Watching the last European Championships without Russians

Candidates for the top 6

The winter season kicked off with the Universiade in Turin, which ended on 26 January. The rink hosts were pleased with the silver of Daniel Grassl who diluted the Asian duo of champion Yuma Kagiyama from Japan and Zha Junghwan from South Korea on the podium. In principle, the entire top 6 represented Asia, and at the European Championships we will be able to see student skaters Arlet Levandi, the son of the famous former Soviet figure skater Anna Kondrashova and Soviet biathlete Allar Levandi. When the country was united, the Muscovite married an Estonian and subsequently stayed here to live, becoming a prominent coach, including raising a son, a member of the national team.

Arlet Levandi is worth paying attention to, among other things, because of his status as the owner of the ice, with a fair share of judicial favor. However, most likely, the judges will direct all their favor to Alexander Selevko, last year's vice-champion of Europe. It is Alexander, 23, together with his younger brother, Mikhail, 22, who are on Estonia's roster for the tournament, unless a replacement follows.

Estonia is sending two skaters to the home championship, as is France with the current European champion Adam Xiao-him Fa and the eternal favourite Kevin Aymoz. It is impossible to write off the skater, who made it to the Grand Prix final this year and once came fourth not only in Europe but also at the World Championships, although he has been plagued by failures in recent years and is being overtaken by competitors. For example, from Italy, where in addition to Grassl there is last year's European Championship bronze medallist Matteo Rizzo. Or from the Baltics, where in addition to Selevko there is Denis Vasiljevs, who became a prize winner at the Euro in 2022, that is, with the participation of Russians. One of them, Mark Kondratyuk, became the champion then, but Vasilievs beat two others, and this is already an indicator of quality.

Swiss Lukas Brichgi also climbed the podium, but at a time when Russians were suspended from international competitions. Nevertheless, he can be among the top, where there are two Frenchmen, an Italian and a Baltic.

Samodelkina's bronze for Kazakhstan

As usual, there will be many ex-Russians at the start, or rather, graduates of the Russian figure skating school who changed their sports citizenship before they managed to compete for the Russian national team. This includes distant foreign countries — Hungary, Germany, Israel, Poland, Finland, the Czech Republic. And nearby — Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Special attention should be paid to Nika Egadze. Firstly, at last year's European Championships, he took seventh place, practically behind all the skaters included in the top of the upcoming start. Secondly, he twice finished fourth at Skate America and the Cup of China as part of the Grand Prix. This place is in the top ten of the Grand Prix and fourth among all participants representing Europe.

Speaking of Russian students, Muscovite Sofia Samodelkina was third at the Universiade, diluting three Japanese, one of whom had to remain without medals.

None of the European skaters made it to the final six of the Grand Prix. The result was reminiscent of one of the ski races at the World Championships, when Alexander Bolshunov rode ahead of the quintet of Norwegians, from start to finish. In order to win gold, he could not give up the lead, otherwise his competitors would have “eaten” him. Here, too, American Amber Glenn beat a quintet of Japanese women.

Gubanova won the second quota

On the website of the International Figure Skating Federation, the current European champion Luna Hendricks from Belgium is listed as an Azerbaijani. In turn, Bulgarian Alexandra Feigin is included in the Czech team, Czech Eliška Brezinova — in the Spanish team, as is Estonian Nina Petrykina. Former Russian, vice-champion Anastasia Gubanova, competing for Georgia, has been assigned to the British team.

In women's singles, without Russians, things are even worse than for men. Belgian Nina Pinzarrone, the duet of Swiss representatives consisting of Livia Kaiser and Kimmy Repond — in fact, the cream of the crop of women's singles. But the ice will be missing 15-year-old Kazan figure skating student Inga Gurgenidze, who could become the number two skater for the Georgian national team. Gubanova won this opportunity, but the country simply does not have a second singles skater in age 17. Alina Urushadze, who joined the Georgian national team, managed to finish, although she only turned 21 in January of this year. At the same time, Hendricks withdrew from the European Championship five days before the start.

The heroines of past years — Viveca Lindfors, 25, from Finland, Alexia Paganini, 23, from Switzerland, Anastasia Shabotova, 19, from Ukraine and many others have already managed to hang up their skates. Largely due to the fact that the sport is traumatic and very expensive. For example, one of the oldest skaters in the starting tournament is Julia Sauter, 27. The girl, born in Germany, but competing for Romania, is registered as Swiss. She is married to American hockey player Robbie Czarnik, who competed in the distant 2008 World Junior Championships in Kazan, perhaps his fees help her stay on the ice.

Why Russian skaters should be encouraged to compete for other teams

The International Figure Skating Federation supports interest in pair skating by initiating the inclusion of pair skating in the Olympic program — this is a guarantee that it will not disappear. But athletes are needed. Russia comes to the rescue, this was and remains a good practice.

At Skate America, half of the participants were connected with Russia. This includes a joint project of Russia and Georgia — Anastasia Metelkina and Luka Berulava, Metelkina's former partner Daniil Parkman, who competes for the US team where Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, whose parents took them to Finland and America as children, respectively, also skate. Plus a mini-team from Hungary. At Skate Canada, former Russians Ekaterina Geinish and Evgenia Medvedeva's ex-boyfriend Dmitry Chigirev, who competed for Uzbekistan, took second place in pair skating. Nina Moser's students immediately made a splash at their first Grand Prix, plus our girls made up the better half of the mini-teams of Australia, the Netherlands, and Poland. There was a chance that former Russians Karina Akopova and Nikita Rakhmanin would debut at the European Championships for the Armenian team. Why is this good? Experts note that Russian figure skating has previously actively involved foreigners. In pair skating, Japanese Kavaguti, Ukrainians Volosozhar, Obertas, Estonian Zabiyako, and the same Efimova. In ice dancing, Tatyana Navka, a Ukrainian who joined the Russian team from Belarus. And today's figure skating in Russia is half-English Cusins (daughter of Elena Berezhnaya), son of a Bulgarian Vyacheslav Dikidzhi, son of an Italian dancer Dario Cirisano.

There is an advantage that Russian figure skating has gained over a long distance. Some of the Russian skaters who previously competed abroad returned, such as Elena Berezhnaya (Latvia), Alexey Tikhonov (Japan) — the list goes on. Even more of them returned as representatives of the coaching staff. Right now, the aforementioned Anastasia Shabotova, who skated for Ukraine, plus Alexey Sitnikov and Yulia Zlobina, as well as Filipp Tarasov (competed for Azerbaijan), Vazgen Azroyan (Armenia), Kazan's Konstantin Milyukov (Belarus), Roman Serov (Israel) and Eteri Tutberidze, who left for America, are engaged in coaching.