Figure skatingCup of Russia leaves many unanswered questions

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Canada’s Patrick Chan put it best in a recent conference call when he said: “It’s an Olympic year and anything can happen.”

Who would have suspected that within the span of a week, former world champion Mao Asada of Japan would go from being a Grand Prix final frontrunner, to likely not qualifying at all with a fifth place finish here? Even more surprising was the press conference after the fact where she announced that she wouldn’t be making any changes at all to programs, content, music or presumably coaches before the Olympics.

On balance, the women’s event was a mixed bag of results with the 2007 world champion, Miki Ando, of Japan winning the competition, while American Ashley Wagner and Russian Alena Leonova leaving as the silver and bronze medallists, respectively.

In the Grand Prix series, a skater’s placement is what counts to make the series final cut, but in head-to-head competition, it’s the overall score that matters. To put it into perspective, Ando’s overall score of 171.93 was almost 40 points behind Korean Yu-Na Kim’s personal best score of 210.03 that she earned last week at the Trophee Eric Bompard event in Paris.

Love him or hate him, Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko’s win here on the men’s side would indicate that he intends to try to defend his 2006 Olympic title. There is no doubt that he is a jumping machine and executed beautiful quad-triple combinations and triple Axels in both the short and free programs. The rest leaves a lot to be desired however, with a pronounced lack of choreography and the sophistication that we are seeing in the programs of many of the more highly ranked men today like Chan. Japan’s Takahiko Kozuka’s skating is smooth as silk and earned him the silver. Russia’s Artem Borodulin, the 2008 world junior silver medallist earned the bronze with personal best scores in his short, free and overall totals.

In Pairs, it was a two-way competition with the 2006 world champions from China, Qing Pang and Jian Tong dominating in both the short and free programs en route to gold. World bronze medallists, from Russia Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov looked shaky in their season debut but held on for the silver. The American team of Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker were able to capitalize on their third place finish in the short to preserve bronze despite problems in their free skate.

Ice dance proved to be a cake walk for the American team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who took the title with a personal best total score of 201.10. Their next closest competitors were the Italian team of Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte whose total score of 168.57 showed that, although strong, they were no match for the Americans. The Russian team of Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer improved on their fifth place finish last week in France to capture the bronze medal, just ahead of Canadians Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier, who finished in fourth place.

The ISU Grand Prix Series continues this coming weekend with the Cup of China in Beijing.

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