This season, talk about the absence of a shift is not silent. And the results of the recent European Championship - two silver - seemed depressing. But by and large, today Russia does not have strong skaters only in men's and women's skating.
In dances, the duet of Oksana Domnina - Maxim Shabalin, who already successfully fights with eminent Bulgarians and French, is combat-ready.
But in sports pairs the situation is ambiguous. Three pairs will represent Russia in Tokyo in this form: Maria Petrova and Alexey Tikhonov, Yuka Kavaguchi and Alexander Smirnov, Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov.
Champions of Russia Mukhortova and Trankov, pupils of Oleg Vasiliev, missed the European Championship due to injury partner. Last year at the world championship they were only twelfth. Yuka Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov are a couple of mysteries.
Thus, the leaders of the team were veterans - world and European champions Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov, one of the smartest and most beautiful couples. There are special hopes for their performance - after all, this is the last season for 29-year-old Masha and 35-year-old Alexei. Unprecedented longevity for amateur skaters! But for almost a ten-year career, in fact, they have never been an officially recognized number one pair in our team.
Maria and Alexey ride together since 1998. After a long adventure, they teamed up under the leadership of Lyudmila Velikova. The Olympic champions Oksana Kazakova and Arthur Dmitriev went professional that year, and Nagano-98 silver medalists Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze became the leaders of the national team. Their main competitors were the Chinese couple Xu Shen and Honbo Jao.
In the four years of preparation for the Salt Lake City Olympics, Petrova and Tikhonov made all gold contenders nervous. In the first season, the pupils of Velikova won the European Championship in Prague, ahead of the Poles Dorota Zogorsk and Mariusz Südeka. But at that tournament there were no future Olympic champions Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze. By the way, Maria and Aleksey never once beat a pair of Moskvina, meeting her at major tournaments.
The year 2000 was truly triumphant for Petrova and Tikhonov. That season was missed by Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze. But the Chinese Xu Shen and Honbo Jao, who were stepping on the heels of Russian couples, skated in Nice and were ready for a rematch for last year's silver. Nobody put seriously on Maria and Alexei.
After a short program, everything seemed to fall into the predicted places. Tchaikovsky’s music and Russian motives of the judges did not convince - Petrov and Tikhonov were second. But they skated randomly almost perfectly, allowing only a slight inaccuracy in the first jump. The program to Vivaldi's music was magnificent: choreography, complex elements, perfectly parallel rotations and a brilliant finale. However, the estimates were not extremely high. The Chinese couple were left with a chance to win. But her skating was not champion. The partner thwarted the first jump, some other elements were not performed very cleanly. As a result, gold went to Petrova and Tikhonov.
The triumph of Mary and Alexei surprised and alerted the world of figure skating. But the winners themselves appeased other people's worries. Masha was injured, and a year later on the "world" Petrova and Tikhonov were only fourth. Pupils of Oleg Vasiliev, Tatyana Totmyanina and Maxim Marinin, who were destined to change Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze in the status of the first pair of the country, settled in fifth place.
After the Olympics in Salt Lake City, where the performance with Mary and Alexei went wrong (sixth place), the skaters lost the favor of the judges. In all subsequent major tournaments, they were inevitably inferior to Totmyaninoy and Marinin. Then came strong Chinese couples - in addition to Xu Shen and Honbo Jao. Petrova and Tikhonov often took places clearly below those that they deserved. But they never gave up.
At the pre-Olympic 2005 World Cup, Maria and Alexey lost only to Totmyanina and Marinin. But in Turin, Petrova and Tikhonova were again let down by nerves. They made a lot of mistakes, especially in the free program, and took only fifth place.
Athletes remained in amateurs. But it was clear that the veterans would not reach the next Olympics and it was time to give way to the young. Maria and Alexey took part in the commercial project “Stars on Ice”, where Alexey took third place together with actress Anna Bolshova, and Masha and Igor Butman dropped out in the last round. For this, many condemned them - because the season was beginning soon, and they clearly did not have enough time for full preparation.
And yet this project gave the skaters a lot. Maria and Alexei significantly increased in artistry. That's just the lack of systematic training affected the technical part of the programs. However, at the Grand Prix in France, the couple won and reached the final, which was held in St. Petersburg. But there Petrova and Tikhonov became the last, falling under the fire of critics.
At the current European Championship, Maria and Aleksey were almost by accident. In the national team they were considered only spare. But the trauma of Maria Mukhortova allowed them to perform in Warsaw. And How! Petrova and Tikhonov regained themselves. Intensive training helped restore the technique. In the short program there were only a couple of minor blots, because of which the Russians let Alena Savchenko and Roben Shelkova from Germany forward.
In arbitrary, the pupils of Velikova performed almost flawlessly. Their hire left hope for gold, especially since the leading German couple performed in the strongest group of the latter. But the Savchenko and the Silk managed to calm their nerves. German hire was truly champion. Petrova and Tikhonov remained second. Then they admitted that literally a few trainings were not enough to bring the number to automaticity.
But silver was akin to gold for them. They returned and proved that it was too early to write them off. At the World Championships in Japan, Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov will pose a serious threat to the Germans, Americans and Chinese couples. And if the guys cope with the excitement, and the judges are not too picky for veterans, medals can be expected from them. They will prove a lot again. Not only to us, but to ourselves. After all, this is their last season in lovers. It is important for them to leave beautifully.
Tatyana TROSTNIKOVA