One year prior to the Winter Olympics in Turin, Russian figure skaters have demonstrated that they are well in a position to claim all Olympic gold in the sport. Their high ambition is based primarily on their brilliant performance at the European Figure Skating Championship in Turin this January where Russians triumphed in all four events of the program. Russian skaters went on to consolidate their victory and scored a great success at the World Figure Skating Championship that has just closed in Moscow. Russian athletes have won three gold and one silv| Ads |  |
er medals at the competition. Moreover, should Yevgeny Plyushchenko have not had to leave the rink because of an unfortunate injury, Russian skaters might have done just as well as in Turin with a clean sweep of the Championships gold (they have managed to win all gold medals at a World Championship only once so far - in 1999 in Helsinki).
Russian fans are particularly delighted that Russian skaters victories in Moscow proved to be even more convincing than those scored a month ago in Turin, even though the level of competition was a step higher.
In the pairs event Russian duos Tatyana Totmyanina - Maxim Marinin and Maria Petrova - Alexei Tikhonov had little problem prevailing over three Chinese pairs. The third Russian pair Yulia Obertas - Sergei Slavnov have also put up a good performance, finishing in the fifth place.
Russian dancing duo Tatyana Navka - Roman Kostomarov have outclassed their rivals just as spectacularly. Two other Russian dancing duos, Oksana Domnina - Maxim Shabalin and Svetlana Kulikova - Vitaly Novikov, have also displayed impressive artistic merit and skating skills.
Irina Slutskaya has won her second world title in womens figure skating. The brilliance of her performance in Moscow left no chance to her competitors, even though the latter included such renowned skaters as Sasha Cohen and Michelle Kwan of the USA and Carolina Kostner of Italy. Another Russian participant Yelena Sokolova failed to retain her self-composure in the free skating event and finished only seventh overall though her previous performance had clearly made her one of the strongest podium hopefuls.
Yevgeny Plyushchenko deserves a special comment. One can only regret that old injuries and psychological exhaustion made themselves felt in the middle of the Moscow Championship and compelled Yevgeny to withdraw. There is no doubt, however, that the Russian star remains the main challenger to the champion title at the Winter Olympics. None of his rivals in the struggle for gold medals in Moscow has managed to put up an impressive performance. All of them, even the new world champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, made major mistakes during their routines, which effectively disqualifies them from serious claim to the Olympic gold. When back in form, Plyushchenko will not give them a chance - his superiority in class is too big and has been repeatedly proved in this and previous seasons.
President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation Valentin Piseyev is quite right when in his interview with RIA Novosti he said that injuries, not competitors, were our athletes main opponents. Injuries have been literally haunting our leading figure skaters over the past few years. One keeps his fingers crossed in the hope that injuries stop afflicting them in the run-up to the 2006 Olympics.
MOSCOW, March 19 (RIA Novostis sports commentator Mikhail Smirnov)
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