FIGURE SKATING: Russia sweeps Rostelecom Cup and Trusova overtakes Medvedeva

Rostelecom Cup winner Alexandra Trusova (RUS). (Photo: ISU)

It was a fun show for the home crowd in Moscow in the fifth ISU Grand Prix meeting, the Rostelecom Cup, as Russian entries won all four events.

In fact, Russians went 1-2 in the Men’s, Women’s and Pairs events, with Alexander Samarin, Alexandra Trusova and Alexandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii the winners.

Most of the attention was on the women, with a match-up of the new sensation, 15-year-old Trusova, competing against two-time World Champion Evgenia Medvedeva. The latter had a slim lead after the Short Program, 76.93-74.21, but Trusova came back with a strong Free Skate to score 160.26 vs. 148.83 for Medvedeva and win by 8.71 points.

Trusova included four quadruple jumps in her program, but also had a fall on a triple-triple combination, or she would have scored higher. But she is already thinking of a new challenge:

“I would like to compete with the men, because they can do a quad in the short program and we are not allowed to. Also, it would be interesting to compete with skaters that do many quads in the programs.”

Medvedeva included six triple jumps in her program and more is coming. “I am very satisfied with what I did today and yesterday, finally I did what I should do. It is in my plans to learn a quad, I am working on the quad Salchow, but at the same time I need to make sure I stay healthy. I’ll do everything I can for it and I hope to put it out there as soon as possible.”

American Mariah Bell won her second bronze medal of the Grand Prix season and was third in both the Short Program and Free Skate.

Samarin led a rare podium sweep in the men’s event, only the second time it happened for Russian men: Alexei Urmanov, Evgeni Plushenko and Alexander Abt did it in 1998.

Boikova and Kozlovskii won decisively in Pairs and Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov won a tight battle with Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. Summaries:

ISU Grand Prix/Rostelecom Cup
Moscow (RUS) ~ 15-17 November 2019
(Full results here)

Men: 1. Alexander Samarin (RUS), 264.45 (1st in Short Program + 1st in Free Skate); 2. Dmitri Aliev (RUS), 259.88 (2+2); 3. Makar Ignatov (RUS), 252.87 (3+3). Also: 10. Alexei Krasnozhon (USA), 216.28 (10+11).

Women: 1. Alexandra Trusova (RUS), 234.47 (2+1); 2. Evgenia Medvedeva (RUS), 225.76 (1+20; 3. Mariah Bell (USA), 205.67 (3+3).

Pairs: 1. Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitrii Kozlovskii (RUS), 229.48 (1+1); 2. Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov (RUS), 216.77 (2+2); 3. Minerva Fabienne Hase/Nolan Seegert (GER), 186.16 (4+4). Also: 8. Andrey Lu/Misha Mitrofanov (USA), 153.61 (8+8).

Ice Dance: 1. Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov (RUS), 212.15 (1+1); 2. Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier (CAN), 207.64 (2+2); 3. Sara Hurtado/Kirill Khaliavin (ESP), 185.01.