ISU World Champions Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov struck gold in Sochi at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Rostelecom Cup Saturday and led the Russian Pairs to a podium sweep with Daria Pavliuchenko/Denis Khodykin taking the silver and Iasmina Kadyrova/Ivan Balchenko earning the bronze medal.
Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov (RUS) stepped into the gold medal position after the Free Skate © International Skating Union (ISU)
Mishina/Galliamov delivered a dynamic performance to “Snowstorm” and “Time Forward” by Georgi Sviridov. The 2019 ISU Grand Prix Final bronze medalists nailed a triple Salchow-Euler-triple Salchow combination, triple toe, triple twist, throw triple flip and loop as well as level-four lifts. Mishina/Galliamov scored 153.34 points which added up to 226.98 points overall.
“The second Grand Prix was harder for us than the one in Japan, I can't explain why. The Short Program here did not work out, but we were able to pull ourselves together for the Long Program and it was much better,” Mishina said.
“After yesterday we were mad at ourselves and we were upset not because we were in second but because of the mistakes we made.”
Daria Pavliuchenko and Denis Khodykin (RUS) dropped into second place but set a personal best for the Free Skate © International Skating Union (ISU)
Skating to “Black Swan”, Pavliuchenko/Khodykin shone as well, hitting a triple toe-triple toe-double toe combination (but the second triple toe got a “q” for a slight under-rotation), triple twist and triple throws as well as a rarely seen forward-outside death spiral. The only glitch came when she missed the side by side triple Salchow. 2019 ISU Grand Prix Finalists set a personal best score of 138.68 points and got 212.59 points overall.
“We are happy we were able to project our characters. Compared to the first Grand Prix in Canada we progressed as we could see with the reaction of the crowd. We'll keep working on it,” Khodykin said.
“I feel very inspired by the movie ‘Black Swan’ and want to bring across this slightly crazy, non-standard character,” added Pavliuchenko.
Iasmina Kadyrova and Ivan Balchenko (RUS) completed the Russian sweep on the podium © International Skating Union (ISU)
Kadyrova/Balchenko’s performance to “Prince of Persia” featured a triple toe and solid triple throws, but Kadyrova fell when they lost their grip in the death spiral. The team from St Petersburg scored 124.19 points and remained in third place at 193.58 points.
“We made a lot of stilly mistakes in the program and am sure it will come with the experience, we'll keep working and polishing the programs. We’ll take it from there,” Kadyrova pointed out.
Audrey Lu/Misha Mitrofanov (USA) finished fourth at 186.16 points. Kirsten Moore-Towers/Michael Marinaro (CAN) moved up from seventh to fifth at 177.72 points. Ioulia Chtchetinina/ Mark Magyar (HUN) came sixth (175.80 points).
View the detailed Free Skate classification and Pairs final results
