Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii of Italy grabbed their first Grand Prix gold in the Pairs’ event at Cup of China, bringing the total medal count for the series to eight. Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin maintained second place overall, while Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud of Canada claimed the bronze.
The 2023 World bronze medalists were near solid in their short program to Carmen Suite, which began with a level-four triple twist. The only mistake came with Conti put a foot down on the throw triple loop. The side-by-side triple Salchows were clean, and the steps, death spiral and spin were graded a level four. The earned 72.43 points for first place going into the free skate.
“I’m super happy today because it’s our third clean short program,” said Conti. “We worked a lot to start actually enjoying skating to this program, not to think just about the elements. Now we feel super confident. I’m super happy with the death spiral level because it’s the first time we got level 4. Even the twist was good today, because for us it’s a tricky element usually. ”
“We got all the levels today,” added Macii. “Every day we do thousands of death spirals because you need to be sure you can get level 4 on it even in the end of the program.”
Conti and Macii were near solid in their moving free skate to “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” They produced another level four triple twist, but Conti put a hand down on the triple toe-double Axel-double Axel sequence, while Macii stepped out of his. The triple Salchows were solid, and the 2023 European Champions also executed three level-four lifts, death spiral, and spin. Conti had solid landings on the throw triple loop and throw triple Salchow, and they placed second in the free skate with a new personal best of 138.62. Their total score of 211.05, also a personal best, was enough to keep them on the top of the podium.
“Wow! Just wow!” exclaimed a thrilled Macii.
“We’re so excited, this is our first gold medal on the Grand Prix!” said Conti. “I’m super happy, but the tension was very, very high.”
“But she was so much better than me,” Macii chimed in. “She has been saying ‘we are warriors, we can do that’ and I was like ‘yes, okay.'”
The team knew that Hase and Volodin had a perfect skate before they took the ice.
“I listened to the points,” said Conti. “I am not scared; I like to know what points we need to get. They got 140 and I said, ‘okay, we can do it. If we do it clean like every day at home on practices, then we can do it.”
The 2024 Grand Prix de France silver medalists earned the fourth spot at the Grand Prix Final where they will skate alongside the Germans again next month.
The 2024 World bronze medalists placed second (68.44) in the short with their soulful routine to “You Were Mine” by Tami Neilson. The team produced a smooth level-three triple twist, side-by-side triple Salchows and a throw triple loop. Everything was flowing until Volodin took a fluke fall during the step sequence. However, the lift and spin were graded a level four, and all elements, except for the steps, received positive grades of execution (GOE).
“Before the mistake on the steps, we felt pretty good, but also a little bit shaky today,” said Hase. “We came in here and I got food poisoning the first night, so I’m still not 100%. Mistakes like we had on the step sequence can happen, and now we will pay more attention to this element during competitions, too. I think we’re still in a pretty good position for tomorrow.”
The 2024 Grand Prix de France champions delivered a solid free skate to The Four Seasons. While the twist dropped a level, the team landed the side-by-side triple Salchow-double Axel-double Axel sequence and triple toes. The throw triple loop and throw triple Salchow were clean, and the team showed three level four lifts and spin. They finished first in the free skate (140.92) but maintained second place overall (209.36).
“We are relieved, really just relieved,” said Hase. “This was a hard work. Like this program was hard work from beginning to the end. So, I’m really happy with what we did today. I’m just dead. I’m happy it’s done now, that I can like chill now a little bit.”
“I think the Grand Prix event in France was the first one where we didn’t have any problems or issues to overcome, where we could like go there and just skate,” she added. “Now we had problems again, but the good thing is that we learned from last season, and we can handle the mistakes better now.”
The Canadian national silver medalists put out a fun and upbeat short to “Sing, Sing, Sing” for third place and a personal best of 66.90. While the triple twist was only graded a level one, the side-by-side triple toes were solid, as was the throw triple Salchow. The lift, spin and steps were graded a level four.
“We had a lot of motivation coming into this event after France where we had a really devastating long program,” said Pereira. “I think we learned a lot from that experience, and we tried to work really efficiently and effectively at home.”
“We made some changes in some of the elements, so we are glad we managed to show it today,” added Michaud. “Like the twist is better, so we’re excited for that.”
Pereira and Michaud placed third in the free skate and overall (121.84/188.74) after performance to “Tango Jalousie.” It wasn’t mistake-free as Michaud underrotated and two-footed the landing of the triple toe-double Axel-double Axel sequence. Pereira also two-footed and turned out the triple Salchows and took a fall on the throw triple loop. However, the throw triple Salchow was clean, and they produced level-four lifts, spin and death spiral.
“Today was good, we felt good,” said Michaud. “We arrived early which helped us to feel better in practicing, but it also was just a long week.”
“We’ve practiced really, really well this whole week and I think that was a really big steppingstone for us,” added Pereira. “We should just come out on every practice and nail everything and just feel really confident. There is still some anxiety and just extra nerves from our last long program, but I think we both did a good job of handling that today.”
Pereira used Olivia Smart’s dress from the 2018-19 rhythm dance.
“Olivia gave me this dress because our other costumes were not ready yet,” said Pereira. “I am grateful she let me cut it and shorten it a bit.”
Ioulia Chtchetinina and Michal Wozniak of Poland finished fourth with a new personal best of 61.11 for their short program to “Moderation” by Florence and The Machine. The national champs produced a level-three triple twist and triple toes, but Chtchetinina struggled on the landing of the throw triple flip. The lift was graded a level four, and they placed fourth going into the free skate.
“Today’s performance was not the best one, but we glad that we still got good points with this performance,” said Chtchetinina. “That means we can score even higher. We are improving with small steps, but steps in the right direction.”
The team is grateful to be competing in China as initially Skate Canada was their solo Grand Prix event.
“We only got the spot when other people withdrew,” noted Chtchetinina. “It’s so cool to compete in China!”
“This is actually the most special thing because we got to travel to China, and it’s really amazing!” added her partner. “It’s a really cool city, it’s completely different even if we haven’t seen too much yet. We are very excited to go and explore.”
The 2024 Diamond Spin silver medalists put out a good program to “I Love You” by Woodkid, but it was not without errors. They showed a level-two triple twist and triple Salchows, but both skaters struggled on the double Axel sequence jumps. Chtchetinina fought for the landing of the throw triple flip, but the throw triple Salchow was clean, and they displayed level-four lifts throughout. They placed fifth in the free skate and fourth overall with two new personal best scores (115.93/177.04).
“We are happy, but I had a very, very stupid mistake on a double Axle, which is usually a very safe jump, so it was unexpected,” said Chtchetinina. “It felt like we did everything we worked on, but we didn’t do the elements that are usually the safe ones. Overall, we still have the season best in the short and in the free.”
“We wanted to hit 180, which we missed by a little bit, but that’s motivation to work harder,” she continued. “And we were really happy to skate in the second group today, to be with the big guys.”
The team kept their free program from last year.
“Back then, our choreographer of this program came up with this music and we liked a lot,” explained Wozniak. “It has the acoustic version and also the fast version, so we decided to mix it up. Also, it’s great that we are skating to it for two years and still don’t hate it! I mean, probably we don’t listen to it every day in headphones, but we still enjoy skating to it.”
USA’s Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman placed fifth (159.92), followed by Camille Kovalev and Pavel Kovalev of France (157.11), Isabella Gamez and Aleksandr Korovin of the Philippines (151.26), and China’s Yuchen Wang and Lei Zhu (136.90).
Related Info:
The post Conti and Macii grab elusive Grand Prix gold in China appeared first on Golden Skate.
