The Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final took place this weekend, and the top 6 point earners of all prior events showed up to compete against each other for the final round of medals.
a few surprises happened. Current Olympic silver medalist, Russia's Evgenia Medvedeva, failed to make enough points due to her poor performance at her last competition, so she was not at the event. Japan's Yuhuru Hanyu withdrew due to injury, and he was one of the top point earners. Canada's Keegan Messing competed as a substitute in his place.
The ice dance competitors were:
Ice DanceMadison HUBBELL / Zachary DONOHUE USA 30
Alexandra STEPANOVA / Ivan BUKIN RUS 30
Victoria SINITSINA / Nikita KATSALAPOV RUS 26
Charlene GUIGNARD / Marco FABBRI ITA 26
Kaitlin HAWAYEK / Jean-Luc BAKER USA 24
Tiffani ZAGORSKI / Jonathan GUERREIRO RUS 24
One of the top teams was Stepanova/Bukin, who had collected the most points a team can (30) but they had problems with two of their step sequences, leading them to be placed fourth after the first dance. It was a deduction they couldn't make up in their free dance, and surprisingly, remained in fourth. Gold medal winners were USA Hubbell/Donahue, Russians Sinitsina/Katsalapov took silver, and Guignard/Fabbri of Italy won the bronze.
On to the men.....
Men Shoma UNO JPN 30
Nathan CHEN USA 30
Michal BREZINA CZE 26
Sergei VORONOV RUS 24
Junhwan CHA KOR 22
Keegan MESSING CAN 20
The men's competition had some mild surprises. Russia usually has a skater on the podium for each discipline. For the men, Russian Sergei Voronov wasn't able to match his competitors in power or grace, and ended up in last place. Keegan Messing from Canada, the replacement for Japan's Yuhuru Hanyu, ended up 5th but celebrated the fact that he landed a quad lutz jump, the first time for him. Junhwan Cha earned a bronze, becoming the first skater from Korea to win a medal on the Grand Prix Final, in any discipline. Shoma Uno from Japan had no major mistakes, but a number of his jumps were under-rotated, resulting in his scores going down, and being placed second. Gold medal winner was Nathan Chen of the US.
On to the women.....
LadiesAlina ZAGITOVA RUS 30
Rika KIHIRA JPN 30
Satoko MIYAHARA JPN 28
Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA RUS 26
Kaori SAKAMOTO JPN 24
Sofia SAMODUROVA RUS 24
Billed as "Russia vs. Japan" there were two different "battles" people were looking at. Rika Kihira vs. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (both can land triple axel jumps) and Rika Kihira vs. Alina Zagitova (Rika the upstart newcomer, and Alina the current Olympic Gold Medalist).
The first three skaters came out and did fine, but it was the second set of three everyone was watching. First to skate was Elizaveta Tuktamysheva of Russia. Her first element was her triple axel. She came close to landing it, but not quite. She stayed on her blades, but did turn-outs on her skate so it wasn't a clean landing. The rest of her program was clean.
Next to skate was Alina Zagitova. Her opening move was her triple lutz-triple toe combination. Her lutz was off, so she she only landed a triple lutz-single toe. It may not seem like much, but she then skated very tentatively afterwards, so the program looked labored, and she had no triple-triple combination, so she lost a lot of points.
Last to skate was Rika Kihara, who was making her Grand Prix debut. She had two planned triple axel jumps. On the first she almost fell, so she got deductions. It also meant that if she made a second attempt at it, it MUST be in combination. Skating rules state that each jump can only be done once, unless it is done in combination, then it may be done twice. In a gutsy move, Rika made a second attempt at the triple axel, and landed it, added the double toe to the end, so it was in combination. She went on to land all her other jumps, including a triple lutz-triple toe, the move that Alina Zagitova missed.
Elizaveta was given the bronze (many felt it should've been silver), Alina the silver (many felt it should've been bronze) and Rika took the gold in her senior year debut.
It was later announced by Alina's team that she had "tripped" over a tv wire backstage and hurt her foot, but skated anyway.
The last discipline was pairs. Your competitors......
PairsVanessa JAMES / Morgan CIPRES FRA 30
Evgenia TARASOVA / Vladimir MOROZOV RUS 30
Natalia ZABIIAKO / Alexander ENBERT RUS 30
Cheng PENG / Yang JIN CHN 26
Nicole DELLA MONICA / Matteo GUARISE ITA 26
Daria PAVLIUCHENKO / Denis KHODYKIN RUS 22
France's James & Cipres had a bad short program, and ended up in 4th place going into the long program. In the long program, they were the second pair to skate, meaning 4 other pairs would have to skate after them. James & Cipres had a FANTASTIC long program, nailing every element and give an artistically superb performance with passion. They got very high marks, and had to wait for the other pairs to skate and see what would happen.
Italy's Della Monica / Guarise had multiple errors, and ended up being placed 5th. Russia's Zabiiako / Enbert were doing well, but then a lift had a failed entry, and they didn't get into it in time, so it was an aborted element having no points, which dropped them to 4th. Russia's Tarasova / Morozov had two errors, which resulted in them being dropped from second to third. China's Peng / Jin skated well, but without as much passion as the French team, leaving them in second place. The end result was the French team managed to jump from fourth place into gold medal position.
Here's the gold medal performance of the French team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BxTpeU2REs