THE CANADIAN PRESS
MOSCOW — Coming off his victory at Skate Canada International, reigning world silver medallist Patrick Chan can underline his status as one of the elite men in figure skating at this weekend’s Cup of Russia.
The Toronto native landed his first competition quad last month in Kingston, Ont., and the addition to his repertoire makes him an even bigger threat in Moscow.
He’ll face stiff competition from U.S. national champion Jeremy Abbott, who took silver at the NHK Trophy, and the Czech Republic’s Tomas Verner, who placed third at the Cup of China.
Chan is one of four Canadian entries in the event.
Myriane Samson of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., will compete at her second Grand Prix of the season. She was seventh at Skate Canada.
The pairs team of Paige Lawrence of Kennedy, Sask., and Rudi Swiegers of Kipling, Sask., will look to add to the bronze they claimed in Kingston.
And ice dancers Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam of Barrie, Ont., will look to improve on their fourth-place finish at Skate Canada in their second senior assignment.
The host Russians, meanwhile, will be looking for a return to prominence among their women.
Russia has two strong contenders — Ksenia Makarova and Alena Leonova, but they’re in tough against Japanese skaters Miki Ando and Akiko Suzuki.
After a decade of dominating the competition, Russian women have been nearly absent from the podium since Irina Slutskaya won in 2005. The only medal since then was Leonova’s bronze last year.
Makarova, the daughter of the 1984 Olympic bronze medal pair Larisa Selezneva and Oleg Makarov, could be undermined by having only a single combination jump in her free program. But it’s a triple-triple and her coach Viktor Petrenko said this week that "I think our programs are sufficiently complicated."
Leonova says her long program this year, to the soundtrack of "The Witches of Eastwick," forces her to adopt to a new persona and she hopes that will drive her to new heights.
"I’ve long been attracted to this supercharged music. In order not to mess up, I have to get into the role," she told the newspaper Gazeta this week.
Ando, the 2007 world champion, brings years of experience to the ice at Moscow’s Megasport arena, along with the gold from this year’s Cup of China. Suzuki won silver at the same event. Ashley Wagner of the United States, the 2009 silver medallist in Moscow, returns to add to a tough field.
The Russian prospects in the men’s competition are much dimmer. Artem Bordodulin, who took bronze at the event in 2009, withdrew from the competition this year because of difficulty adapting to new skate boots. He’s replaced by Ivan Tretyakov, who finished 10th in Moscow last year. Fellow Russian Artur Gachinski managed only a seventh-place finish in this year’s Skate Canada.
Russia’s Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov, the current world bronze medallists , make their only Grand Prix appearance of the season in Moscow. They face Narumi Takahashi and Mervin Tran of Japan, who were third at the NHK this year, and Lawrence and Swiegers.
The ice dancing event includes Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali of Italy, the world bronze medallists , and Russia’s Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, who placed second at the Cup of China. Britain’s brother-sister team of Sinead and John Kerr, currently third in the International Skating Union’s rankings, withdrew because of her shoulder injury suffered in October.
The Cup of Russia, returning to its previous name after being called the Rostelecom Cup in 2009, is the fifth of six competitions in the Grand Prix series. The Trophee Eric Bompard concludes the series a week later in Paris. The top finishers from the six preliminaries meet in the Grand Prix Final in Beijing Dec. 9-12.
— With files from The Associated Press