The Russian Figure Skating Championships marks the second of the four big nationals that will be taking place this year. As has been the case for the better part of the past decade, the ladies will be the marquee event this week - there’s so much depth and general consistency with this field that it’s pretty mind-boggling. In ice dance, the stories are once again the fight for gold between two of the best dance teams in the world, and then the fight for bronze and that third spot on the World team.
Russian Figure Skating Championships predictions
Official hashtag: #ЧР2020
Ladies Top 10 Predictions
GOLD Alena Kostornaia
SILVER Anna Shcherbakova
BRONZE Alexandra Trusova
4. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva
5. Evgenia Medvedeva
6. Ksenia Sinitsyna
7. Sofia Samodurova
8. Anastasia Gubanova
9. Anastasia Tarakanova
10. Serafima Sakhanovich
The top three from last year’s Russian Nationals and from the Grand Prix Final three weeks ago will once again be your top three favorites at the nationals this week. Alena Kostornaia has used her newly-found triple axel to great success, and she’s undefeated this season. Anna Shcherbakova, the surprise Russian champ from last year, has gained more consistency this season and will be looking to use that to her advantage, given the difficult layout that she has in the free skate. Alexandra Trusova, who has the most difficult technical content of of the women in the world, will have to figure out whether she continues to go for broke (most notably, with the triple axel in the short) or pare it down in hopes of cleaner programs.
Like at Grand Prix Final, Kostornaia has the advantage over the other two (and everyone else in the field except for Elizaveta Tuktamysheva) because she has a consistent triple axel in her repertoire. For her to win this competition, she will need to build up that buffer in the short program and hang on if the other two are clean with their quads. For Trusova, her strategy may not be about winning this event - it may very well be about putting the hardest content out there so that she can continue to get more comfortable with it in advance of Worlds. The risk-and-reward game is high.
The two skaters who could play the spoiler roles here have both won this event before. Seven years ago, Tuktamysheva won Russian Nationals for her first and only time. She is back after illness kept her out of last year’s Russian Nationals - and back potentially with a quad toe. The addition of that element, in connection with her consistent triple axel, could very well make her a spoiler here. Two-time champ and Olympic silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva have had a tumultuous couple of years since the Olympics. With lower technical content, she knows that it would be a long shot for her to make it onto the podium. But two clean programs will go a long way in setting her up for the future, where she may well equip herself with harder tricks.
Outside of those five, this will be a very different composition of names than we have expected over the past seasons. Olympic and World champ Alina Zagitova announced a couple weeks back that she will skip this competition (and essentially the rest of the season). Veteran names like Maria Sotskova, Alena Leonova, and Polina Tsurskaya are not here either because of retirement or health issues.
Dance Top 10 Predictions
GOLD Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov
SILVER Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin
BRONZE Tiffani Zagorski/Jonathan Gerreiro
4. Annabelle Morozov/Andrei Bagin
5. Sofia Shevchenko/Igor Eremenko
6. Anastasia Shpilevaya/Grigory Smirnov
7. Ksenia Konkina/Pavel Drozd
8. Sofia Evdokimova/Egor Bazin
9. Anastasia Skoptcova/Kirill Aleshin
10. Olga Bibikhina/Daniil Zvorykin
The battle between the top two will continue here. They have been two of the best ice dance teams in the world for the past two seasons, most recently going 2nd and 4th at Worlds last season. Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov are the reigning champs here, with Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin as the chasers. And arguably, Sinitsina/Katsalapov have progressed a tad bit more than Stepanova/Bukin have, both in precision and in program material. But in an event that is often decided by errors that can be tough to discern in real time, there really is no clear favorite between those two teams here. At the Grand Prix Final, it was an errant choreographic slide that cost Sinitsina/Katsalapov dearly and placed them sixth behind Stepanova/Bukins’s fourth.
Outside of those top two, however, the battle for bronze have all the drama to make this quite the dance event. Tiffani Zagorski/Jonathan Guerreiro were the bronze medalists two seasons ago, but they dropped off the podium last year with errors in their free dance that derailed their season. They will need to contend with the likes of Sofia Shevchenko/Igor Eremenko and Annabelle Morozov/Andrei Bagin, the latter of which have been quietly making waves both in domestic events and on the Challenger Series.