Leap to fame: Petrosyan wins her third victory of the season

The fourth stage of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Moscow ended with unexpected results. Mark Kondratyuk won the men's event with 278.65 points (96.42 for the short program and 182.23 for the free skate). Evgeny Semenenko, who was in the lead after the short program (274.91; 96.75+178.16), became the second on the stage in Moscow. Peter Gumennik (265.76; 90.22+175.54) rounded out the top three winners, who will go to the Beijing Olympics. Another participant of the Games, Adelia Petrosyan, scored 230.05 points and took first place (despite falling from a quadruple sheepskin coat).

Petrosyan hasn't found the cheat code yet.

The women had one intrigue, in fact, and it concerned an event one second long — whether Adelia Petrosyan would finally jump the first quadruple of the season. Eteri Tutberidze's staff and the Russian champion herself are at least trying to find a cheat code that will allow them to solve the Olympic puzzle. Realizing that the quadruple flip wouldn't come out at all, Adelia changed it to a sheepskin coat – she almost screwed it up, but she fell anyway.

I got, of course, my exorbitant 230 points and flew away on jet propulsion from the boiling critics into space. I won, of course.

I remember that at the 2019 World Cup, Elizabeth Tursynbayeva, a modest, taciturn girl from Kazakhstan, came from the Tutberidze team. She went out to practice and consistently left a spot where she jumped the quadruple salchow. 5, 10, 20 times. Everyone on the sidelines was singing a familiar song — why is the evil Tutberidze torturing her student? But Tursynbayeva came out, made one of 20 clean attempts in the program and won silver. Then, however, she quickly ended her career due to injuries, but then everyone sets their own priorities.

Tutberidze is very good at hypnotizing his students and leading them to the starts psychologically and physically. A popular refrain about Adelia is that it doesn't matter how she jumps and performs now, the main thing is the Olympics! But if you've read this far, you're definitely wondering how Petrosyan is performing now. In short, she is currently performing at a level far beyond the top three of the international season. But there are 92 days before the start of the women's competition at the Olympics. You can make a thousand more flips, sheepskin coats.

Or, on the contrary, let the body rest and fully recover — maybe it's still a matter of microtrauma? There doesn't seem to be a question about participating in the Russian championship, but if you sit down with Adelia in a relaxed atmosphere and honestly ask if you really want to answer it, will she be sure of the answer? And Tutberidze?

— There were a lot of quadruple sheepskin coats during the day [in training]. Of course, it's a shame that I fell, but this time the program was already better, more confident, and a little cleaner. You can be happy about that. Eteri Georgievna [Tutberidze] said that I was too fixated on this sheepskin coat, that I needed to let it go somehow and relax,— Petrosyan said.

The rest of the girls had a clear hierarchy of judges — Gorbacheva's intense programs, which also represented Moskvina's school, could not fall below second place, and Ksenia Gushchina won the bronze.

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The surprise of victory

If many people left the stands surprised after Petrosyan's assessments, then after the men, despair could be seen in their eyes trying to understand something. Makar Ignatov, in front of Alexandra Trusova and their baby son, gave out the best rental in recent years, but remained fourth under Peter Gumennik. Personally, I liked how our Olympic team member fought, but it turned out that most of the viewers were enraged either by the lack of cool, or by the fact that he supposedly rested a lot, or even by the fact that he was a member of the Olympic team.

It is worth deducing a certain arithmetic mean — Humennik does not really roll out the complex content of an arbitrary program yet. Perhaps you should bet on four pure fours rather than five controversial ones. But this is a matter of mathematics, which the ITMO student understands well. In Moscow, he was not enough for the last jumps, from one of which Peter fell, and on the other he put his other foot to land.

But questions also arose around the identity of the winner. Moreover, they arose from the winner himself and his personality. Mark Kondratyuk fell from the quadruple sheepskin coat and was sure that he was the second, but when he saw the final result, he laughed and covered his mouth with his hands. Evgeny Semenenko did not fall, but performed simpler jumps. After his rental under Gladiator, almost everyone was confident of the victory of the Petersburger, and after the announcement of the ratings, the arena plunged into silent confusion. Somewhere in the USA, 93-year-old John Williams was probably celebrating — he beat Hans Zimmer with his "Schindler List".

It is possible that Kondratyuk's victory in controversial conditions may reflect the growing weight of Tatiana Navka's academy. According to rumors, an office of the Russian Figure Skating Federation may even appear in its building soon. And the school is pumping up the athletes. And after the reappearance of Russians on the international stage in the new Olympic cycle, new hegemons will appear in our figure skating.

Russian Grand Prix, Stage 4 (Moscow)

Women

1. Adelia Petrosyan – 230.05

2. Alina Gorbacheva – 209.28

3. Ksenia Gushchina – 200.51

Men

1. Mark Kondratyuk – 278.65

2. Evgeny Semenenko – 274.91

3. Peter Gumennik – 265.76

Dances

1. Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin – 210.10

2. Ekaterina Rybakova/Ivan Makhnonosov – 183.33

3. Varvara Zhdanova/Timur Babaev-Smirnov – 176.36