Gold for 300: how Evgeny Semenenko beat the Olympic champion

Russian figure skater Evgeny Semenenko became one of the main sports heroes of the week, confidently winning the Ondrej Nepela Memorial in Bratislava. In total, he scored 292.09 points, ahead of European vice-champion Daniel Grassl (278.8) and Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov (272.75) in 2026. Moreover, these numbers, if he had scored them at the Games in Italy, would also have brought him gold. Another Russian, Gleb Lutfullin, took the fourth position, and Grigory Fedorov took the tenth place. Our athletes could not show high results in dancing.

The competition is in full swing

When Russian athletes in any sport are given back the opportunity to participate in international tournaments, a significant part of the audience indulges in emotions: they say, we will tear everyone up, we were deprived of hundreds of medals, that without us the world Championships are not needed at all. It doesn't always reflect reality, but in figure skating it's really close to reality. And, perhaps, it was Evgeny Semenenko who became the first in the new season, who showed both emotions and facts how strong Russian figure skating is against the background of the world.

Yes, there was a magnificent return of Alexandra Trusova in Japan, the victory of Alexandra Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky in the USA. Our juniors generally went through the entire Grand Prix series without defeats. But it was Semenenko who regained his pride — he gave out two perfect rentals in two days and beat the reigning Olympic champion, scoring under 300 points. This is what the Russians came back for.

Let us remind you that our country was represented by three people at once in the Ondrej Nepela Memorial men's tournament in Bratislava. The hardest part was for Grigory Fedorov, who seemed to be psychologically overwhelmed. It is better to forget this arbitrary one. A fall, three more jumps with mistakes. In any case, it's a rewarding experience, and the worst is over. However, in a situation where men have the highest competition and the federation conducts strict selection, the nearest chance to get close to the leaders may not come soon.

Ice test: Russian figure skaters will compete with champions at the tournament in Bratislava

The Ondrej Nepela Memorial will be the first test of strength in the international arena for a number of our athletes.

But Lutfullin coped with the pressure. Gleb is a unique athlete in general — he has never been considered a favorite in Russia, but there are days when he can perform divinely. A few years ago, he became the vice-champion of Russia, but could not build on his success.

When Gleb broke into the international arena, music did not overwhelm him, as, for example, Vladimir Samoilov, who had performed earlier. Lutfullin has a complicated plot of the program — he is a fallen angel, inside of whom there is a struggle, and, as a result, the program has three different parts at once. There are both rock and Italian vocals. And Alexey Mishin's ward scored, making five fours at the same time. Not perfectly clean, but enough to overtake the bronze medalist of the 2024 World Championships, Adam Xiao Him Fa.

Semenenko is the best of all

But the main intrigue was ahead — Mikhail Shaidorov stormed gold from third place. This season, he's not exactly a man who's trying to crack the system by jumping. The arbitrary music by the sensuous modern composer Kirill Richter turned out to be plastic and smooth — but the jumps, with the exception of the last one, did not suffer. Mikhail has changed and become a more component skater, so the score is 272.75 points for the case. It's too early for Lutfullin to compete with him yet.

Daniel Grassl was in his own style — he is also trying to improve the choreography, but the advantage remains the quadruple jumps. I had to fight for some of them, but even with scores around zero, a quadruple lutz and a quadruple flip with half—turns are powerful weapons. And it brought an intermediate lead of 278 points.

Then Semenenko appeared on the ice. You could have expected anything, but Evgeny came out in absolute calmness — to take his own, what he did not take in Japan. In recent years, Zhenya has missed out on leadership in Russia and did not even make it to the Olympics, losing to Peter Gumennik and Vladislav Dikidzhi. The latter has already earned a place in the Grand Prix series thanks to his victory in Japan, where Semenenko also competed.

Now the compensation has occurred. Starting with the incredible purity of the Rittberger quadruple, one of the best scores in the history of figure skating, according to statistics. Then a sheepskin coat, two salchas, luxurious axels in the second half. It's even hard to figure out how to ride this "Monte Cristo" even better - and it's September.

292.09 points. This is better than Shaidorov's result — not only in this tournament, but also his winning result at the Olympics in February (291.58). Evgeny showed what the return of Russian figure skaters to the international arena really means. And whether there will be more.

— Am I surprised by the final figures? I am glad that he showed such a high result. The entire coaching staff is happy with this outcome," Semenenko's mentor Alexei Mishin told "Izvestia".

Unfortunately, our dancing duo — Irina Khavronina and David Narizhny — could not compete for a place on the podium. The duo from Russia scored 177.93 points in the sum of rhythm dance and free dance. The winners were the Spaniards Olivia Smart and Tim Dick (197,22). The second place was taken by Finns Juulia Turkkila and Matthias Versluis (194.10), the third by Americans Una Brown and Gage Brown (190.81). Khavronina is 22 years old, Narizhny is 26 years old. They have been competing together since the 2023/24 season. The tournament in Slovakia was the first joint international start for athletes.