August 30, 2015
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The Russian Ladies Figure Skating Pipeline: It’s long, deep and gushes forth its latest talent!
Just when I think, “How long can this endless cadre of Russian baby ballerinas last?”, the next one, 13 yr.- old Alisa Fedichkina pops up out of nowhere. What is in the Russian water? Whatever it is that seems to perpetuate this grand and seemingly endless list of potential future great Russian lady skaters, for skating fans around the globe it is exciting to behold.
Junior Grand Prix, Riga introduced to the world yet again another future star in the form of Alisa Fedichkina. Her entrance on the International skating scene was, for this skating blogger at least, supremely delightful in every respect.
Born on Valentines Day (Feb 14) 2002 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Alisa resides now in Saint Petersburg where she trains under Evgeni Rukavicin. Her participation at JGP Riga was her international competitive debut and what a debut it was.
Her short program opening pose (one knee on the ice) perked my attention right away. What happened after that, well, it was glorious.
Displaying a level of artistry far beyond her years, Alisa performed with a light, airy and playful quality that brought a huge smile to my face. Her music, Valse Sentimentale, Op.51, No.6 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Olga Glinka, was perfect for her 13 years. It allowed her to display her expressive talent to perfection and she won the short program portion of the competition.
Alisa had a few problems in her free program skating to Nos Souvenirs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and choreographed by Vyacheslav Maksimov. She under-rotated both the triple-toe and double-toe portion of her three jump combination 2A+3T+2T, and received four -3s and five -2s GOE marks for her single loop and all 0 GOEs across the board from all judges for a singled triple lutz jump. Her program component score total was 3 points higher than her technical mark total. This overall performance dropped her to a final 4th place finish less than a point off the podium in her very first JGP event.
Regardless, in this bloggers opinion Alisa has made her mark with an outstanding debut on the world stage. What lingers in my memory is the delight of her outstanding Short Program and the anticipation for what is in store from this young lady for the future of Ladies competitive figure skating.
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