Another U.S. Medal on Day Two at Cup of Russia
by Sal Zanca, Special to U.S. Figure Skating Online |
| Johnny Weir in the Cup of Russia free skate Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images |
2006 Cup of Russia Results and Photos
(11/26/06) - Johnny Weir salvaged second place in the men's event and ice dancers Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto were back in first on the second day of the Cup of Russia.
A finalist in last year's Grand Prix Final, Alissa Czisny, was just ninth in the weak ladies competition.
Kendra Moyle and Andy Seitz ended up sixth in the pairs as they continue their busy season.
Men's Free Skate
Brian Joubert of France joined Tim Goebel territory, landing three quads in his program to a Finnish string quarter playing Metallica.
Joubert landed a quad toe-double toe, a quad Salchow and a solo quad toe loop to go along with five triple jumps to better his personal best with 237.83 points overall and 160.13 in the free skate.
“I was working in practice to do three quads, and it was my dream to execute three quads in competition and today it worked. I did it,” Joubert said.
He was very emotional as he finished, punching the air, dropping to the ice and kissing it.
It certainly beats the last time he had a free skate in Moscow. At the 2005 World Championships he entered the ice with a chance to win and had mistakes on every jump and dropped to sixth.
“I have been keeping bad memories from Moscow and now the memories are gone. And I will keep only positive memories of this,” Joubert said.
He explained the difference.
“In 2005 I was not able to do three quads in the free program,” he said. “And I was very fragile mentally. Now I am very strong technically and mentally.”
Joubert has gone through two coaches since Moscow in 2005 before settling on Jean-Christophe Simond, a two-time European silver medalist, who has instilled more confidence in him.
Goebel landed three quads at 1999 Skate America and repeated it a few times afterwards. Takeshi Honda had three quads at the 2003 Four Continents Championships.
They are believed to be the only two others to land three quads with Joubert being the first under the international judging system.
Weir salvaged second, although he had only the fifth-best free skate. He opened with a triple Axel that was barely held and did not follow it with a triple toe loop. That would affect the rest of the performance as he searched for a place for combinations.
After a pair of triple jumps, mistakes started to creep in - a double loop, then a pair of single Axels, a triple loop with a wide landing. Finally, in the final minute, a triple Salchow-double toe loop was his only combination. He scored 49.48 points for technical elements. His 71.70 program component points saved him.
“The thing I was happy with was that I could make the mistakes and come back. I could make it to the end without falling down,” Weir said. “That was a plus. The performance, even though it is not good yet, it was better than Skate Canada.”
He was grateful for the Russian crowd cheering him. “Having the support of the audience here helped me get through the last two minutes,” he said.
Ilia Klimkin of Russia landed an underroated quad but had enough triples to finish third with 186.50 points overall and 122.05 for the free skate.
He and Tomas Verner of the Czech Republic knocked Emanuel Sandhu of Canada down to fifth and out of the medals. Sandhu planned a quad toe loop for the opener and doubled it. He fell on a triple Axel and singled one later in the program. He was eighth in the free skate.
Ladies Free Skate
In an extremely weak ladies competition, Sarah Meier of Switzerland won her first international medal since 2000; Julia Sebestyen reverted to last year's form in the free skate and came in second, completing just one clean triple. Yoshie Onda, who will have a hard time cracking the top five at the Japanese nationals, was third.
Meier did four triples in her free skate to “Pride and Prejudice” that had her winning that portion of the competition with 108.25 points and 159.17 overall.
Consider this: The last time there was skating at the Luzhniki Ice Rink (2005 worlds), Irina Slutskaya scored 130.10 points in the free skate and 222.71 overall. Meier scored 164.68 total for 14th at that event.
Still, a win is a win.
“I knew I had to try everything to move up (from third),” the 22-year-old Meier said “I didn't want to make a mistake like yesterday, and [I wanted to] take every element as it comes, to stay focused and calm.”
It has been a long time for a Swiss woman to do well internationally. She finished third at the 2000 World Junior Championships. There she beat Sasha Cohen, who was sixth. But then in first and second were Americans Jennifer Kirk and Deanna Stellato.
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| Sarah Meier of Switzerland Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images |
Meier said that this competition may help.
“I was one of the favorites coming into this event, and I was feeling the pressure. But it gave me practice with that,” Meier said. “Now that I did well here it gives me more confidence for Europeans.”
Sebestyen, after looking like she was on her comeback trail at the Cup of China, reverted back to the form that made her 22nd in the world, completing just one triple cleanly and coming in fifth in the free skate with 92.39 points and 146.75 overall.
Her decent short program helped her, and she even qualified for the Grand Prix Final with a first and second. At this rate she may be the only European woman there but may not be the best.
