Former Russian figure skater Sofya Samodelkina made her international debut as a representative of Kazakhstan. At the fourth stage of the Junior Grand Prix in Turkey she stopped just short of the podium, scoring 174.58 points.
Let’s not mention that the scores are not the highest. Three years ago, when she was still Russian, Sofa took bronze and silver in the same junior Grand Prix series with significantly higher scores (202.39 and 205.67). But then she was a 14-year-old teenager, she had a triple axel and several quads. The mature 17-year-old Sofa continues to jump ultra-C elements, but it takes time to return them to the program. In addition, she recently suffered an injury and it is not a fact that she has fully recovered.
However, compared to her victorious performance at the Kazakhstan Summer Championships, the skater showed tangible progress. She did not lose her cascade in the short program and skated quite well in the free skate.
She also managed to get ahead of another former Russian, Inga Gurgenidze, who plays in Georgia, and Anastasia Brandenburg, a pupil of Tutberidze’s coaching staff. Inga even threatened with a triple axel and an expensive and powerful cascade!
And the judges made it clear from day one: Sofa had better not expect any concessions on the international stage.
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57.14 points for the short program: Did Samodelkina fall behind?
Sofia Samodelkina traveled to Ankara, where the fourth stage of the Junior Grand Prix was organized, after significant changes in the training process. At the end of August, she suddenly left Plushenko’s Angels Academy and began preparing for an important start at the Astana skating rink. She made the decision to make such a sharp turn in her sports career precisely under the delicate care of the Astana Figure Skating Federation. In October, she will travel to the United States to observe and train with Rafael Harutyunyan, the coach of two-time Olympic champion Nathan Chen. How long she will stay abroad is still unknown, but the help of a good specialist certainly won’t hurt her.
So far, in her first international outing, Sofa has not been able to properly scare her competitors. Especially in the short program. On the first day of competition at the Junior Grand Prix, she completed all the jumps – a combination of a triple Lutz and a triple toe loop, a double Axel and a triple flip – but lost points on the non-jump elements. She performed the diving rotation only at the first difficulty level, and two more combination rotations and a step sequence at the third level, and not at the fourth maximum level. Losing points on non-jump events in her situation is a bad idea – she is now a rookie for the judges and they are in no hurry to shower her with bonuses for quality of execution (GOE). But everything can work against her. Let alone a really weak rotation!
Sofia Samodelkina
Photo: International Skating Union via Getty Images
Samodelkina also received no points for the components. Lara Croft’s bright image in the short program impressed the audience, but most of the judges reacted very reservedly. It didn’t help that during the skating the skater went straight to the side where the judges were and made a spectacular pause, boldly looking into the faces of the arbiters of her fate.
Only the Hungarian judge was in favour of Sonya, who placed her first in the components and second in the overall. The Swiss and Czech judges, on the other hand, were distinguished by their inexplicable severity. In their world picture, the former Russian was ranked 17th and 15th respectively in the components evaluation.
As a result, the girl received only 57.14 points in the short program and took eighth place in the intermediate. She barely escaped from the Swiss Anastasia Brandenburg, who came right behind her with 55.33 points, whose coach is Sergei Dudakov and whose choreographers are Eteri Tutberidze and Daniil Gleikhengauz. If Brandenburg had not fallen from the triple flip, she would have definitely overtaken Sofa. Which, by the way, was achieved by another former Russian, and now Georgian, Inga Gurgenidze. The single skater from Kazan finished sixth in the short program, with 59.93 points.
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Samodelkina advanced in the free skate, but did not make it to the podium
Before the free program, it was clear that Sofia Samodelkina needed to skate as cleanly as possible to get on the podium. The gap to the Japanese leader Ami Nakai was just over nine points, and to the Korean third, Chongyeol Hwan – about six. It is quite possible to catch up and overtake. Another thing is what the judges hinted at the day before: they really don’t want to give a medal to the new Kazakh figure skater.
Inga Gurgenidze also had a good chance of making it onto the podium at the Junior Grand Prix in Ankara. The Georgian athlete performed a triple Axel and a complex cascade of triple Lutz, oiler and triple Salchow in her free program. However, two tournament favorites also tried to demonstrate a three-and-a-half rotation jump: Ami Nakai and the Korean Yuseong Kim, who took second place in the middle.
Samodelkina’s plans remained a secret: for some reason, there was a gap in the document with the alleged content. Her performance in the free program itself began with a pleasant surprise. Sofa brought back her old program with Ave Maria, with which she skated at Russian tournaments in the 2022/2023 season. In parallel, in July, at the Kazakhstan Championships, she presented a new production of Lara Fabian’s song Je Suis Malade. In any case, the decision to recall the old free program turned out to be successful. There was no clear skating, but, except for a step in the first triple flip, the girl completed all the jumps without problems and smiled happily, realizing that the most difficult part was finally over.
Sofia Samodelkina
Photo: International Skating Union via Getty Images
Of course, she shouldn’t have relaxed. After jumping off the final cascade of triple lutz, double axel and double toe loop, she weakly performed a combined rotation with a jump entrance. The technical team assigned her only the first level – a pity, especially since Sonya’s other two rotations were of the maximum fourth degree of difficulty.
Having received 117.44 points for the free program and 174.58 points in total, Samodelkina confidently took the lead, but then, unfortunately, she was overtaken by three rivals. Frenchwoman Stefanie Hladky took bronze with an almost flawless performance, scoring 182.32 points in two programs. Japanese Ami Nakai lost the first place after falling from a triple Axel, but got silver with a final score of 191.61 points. Gold went to another trixelist, Korean Yuseong Kim, who performed flawlessly and became the only one out of 35 participants to succeed in the ultra-c element. However, he was unable to break the 200-point mark: in total he scored an unimpressive 198.63 points.
Sofia Samodelkina won the so-called “wooden medal” and finished fourth in the standings. Not bad, actually, considering this is her first truly serious competition in the past year and a half.
Georgian single skater Gurgenidze, threatening a triple axel, took fifth place: her plans for a podium finish were thwarted by two falls, including on the trixel, and a rough landing on a triple flip. Dudakov’s team, Swiss Brandenburg, fell on the second jump on a triple flip and double Axel combination and made a mistake on the triple loop, so they only managed eighth place.
We can say that at the Junior Grand Prix in Ankara, Samodelkina successfully passed her baptism of fire as a representative of Kazakhstan. However, it is unlikely that she changed her citizenship and went to train in another country just to perform on the international stage.
Right now he is far from the level he is capable of and he still has a lot of work to do to earn his place in the sun.
