Another thing is that counting on many trophies in the near future is not necessary. Our leading masters took a one-year break, and for the world championship, which starts March 19 in Tokyo, help from them will not wait. God forbid to remain in their own interests, or even completely scratch one award.
All hope for dancers: this is the only view where the changing of the guard was relatively painless. Although Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, as well as their insurance Yana Khokhlova and Sergey Novitsky, there will be competitors in the person of the Americans Tanit Belbin - Benjamin Agosto and Canadians Marie-France Dubreux - Patrice Loson.
It will be even more difficult to hold the position of the sports pair Maria Petrova - Alexey Tikhonov. The endless Chinese wall is ready to block the path to medals. Here are the two-time world champions, the bronze medalists of the 2006 Olympics Shen Xu - Zhao Hongbo, and the winners of the Winter Games silver, the heroes of Turin (remember the release of the quadruple salchow and the terrible fall of the partner?) Tribute Zhang - Hao Zhang. There is also the American couple Ren Inue - John Baldwin, who won the bronze of the World Cup-06 in Calgary.
Only veterans have so far claimed a place in our team. There are many applicants for the other two vacancies. In addition to Julia Obertas and Sergey Slavnov, Maria Mukhortova - Maxim Trankov, Elena Efaeva - Alexey Menshikov, and Yuko Kavaguchi - Andrei Smirnov also claim to travel to the Land of the Rising Sun.
It is possible that they will remain behind the board of the Obertas-Slavnov championship: the “sleeping beauty” Julia clearly needs to wake up from sleep. For the time being, which tournament the skater is skating with the doom of a woman sentenced to death - she goes into jumps and seems to know in advance that she will not get enough speed or will fall.
Maybe you should take the international duo Kawaguchi - Smirnov in Tokyo, which has established itself at the Russian Grand Prix in Moscow ?! After all, it is known that houses and walls help. There is no dual citizenship institute in Japan, but Yuko, who dreams that an exception would be made for her, has not renounced her roots.
That’s who will have to withstand the real pressure in Tokyo, so these are Russian loners. This season, at the Japan Grand Prix of the NHK Trophy, the hosts were so inhospitable that they occupied the entire podium. Daisuke Takahashi, he generally won the men's tour with a prohibitive amount of points - 247.93. On the "world" in the fight for medals, Nobunari Oda will support him. In women, the child prodigy Mao Asada, performing the triple axel, and Mickey Ando, and Fumi Suguri are also strong.
In the men's tournament, we add North Americans here, Swiss Stefan Lambiel - and we get a real cut. By the way, the U.S. Championship is taking place these days. The three winners in men's singles are already known: Evan Lysacek, Ryan Bradley, Johnny Weir. The women's pedestal was Kimmy Meissner, Emily Hughes and Alyssa Cisney.
Hopefully, Elena Sokolova, who will turn 27 by the World Cup, did not say the last word. In the free program in Warsaw, we saw Lena capable of much. The performance in Poland of the 19-year-old Alexandra Ievleva cannot be called a failure either: of the debutantes of the European Championship, she took the highest line - 11th.
Very optimistic forecasts regarding the 20-year-old Andrei Lutai. And Andrei Gryazev, who is a year older, should not be written off. The skater spoke, feeling the effects of the injury, but fought to the end, did not reduce the difficulty.
And yet these names will not sound overnight. For the proper implementation of the precious metals plan it is necessary to return Evgeni Plushenko, as well as Tatyana Totmyanin and Maxim Marinin. The coach of our star couple Oleg Vasiliev, in an interview with NTV-Plus after the St. Petersburg Grand Prix finals, said that the guys did not leave amateur sports and their desire to compete did not end. And the Tsar’s mentor, Alexei Mishin, speaking on the Eurosport channel, shed light on the plans of his ward: while he is actively engaged in ice shows and intends to try his hand at politics ...
Olga GONCHAROVA