Alissa Czisny, in her program to the film “Sabrina,” started well with a triple Lutz-double toe loop. Then things deteriorated quickly. A single flip into the combination, an underrotated triple loop and then three straight falls attempting a triple flip, a double Axel and a triple toe loop. Another fall concluded the program with five consecutive jumps downgraded.
The scores reflected that - 33.43 points for technical elements, 4.0 in deductions and a free skate score of 76.23. It seems so long ago she scored 109.78 in the free skate at the 2005 Skate Canada to qualify for last year's Grand Prix Final.
Overall she scored 121.21 for ninth overall.
Original Dance
Like at the Cup of China, Belbin and Agosto won the original dance and moved back into first place.
But they received a little help from the Russians.
Maxim Shabalin lost his balance doing a hands-behind-the-back twizzle and he and Oksana Domnina, the compulsory dance leaders, scored just 1.08 points for that element.
That juggled the standings.
Belbin and Agosto now have 94.58 points after 58.02 points in the original dance to the tango rhythm.
French duo Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder were right behind at 94.33 and 57.83 in the original dance. The Russians were third with 89.77 points overall, 52.36 in the original dance.
“It is always nice to see your name on the top of the scoreboard so that feels good, and we know where we need to improve in this dance,” Belbin said. “We are not going to jump up and down with this performance at this stage and where we are with this program. But we feel good. We are proud of ourselves. It was strong; it was clean. That's good. That's all it could be.”
The mistake hurt the Russians dearly. Not only did they lose two to three points on the ill-fated twizzle (Belbin and Agosto scored 3.30 for a level four), there was another deduction of 1.0 and the program component scores were also behind Belbin and Agosto.
Altogether they lost 5.66 points to Belbin and Agosto in the dance.
Shabalin couldn't explain what happened.
“It is a mystery to me as well,” he said. “It has never happened to me before and I hope it never happens again. Of course to make such a mistake at the very beginning you realize that this will cost you marks as well. You need to stay focused and show your character and concentrate on the other elements.”
Agosto, skating right after them, knew something happened and couldn't avoid it when the audience groaned and gasped.
“I generally don't like to know when other people fall as it generally takes you out of your zone,” Agosto said. “It happens. When the pressure is on it can be hard. It takes that second of concentration away. It happens to everyone.”
But it starts practically from scratch in Sunday's free dance, and Belbin said it is still close.
“Right now in my mind we are in a three-way tie,” she said. “You never know what happens tomorrow. Today is already forgotten.”
Delobel agreed.
“We had a good performance today but we need to forget it and focus on tomorrow. It is close results for the top three.”
Morgan Matthews & Maxim Zavozin scored 50.46 in the original dance but are still sixth overall with 78.30 points, barely a point away from fifth. They insist they are still learning.
“You learn something different every time,” Matthews said.
“We have to stick with it and keep on going and try to prove to ourselves that we can skate well and try to prove to the audiences and judges the same thing,” Zavozin said.
“And have fun,” Matthews added.
“We have to show that we can perform the whole program and perform it very well. The whole program, full, not a specific element. It is not just staying up and making no mistakes.”
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| Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images |
Germany's Aliona Savchenko, originally from Ukraine, and Robin Szolkowy took the pairs gold, but it wasn't pretty.
"It's not the way we wanted to win," Savchenko said.
She scaled down both parts of a triple toe-triple toe sequence to doubles and they were not smooth throughout their program to “The Mission.”
“We were jittery and perhaps we lacked stamina out there,” she said.
Still they had enough of a lead after the short program to hold off Russians Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov.
Overall it was 179.45 points to 178.03 in favor of the German team, although the Russians won the free skate, 115.75 to 115.49.
The Russians skated to “Moonlight Sonata” and had their own share of mistakes - both putting their hands down on the side-by-side triple toes and a general lack of feeling. In third was the team of Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov, who showed promise with side-by-side triple toe-triple toe sequence and some interesting lifts after only teaming earlier this year.
Kawaguchi, 25, has been back and forth across the ocean and has had Americans and Russian partners. She has lived in St. Petersburg since 2003.
She patiently explained - in good Russian - the pairs experience.
“Six years ago I was just learning how to do pairs and had some good results,” she said.
She skated with Alexander Markuntsov for Japan and obtained a best of seventh at the Four Continents, a 13th at 2002 Worlds and a silver medal at the 2001 World Junior Championships.
“Then I swapped a Russian partner for an American partner,” she said.
With American Devin Patrick she was the Japanese pairs champion in 2005. That dissolved, and she teamed with Smirnov, who was sixth at World Juniors earlier this season with a Russian woman, Ekaterina Vasilieva. Now she thinks she has settled in, especially being coached by the famed Tamara Moskvina.
“With each partner I learned something,” she said. “I try to pick up something, and I trust I have found a good partner. Hopefully I can take everything and have a good result now.”
