(13 December 2014)   Four of the six ladies in the Final are from Russia, but they did not keep the first four places which they had in the short program. Nobody has done as many competitions in this season as Elizaveta Tuktamysheva from St. Petersburg in Russia and it paid off. She won with 203.58 points and was the most stable competitor. Skating to Middle Eastern rythms, she began with a very good combination of triple Lutz, double toe loop and double loop. A second triple Lutz and a triple flip came next, followed by four more triples in the second half. Tuktamysheva’s spins and the interpretation were very convincing as well. Her GEOs were mainly +1 and +2 and her components around 8.1. The student of Alexi Mishin will turn 18 on Wednesday after the Grand Prix Final.

She commented:” I’m very happy and surprised I could do a clean free program for the first time this season and even happier to win the Grand Prix Final, especially as I was ill and wasn’t in the best shape coming into this. It was hard at the end, my legs were heavy, but I’m glad I could battle this and fight right to my final breath. Now I will go back to St Petersburg and try to recover completely and skate well at Russian nationals. My immune system was down because I had been in top shape for a while and my body couldn’t cope. But I’m happy it happened now and I can go to Russian nationals and not make these mistakes again. After that we have quite a big break for New Year, so I can recover and rest in a happy and festive atmosphere. I just need to last a bit longer till then. There are also a lot of strong competitors at Europeans but judging by this competition, where the first three after the short program and two on the podium were Russian, I think Russian Nationals will be harder and more interesting. I know for the next eight years and maybe later I will be connected to it. Even in the hard moments when I thought about finishing, when I had bad injuries, I knew I would never quit. When I was training during the summer I could not imagine that my season would go so well.”

Elena Radionova won the silver medal, earning 198.74 points. Being still 15, she still skates more like a junior, but has a special freshness. The student of Inna Goncharenko also performed seven triple jumps plus two double axels, all of them clean, but not very sovereign. Her spins (all level 4) were the best of field. The layback spin at the end of the field even got GOES of +3 by six of the nine judges because of her special body flexibility.

She said: “I skated well and clean and it wasn’t too easy because I was ill. But nonetheless I was pleased to skate, to do all my jumps and fix the small mistakes from the short program. I didn’t think about placements. My aim this season was to skate clean so I can say now that I more or less did that. I know now what to work on and the most important thing is I’m not stagnating.” She was also asked about her bad training session this morning: “That’s what training is there for sometimes. Sometimes everything works and sometimes it doesn’t, but the most important thing is to do it in competition. This morning I was not feeling so great so maybe that was why it wasn’t not going well. So it was especially good to do in competition, regardless of what happened before. I’m not so young now, I’m nearly 16 and there are younger girls doing triple-triple combinations so I’m not doing anything extraordinary. We have very good girls in Russia right now but Europeans will be a different competition too, it also has good competitors. Each competition is very important and you can’t relax for either one.”

Ashley Wagner of Artesia, California, performed certainly one of the best free program of her career and could move up form sixth to third place with 189.50 overall points. Like the gold and silver medalists, she had seven triple jumps in her program, six of which were clean. For the first time in many competitions, her combination of triple flip and triple toe loop was not underrotated. Her only small mistake was an underrotated triple Salchow in a sequence with the triple loop. Her spins and her step sequences were dynamic, her first double axel got two GOEs of +3. She interpreted less known pieces of the soundtrack of “Moulin Rouge” with a lot of fire.

Later she commented: “Today was huge for me. To come from last place to the podium is a huge accomplishment, especially against the best girls in world. Finally I got to show a clean triple flip - triple toe and a triple loop half loop triple Salchow. I want to challenge myself with something new, hopefully by the time I get to nationals, I just have to figure out how to put together two clean programs because although this free went well, this competition as a whole was little wonky. I’m like Dr Seuss, I use that word sometimes. I mean a little off, when it doesn’t work sometimes. The free program was good but the short program is something I don’t ever want to think of again, that is what a wonky competition is. I’ve been competing at seniors from 15 years old and I know a lot of the girls I came up with did take a year off. It’s exhausting and it’s years and years of fighting. I understand why they take a year off, being at that level is hard on the body and it’s hard emotionally. But a lot of them have been world champions and at the top of the top of the top and I am still not there yet. I have so much work to do to be a podium contender for Worlds that I don’t have time to take a year off.”

Anna Pogorilaya from Russia finished on fourth position, earning 180.29 points. Her skating style to the ballet music of Stravinsky’s Firebird is a bit more flamboyant, but she was not faultless. After a very good combination of triple Lutz and triple toe loop, she tried a sequence of triple loop, half loop and triple Salchow, but fell on the Salchow. Three more triples and two double axel were good, but two spins a bit wobbly.

She explained: “To be honest it is a good feeling to be fourth to three Russian girls in the Short Program. I will know when I beat them that I have done really well. But of course I still do not feel good about my performance. But I got to the Final, this is the main thing. I will go back and work and work. I will prepare very hard for Russian Nationals. I will do not only one, but three daily run-throughs.

European champion Julia Lipnitskaia, also from Russia, had another bad day and seems to be in a shape crisis. After an excellent opening combination of triple Lutz and triple toe loop she fell on two jumps and popped two others. She ended up fifth with 177.79 points. Later she said: “I skate fine in training. I just came out today and couldn’t do anything. It’s a physical problem not emotional but I don’t know what.” Rika Hongo from Japan performed five clean triple jumps, an under-rotated toe loop and a Lutz with an edge call. In spite performing the fifth best free program she remained in sixth position overall, winning 176.13 points.