Kevin Shum

Aleksei Krasnozhon

All Photos © 2015 George Rossano

(6 February 2015)  Andrew Torgashev is taking little time moving up through the ranks.  The thirteen-year-old skater from Coral Springs, FL was the Intermediate champion in 2013, the pewter medalist in Novice in 2014, and this year the Junior champion, winning with two senior quality performances.   He scored a total of 225.24 points, enough to have placed him tenth in Senior Men.  His winning score was 31.88 points ahead of silver medalist Kevin Shum, and he scored nearly 100 points more than the 11th (last) place finisher!

In a jazzy Short Program ("Parisienne Walkways" by Gary Moore) he skated a solid, mature program, with triple Flip - triple toe loop, triple Lutz and double Axel.  He only missed one level, in his Flying camel spin.  His program was very "Russian" in style and interpretation and brought to mind a young Alexei Yagudin.  His component scores in the short averaged an impressive 7.13.

In the Free Skate ("Concierto de Aranjuez" by Joaquin Rodrigo) Torgashev landed seven triples, the most one can fit into a Junior Free Skate in the absence of a triple Axel.  In addition, he achieved level four for all spins and steps.  His two flips were called for edge attention, but were other wise so well executed neither received any negative GoEs, and one even received a plus two from one judge.  His components were also senior quality averaging 7.56.  It was a masterful, mature performance.

Making his second appearance at Nationals in Juniors, Kevin Shum moved up from sixth in 2014 to win the silver medal at these Nationals.  He placed second in the Short Program ("Invierno Porteno" by Astor Piazzolla) and third in the Free Skate (music from "Thor: The Dark World" by Brian Tyler). 

His short opened with a nice opening triple flip - triple, and he also completed a strong level three step sequence and closing level four change foot combination spin.  He completed his flying camel spin, but did not meet minimum requirements to receive a level and it was scored at base value.  His solo triple Lutz and change sit spin were scored with a diversity of opinion, with both receiving GoEs from minus two to plus two and every mark in between.  His components averaged a respectable 6.44.

In the long Shum landed seven triples, repeating the Lutz and the loop.  Near the end he fell on his second double Axel.  His levelled elements were all called level three, and the closing change combination spin was not as well executed as in the short, with one position of the spin not receiving credit.  Shum gave an animated, intense performance, presented with enthusiasm, and received an average component score of 6.55.

Third and fourth place were a close contest between Paolo Borromeo and Aleksei Krasnozhon whose point totals differed by only 0.08.  Krasnozhon fought back hard after a sixth place finish in the short and placed second in the long, but could not quite come up with enough points to overtake Borromeo who was third in the short and fourth in the long

Borromea was one of three men to attempt (and land) triple flip - triple toe loop in the Short Program.  In fact, the top three men in the short attempted the exact same content, with the only differences between them the levels achieved in the spins and steps.

Skating to "Nuttin' but Stringz", by Tourie and Escobar, he skated clean secure elements, except for solo triple Lutz that received an edge attention and GoEs of minus one through minus three.  His performance was capable but restrained and his components averaged just under 6.  In the short his strength was in the elements.

His Free Skate performance ("Don Juan" by Richard Strauss) was in one sense a reverse of his short,  Less clean technically, but stronger artistically.  Five elements were scored negative, with edge attention on the two triple Lutzes, an under-rotation on triple loop, a poorly executed three-jump combination, and the loss of two levels on his change foot combinations spin.  Despite the errors it was still a more engaging program than the short and his component marks came up to an average of 6.50 and a few marks reaching 7.25.

The most ambitious short of the event was attempted by Krasnozhon, and the order of elements was also different from the norm.

He opened his routine to "Love Story" by Francis Lai with a clean triple Axel (the only skater who attempted one in the event) and delayed the two other jump elements until the end.  Strategically if this was wise is questionable as he missed the combination which also had an edge attention on the triple flip,and the Lutz was poorly landed.  In between the opening and closing jumps were the three spins and steps which achieved level three for two spins and steps and level four for the change sit spin.  The focus of the short, however, was on the elements and this was reflected in the components that averaged 5.74. 

In the Free Skate ("Tango Amore" by Edvin Martin) Krasnozhn attempted an even more ambitions program that began with triple Axel - single loop - triple flip, and included eight triple jumps.  In the three-jump combination the triple Axel was clean, but the single loop was downgraded.  A later triple loop in combination was also under-rotated.  He also missed some levels on two of the three spins, with flying camel at level one change sit spin at level 2.  Artistically it was a better presented effort, but the effort by the fourteen-year-old from Dallas, TX was still focused on physicality.  He scored second in Total Element Score, but sixth in Program Component score.