With Ladies, I had a rough idea of what order my Top 10 was going to be in. The problem was slotting in the Juniors, because I haven’t seen much of the Junior GP Series the last couple of seasons.
Of course, my Top 2 were cemented in long ago. My little Tatar princess from Udmurtia, followed by my youngest wife.
Next I put the girl who, for me, has been the revelation of the season: Tsurskaya. I never liked her when she was in Juniors. There was just something about her style that I didn’t take to. But, this season, I have been liking her.
Although it’s been a couple of seasons since she was setting the world on fire, I have a feeling that Elena Radionova could pull something off. So, I put her into 4th.
Then came the hard decision – who to have completing my Top 5. Leonova and Sakhanovich are looking better this season. Liza will want to prove a point to everybody that was writing off Queen Elizabeth I. And then there are the many Juniors.
In the end, I went with my heart. And my heart said Sima.
I’m going to lose out anyway through not putting any of the Juniors into my Top 5, so I may as well go the whole hog, and put Leonova as my alternate, and then Tuktamysheva (it is already paining me to put her outside my Top 5, so I couldn’t bear to push her down any more!)
With the rest of the field, I decided to just go by absolute PB. Except for the girl with the highest, Tarusina, because it was a monster score compared to anything else she had ever achieved. Plus, it is quite long ago compared to the absolute PB’s for the other girls. And the same was the case with her second highest score. So, I dropped her down to where her third highest score would put her, which was outside my Top 10.
When it came to the Men, there were a lot of names that I either didn’t know or couldn’t remember what they were like. So, I looked up the absolute PB’s for everybody, out of curiosity. And found that some of the guys that I was intending to have in my Top 5 were actually well down the order! For example, the guy I was intending to put 3rd was actually 10th on the list!
So, I kept my Top 2 as planned, and moved the guy I was planning on putting in 4th up to 3rd. But, I still wanted Aliev to be up near the top as I really rate him, so I put him into 4th.
Then came the dilemma. Every year, I move Kovtun down from where his absolute PB had him. And this year is no different. But, do I take him out of my Top 5 completely? And if I do, how far do I drop him?
The remaining guys in the absolute PB Top 10 all had similar absolute PB’s. So, I put them in an order I liked, and then slotted Kovtun in behind them at the bottom of my Top 10.
With Pairs, I knew what order my Top 5 was going to be in. The debate was who to have as my alternate – Efimova / Korovin or Mishina / Galiamov. And when I looked at the absolute PB’s, there was practically nothing between them. So, I went with my gut, which said the former.
For the rest, it was just straight absolute PB’s, because I wasn’t familiar with them. Although, it was strange putting Selkin at the bottom. But, it can take a while for new partnerships to sort everything out.
With Dance, although I knew who was going to be in my Top 7, I did dither over the order. There was no debate over the Top 2 – it was who to put 3rd to 5th. In the end, I decided to go with my fellow native English speakers to complete the podium, followed by SinKats and Loboda / Drozd.
Popova / Mozgov were my alternate, followed by Evdokimova / Bazin. After this, I just went by absolute PB.
It’s a shame that Ilinykh isn’t here this season. But, at least her doppelgänger is. You know, her ex’s daughter. Really looking forward to seeing what she is like.
CaroLiza_fan
RUSSIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ladies
1. Alina ZAGITOVA
2. Maria SOTSKOVA
3. Polina TSURSKAYA
4. Elena RADIONOVA
5. Serafima SAKHANOVICH
Just for fun:
6. Alena LEONOVA
7. Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA
8. Alena KOSTORNAYA
9. Anastasia GUBANOVA
10. Sofia SAMODUROVA
11. Stanislava KONSTANTINOVA
12. Anna TARUSINA
Men
1. Mikhail KOLYADA
2. Sergei VORONOV
3. Alexander SAMARIN
4. Dmitri ALIEV
5. Alexander PETROV
Just for fun:
6. Artur DMITRIEV
7. Alexey EROKHOV
8. Anton SHULEPOV
9. Andrei LAZUKIN
10. Maxim KOVTUN
Pairs
1. Evgenia TARASOVA / Vladimir MOROZOV
2. Ksenia STOLBOVA / Fedor KLIMOV
3. Natalja ZABIJAKO / Alexander ENBERT
4. Kristina ASTAKHOVA / Alexei ROGONOV
5. Aleksandra BOIKOVA / Dmitry KOZLOVSKII
Just for fun:
6. Alisa EFIMOVA / Alexander KOROVIN
7. Anastasia MISHINA / Aleksandr GALIAMOV
8. Anastasia POLUIANOVA / Dmitry SOPOT
9. Daria PAVLIUCHENKO / Denis KHODYKIN
10. Apollinariia PANFILOVA / Dmitry RYLOV
11. Bogdana LUKASHEVICH / Alexander STEPANOV
12. Tatiana LYIROVA / Maksim SELKIN
Ice Dance
1. Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV
2. Alexandra STEPANOVA / Ivan BUKIN
3. Tiffany ZAHORSKI / Jonathan GUERREIRO
4. Victoria SINITSINA / Nikita KATSALAPOV
5. Alla LOBODA / Pavel DROZD
Just for fun:
6. Betina POPOVA / Sergey MOZGOV
7. Sofia EVDOKIMOVA / Egor BAZIN
8. Vlada SOLOVIEVA / Yuri VLASENKO
9. Annabelle MOROZOV / Andrei BAGIN
10. Ludmila SOSNITSKAIA / Pavel GOLOVISHNIKOV
11. Anastasia SAFRONOVA / Ilia ZIMIN
12. Margarita SHESTAKOVA / Saveliy UGRYUMOV
13. Ekaterina LUCHINA / Mikhail BRAGIN
