2010 Junior Grand Prix Final – Short Dance Recap

The Russian Junior National competition kicked off… 

Oops.

The short dance at the Junior Grand Prix Final finished with Russian teams claiming the top four spots (and the sixth and the eighth). Pre-event favorites Ksenia Monko & Kirill Khaliavin, who have not lost a Grand Prix competition since South Africa in 2008, are in second place behind countrymen Victoria Sinitsina & Ruslan Zhiganshin. The score is  very close — 55.58 vs. 55.50 — with Sinitsina & Zhiganshin winning the TES and Monko & Khaliavin coming out on top in PCS. Right on their heels are Alexandra Stepanova & Ivan Bukin with 53.59 (second in TES) and Ekaterina Pushkash & Jonathan Guerreiro 53.06 (second in PCS).

Sinitsina & Zhiganshin earned high levels for their five required elements. Their rotational lift and twizzles were called level 4 and received positive GOE. Their midline sequence was level 3 and earned mostly +1s, except for one judge who saw it as a -3 GOE. Although they netted negative GOE for their two patterns of the Viennese Waltz (-.21 and -.07), the first was a level 4 and the second a level 3, by far the highest VW score at 12.72.

Although they also had their lift and twizzles called level 4 and their midline level 3, Monko & Khaliavin’s Viennese Waltz patterns earned them only 9.22 for their levels 3 and 1 and Stepanova & Bukin’s 4/2 a 12.07. Pushkash & Guerreiro’s Viennese was higher than Monko & Khaliavin’s — 9.71 — even though they had lower levels, going 1/2. They were the only team in the top four to receive a level 2 on their midline, but the execution was strong, earning a full +1 in GOE. The 1.5 point difference between level 2 and 3 in the midline was too much for them to overcome, however.

Americans Charlotte Lichtman & Dean Copely placed fifth with 50.74, keeping them in position to play spoiler to a Russian podium sweep. Lichtman & Copely earned level 4s on their lift and twizzles and level 3 on their midline, all netting positive GOE. Both patterns of the Viennese Waltz were called level 2, though, and a miscalculation regarding the location of the rink boards cost them -.29 on the second pattern.

The three teams at the bottom of the standings all had their twizzles called level 4 and the midline step sequences a level 2. Russians Evgenia Kosigina & Nikolai Moroshkin had problems during their rotational lift and were lucky to have pulled a level 3 and a net loss of only -.36. Their Viennese levels were 2/1. Ukrainians Anastasia Galyeta & Alexei Shumski, who stand in seventh, and Russians Marina Antipova & Artem Kudashev, who are eighth, both earned level 4s on their lifts. However, they didn’t pull high levels in the Viennese. Galyeta & Shumski received base GOE on their two level 1 patterns. Antipova & Kudashev went 1/2, but earned negative GOE on both patterns.

The junior free dance kicks off day two’s competitive events. The skaters take the ice at 2:15 p.m. Beijing time (1:15 a.m. EST).