/Live Impressions/
I'll start with the junior women as I haven't said anything about them.
Juniors finally got a decent arena in Moscow with the live audience. There were quite many people considering it was Friday.
It definitely was the strongest stage ever. The top 10 got above 190.
Khusnutdinova has improved a lot. Unfortunate mistakes happen but there's a room to improve and skate clean.
Labutina was warming up a 3A but decided to skate without it after a hard fall. Her jumps are very powerful. She seems to keep them when she grows.
Petrova was very good and got her best scores ever. I haven't seen any underrotations this time. She seems to becoming consistent. Hopefully she can her keep jumps after growing. The only reason she isn't on the podium is the insane stacked field.
Dvoeglazova was unexpectedly good PCS-wise. A lot of people stood up after her skate.
Kostyleva's FS seems empty even for a junior. It was obvious comparing to the other skaters in the group. I've also seen URs that are unusual for her powerful jumps.
Pleskacheva's FS doesn't seem as bright as it was last season. Jumps-wise she was good. The 3A seemed fully rotated unlike many of her previous attempts.
The fact that this stage is stacked doesn't seem to affect the qualification much. Khusnutdinova and Labutina seem to still making it to junior nationals.
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The junior competition was held at the small rink. The senior is being held at the big rink of the arena. I guess it's first FS competition there. I have no idea why they haven't brought FS there before, it's better than Megasport.
Unlike previous stages, there was a clear gap in abilities of the senior women. Though the girls from the smaller cities/town were really trying.
Doroshevskaia was welcomed warm, she had personal fans from her hometown.
The audience liked Pulina for her creative program. She was fighting for the jumps during the warm-up: a hard fall on a 2A, pops. It looked like she didn't have enough time to warm-up her 3F so she fell on it.
I really wanted home nationals for Tretiakova. But her new team decided to backload all of her combos. As the result, she bombed SP at two stages in a row. That's sad.
Nelyubova seems to be in shape and going for her first senior nationals. Generally she did well, but I'd prefer more ice coverage at the step sequence. I also hoped her famous coach would arrive but she didn't.
Petrosian landed really many axels before the skate.
Sadkova finally nailed the combo. Unfortunately after that she messed up the biellmann. Daniil G promised to wear Alina's coat in the K&C if Daria skates clean. So Alina came to the K&C and put the coat on him. After that, he left the K&C not returning it to Alina, haha.
Sinitsyna's warm-up started with fighting to land a 2A. So her shape looked suspicious to me. But after that she landed a 3Lz+3T so I thought the beginning was a fluke. Apparently it wasn't. Something has happened, probably she will reveal it later. Though her technique has never been very good, she has never bombed like that.
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The senior men were generally very good.
I'm upset for Soloviov. Not only he didn't manage to prepare two quads yet, he got two most stacked stages. Unfortunately no nationals for him this time.
Zonov fell on the quad attempt but generally looked very ready. That 3A attempt was the first one from him that looked really big and rotated. The score was high even with a fall.
Danielian's program seems a bit empty for someone who is considered PCS-skater honestly. The quad didn't happen at the warm-up, so mistake in the actual skate isn't surprising. But I'm glad he didn't bomb the rest.
Postarnakov is a hardworker. I have no idea how he learned these "easy" quads being from the city with no FS. A lot of work on the other aspects needed but I hope he goes to nationals again.
Fedorov had a new programs and it was very fun. The crowd loved that. It was the skate of his life. At the warm-up, the jumps looked well, too.
Vetlugin couldn't land the quad at the warm-up so the mistake in the skate isn't surprising. The rest had very high quality. The crowd loves his program. Everyone was singing along.
Kondratiuk had his best short program skate ever for sure. On the replay he looks faster than he actually was.
Semenenko has replaced the elements that failed him before (the 4S and the sliding). The warm-up was very confident. The 4F looks like 100% his jump, weird that his team didn't consider trying it before. He was faster than usually. Expected leading due to better quality than Mark had.
Savosin was very fun. Unfortunately almost everything looked UR to me so the score wasn't big.
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Mirzoev was tech specialist in both men and ice dance. It looks like the man wasn't losing time and became tech specialists of all the disciplines that doesn't seem to be common. Though the tech panels weren't strict as they tend to be with him.
The scores in ice dance were very generous and big comparing to the previous stages.
I enjoyed the kids from Nizhniy Novgorod, the crowd did it too. The discipline is truly developing as kids from smaller cities skate like this.
Prokopets/Vaskovich doesn't seem to improving after their breakthrough in 2022/23 unfortunately.
Savkina/Vakhnov were solid but the field is too deep for them to just make it to nationals.
Shinkarenko/Antonov were fine for a very new couple. And they took Rasputin!
Kolomenskaia/Frolov aren't as strong as it was expected after their medals in juniors. They had to swap stages with their training mates because they wouldn't make it to nationals otherwise.
Kuzmina/Studenikin surprisingly seem the strongest couple among ex-juniors. Though they weren't clean in the RD.
Zhdanova/Babaev-Smirnov are taking all the chances to move up the ranks. Their tech is still not very strong but they did improve (and that's considering Varvara was injuried). They got the highest score for the ChRS among all couples. The crowd loves them a lot. I hope they keep their medal position. It's the first time they beat Sofia and Matvei in the RD.
Tyutyunina/Grachev seem to improving tech aspects. The dance is not very catchy comparing to the other couples.
Pasechnik/Cirisano's partnership isn't working so far. They reworked their entire dance to put twizzles at the beginning. Still, she lost the balance, confronted him and fell. For a second it looked like she won't get up. After that, there were small problems with the steps (just like at the previous stage). I'm not sure what is the problem. Their twizzles were very good during the warm-up, and I don't remember Elizaveta making so many mistakes here and there before. Probably the dances are too difficult for the new couple, plus Dario is too fast for her. They were a medal favourites before the event but...
Stepanova/Bukin and Khavronina/Narizhny were much better than the others for sure. Their quality is way better.
