A little more than a week is left before the first in the history of the country's show program tournament "Russian Challenge", in which the stars of the past and present of domestic figure skating will take part.

The list of participants includes Olympic and world champions Alexei Yagudin, Anna Shcherbakova, Alina Zagitova, Evgenia Medvedeva, Tatyana Volosozhar - Maxim Trankov, Tatyana Totmyanina - Maxim Marinin and many others.

The organizers wanted to see Evgeny Plushenko in Megasport, but he, as you know, refused to speak, saying that his presence would cost 10 million rubles - a little less than the entire prize fund of the tournament.

In total, 16 singles and eight duets are declared in the competition.

On Thursday, it became known that Anna Pogorilaya could not come up with an idea for the number, so she withdrew from the tournament.

Now she will be replaced by Dmitry Aliev.

He also applied for participation and was the first substitute.

The figure skater is already actively involved in the work on the production.

“When we found out that Dmitry would perform at the Russian Challenge, the idea of ​​​​the program that we originally submitted began to materialize,” said the athlete’s coach Evgeny Rukavitsyn.

The main requirement for the production, by the way, was that the program had not been presented anywhere before.

In addition, the FFKKR released details of how refereeing will be organized.

So, the jury will not include people professionally associated with figure skating.

As stated in the message on the official website of the organization, the rentals will be evaluated by "respected and recognizable professionals from various fields of art, as well as media and sports representatives with experience in grading at professional profile competitions."

The names of the jury members will be known only before the start of the tournament.

Points for performances will be given by each judge in accordance with the ISU system on a ten-point scale in 0.25 point increments - from ten (outstanding) to 0-0.75 (incredibly bad).

The best and worst marks, as in "big" figure skating, are discarded.

Two components will be evaluated: the composition, which includes the originality of the idea and the quality of the musical and choreographic design, as well as the performance, that is, the artistry and the quality of the presentation and performance of the performance.

If two participants score an equal number of points, both become winners, and the prize fund for the first and second places is divided equally between them.

It is 5 million and 3 million rubles, respectively, and 1 million is due for third place. Also, each of the jury members, having justified their choice, will be able to present a special prize of 500 thousand rubles to any skater, except for those who will be on the podium.

There is also an audience award - 1 million rubles.

Honored coach Tatyana Tarasova positively assessed the rules of the competition.

“People from different fields of art will evaluate the performance of athletes precisely from the point of view of art, and this is very correct,” TASS cites the opinion of a specialist.

RT columnist Elena Vaitsekhovskaya, in turn, recalled that the best show format for sports competitions, in her opinion, was implemented at one time by two-time Olympic champion Dick Button.

It was he who came up with the idea of ​​​​professional world championships, where he joined seemingly incompatible, at first glance, rivals - for example, Katarina Witt, Oksana Baiul and Ekaterina Gordeeva.

Or Brian Boitano and Ilya Kulik.

“At several of these championships, I was the only journalist from Russia, I wrote quite a lot about it and then I noted for myself the idea that, in fact, allowed Button to realize this unique rivalry.

He called one of the two programs artistic, limiting the number of jumps in it and allowing participants to use minimal props - raincoats, hats, dark glasses, juggling balls and other small things.

At the same time, the action remained a sport of the highest level, ”wrote the Olympic champion in her Telegram channel.

Such professional championships, having lasted 25 years, ceased to exist in 2002, and since then nothing like this has been held in the world.

That is why, according to Vaitsekhovskaya, the figure skating community took the idea of ​​holding a show program tournament with such interest.

“Moreover, Russia is almost the only country at the moment that can afford to recruit a champion squad in all four types of the program, moreover, with a margin, and no less than a stellar panel of judges.

If the show tournament smoothly flows into the Ice Age format, I personally will be very sorry, ”the RT columnist emphasized.

Meanwhile, the athletes are actively preparing for the upcoming performance.

The director of the programs of many participants was one of the most sought-after choreographers of recent years and the ideological inspirer of the very “Ice Age” Ilya Averbukh.

He had a hand in the numbers of Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Mikhail Kolyada, Evgeny Semenenko, Yagudin, Medvedeva, as well as Totmianina and Marinin.

It is noteworthy that the Salt Lake City Olympic champion, for example, agreed to participate in the Russian Challenge, even though he will celebrate his birthday on March 18 - he will turn 43 years old.

“Working with me is different from working with Zhenya Medvedeva and other younger athletes.

Here the emphasis is on age.

Luggage that we can use... Let's imagine that I was flying with so many transfers and many of my bags did not arrive.

And from what we have, we are trying to blind.

I just want to make it delicious.

Here, no one is chasing some complex ultra-c elements that are no longer there.

There are pills, there is an ambulance, ”Sport-Express quotes Yagudin.

In full combat readiness, Elizaveta Khudaiberdiyeva and Yegor Bazin are planning to approach the tournament.

The athletes missed the recent final of the Russian Grand Prix in St. Petersburg, but focused on rehearsals before the Russian Challenge.

“We are preparing much better than Pogorilaya.

The guys are rolling their number, ”the duet coach Denis Samokhin mocked the latest news.

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