ladies), Turkey (Ladies), Australia (Ladies), Spain (Ladies), Belarus (Dance), Finland (Dance), Georgia (Dance), Hungary (Dance), Lithuania (Dance)
Four events: Australia (Men & Dance), Estonia (Ladies & Dance), Mexico (Men), Turkey (Men), Bulgaria (Ladies), Israel (Ladies), Latvia (Ladies), Switzerland (Ladies), Ukraine (Ladies), China (Dance), Italy (Dance), Kazakhstan (Dance)
Three events: Belarus (Men & Ladies), Hungary (Men & Ladies), Kazakhstan (Men & Ladies), Slovakia (Men & Ladies), Bulgaria (Men & Dance), Poland (Men & Dance), Spain (Men & Dance), Austria (Ladies & Dance), Finland (Men), Georgia (Men), Latvia (Men), Malaysia (Men), Monaco (Men), South Africa (Men), Sweden (Men), Switzerland (Men), Azerbaijan (Ladies), Croatia (Ladies), France (Ladies), Lithuania (Ladies), Norway (Ladies), Romania (Ladies), Singapore (Ladies), Slovenia (Ladies), Hong Kong (Dance), Israel (Dance)
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The official Junior Grand Prix announcement in the summer, unless it changes the rules, will assign all berths to specific events. Countries not able to fill all their berths may give them up for reallocation.