Russia's ice dancers Oksana Domina and Maxim Shabalin perform their original dance at the Cup of Russia ISU Grand Prix event in Moscow, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006.
Photo: AP, AP
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No Chances But For Dancers
The fifth series of Grand Prix event in figure skating opens in Megasport Ice Palace in Moscow Khodynka tomorrow. The Cup of Russia has lured figure-skaters from 19 states of the world, which is the absolute record. It will name 90 percent of participants of the final competitions to be held in Turin December 14 through 16.
The Russians can count on medals only in two of four types of the competitions, ice dancing and pairs, said Valentin Piseev, who is the president of Figure-Skating Federation of Russia. Exactly the duets of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov, and Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov have climbed to the victory stands in France and Canada.
Dancers Domnina and Shabalin won their first series of Grand Prix in Paris past week, having defeated Europe champs Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France there, and Piseev hopes they will prevail in Moscow again. But the figure-skaters are less optimistic, mostly because of the lack of training time – Maxim Shabalin has had two operations recently, and he still feels their aftereffects.
As to the men’s part of the competitions, the chance that Russia’s Andrei Gryazev, Alexander Uspensky and Andrei Lutai will outclass Swiss Stéphane Lambiel, U.S. Johnny Weir and Canadian Jeffrey Buttle is slim. And it is negligible, when it comes to the attempts of Russia’s girls to near Hungary’s Julia Sebastyen, Japan’s Fumie Suguri, Canadian Joannie Rochette and especially Korea's Kim Yu-na, who won past year’s Grand Prix final and a medal at the world championships.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 22, 2007
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