Any chance to see Trusova and Shcherbakova in pairs?

The transition from single skates to double skates is not an uncommon occurrence. Irina Rodnina competed as a single skater until the age of 15, after which she switched to double skating, which brought her success and three Olympic gold medals.

Although not the loudest, but very interesting, it was the decision of the talented single skater from CSKA Elizaveta Osokina, who left the group Elena Buyanova and began training under the guidance of Nina Moser.

Her solo skating career can become truly brilliant – Osokina shone in the pre-season junior test skating in 2020 (the then youth team star Kamila Valieva did not participate in them), received a lot of praise from various experts and began to learn the quadruple jumps .

But in the Russian championship that season, she lost about 30 points to Sofia Akatieva, a student of Eteri Tutberidze. It turned out to be very, very difficult to compete with athletes of the elite coaching staff, after which Osokina went to doubles.

However, for figure skaters who have achieved worldwide recognition, fame and medals at major tournaments, the issue of pair skating can also arise. After the 2022 Olympic Games, the drama of Alexandra Trusova was talked about much more than the gold medal of her rival Anna Shcherbakova.

Trusova was the first person in the world to do five quads in a free program, but that wasn’t enough to win in Beijing. After the announcement of all the ratings, a breakdown came – the skater cried, saying that everyone had a gold medal, but she did not (apparently this meant that Shcherbakova became the winner of the individual tournament, and another Russian woman Kamila Valieva , won gold in the team tournament) and a threatened never to go to the ice again.

Some time after the Olympics, Trusova really seemed to have disappeared, causing some figure skating fans to think that the Russian Rocket might end her career. Of particular concern was the athlete’s refusal to participate in the First Channel Cup.

Trusova said that even before the Olympics, she was not eager to switch to double skating.

“I am not afraid to do anything that depends on me because I can control it. And what others do, and I am a passenger and just sitting next to me, it scares me, ”Trusova said in an interview.

But that didn’t stop him from trying paired items. Supporting the sports couple Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, who also trained with Tutberidze during the Olympic Games, Trusova tried to make the deaths with the skater after the demonstrations.

The item turned out well and even earned praise from Olympic champion Maxim Trankov, who also trained a sports couple. And after the Games, the athlete took part in the master class of world and European champion Alexei Tikhonov, who skated together with Maria Petrova. During training, he lifted the athlete on his shoulder and made several turns.

But Trusova took the biggest step for pair skating not so long ago – in St. As part of the Champions League show in St. Petersburg, he showed a trick with Dmitry Mikhailov, a coach from the Evgeni Plushenko Academy. The performance was tuned to Tommy Profitt’s track Can’t Help Falling In Love, and they featured support and a parallel jump – a biaxial performance from paired elements.

“Sasha wanted to put on a show number,” Mikhailov told Match TV before the match. – The first thing I asked – what would he want, what preferences? Maybe the music is ready? “No music,” he replied.

All Sasha wanted was something special. This desire is mutual – naturally I would like to stage something similar.

After a while I came up with the music and the date for this issue – not with an idea, but with the date. This is a true story, candid. That’s what I was able to interest Alexandra in, it caught fire. We met with him twice, and each time he skated with great pleasure.

Perhaps the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bputting an even number came to Trusova for some reason, and something similar can be expected from the Russian Rocket soon. However, not so long ago, the skater spoke about her desire to learn the five-turn jump and perform a first in history, so it is definitely not worth mentioning Trusova’s transition to double skating.

We can also recall an interesting detail – the adult-level athlete does not have a single gold medal in major tournaments. Perhaps it is this fact that will serve as an impetus to pursue a career in single skating.

But Anna Shcherbakova, who also worked with Tutberidze, has a number of gold medals in adult-level tournaments – the Olympics, the World Championship, the World Team Championship and the Russian Championship (in addition, Shcherbakova won it three times). After the Beijing Games, the situation in the career of the figure skater became uncertain.

At first he announced that he would continue to compete, but after the First Channel Cup, he began to talk about the “mess” in figure skating, which could lead to the end of his career (the thing is, Russian figure skaters may not allow before international competitions) and then announced that he would skate again and prepare for the new season.

In any case, Shcherbakova has no plans to leave yet. However, in connection with the exclusion of Russia from tournaments under the auspices of the International Skating Union (ISU) (judging by the World and European Championships, Grand Prix stages and various Challenger series tournaments), the question arises with whom to compete. Russian athletes.

At the national level, Shcherbakova took the title three times, and the structure of the next season has not yet been determined, and it is not known whether the representatives of Russia will be able to compete with any foreigners.

However, Shcherbakova herself did not express a desire to try herself in pair skating. But when Italian skater Daniel Grassl, who won a silver medal at the last European Championship, was asked which skaters he would like to compete with if he had been in pair skating, he chose Shcherbakova. It is clear that it is not necessary to talk about this seriously (at least because of different citizenship), but it would be interesting to look at the world champion in pair skating. Such a transition can be difficult for an athlete who has won all major tournaments in single skating.

In addition, both skaters train with Tutberidze, who since August 2021 also began to train sports couple Tarasova and Morozov. Interestingly, Diana Davis, the trainer’s daughter, who is now performing in ice dancing with Gleb Smolkin, started out as a single skater. However, due to his illness – third degree sensorineural hearing loss – single skating was quite difficult for him. Coordination was impaired due to hearing impairment, jumps and rotations were difficult. A serious spurt of growth followed, and Tutberidze sent his daughter to dance even against Diana’s wishes.

“I was sure he would be taller than me. When I was younger, I thought if I had been 178 cm, I thought I would have been 180 cm. When I was 12 years old, I was sure that all this jumping at 180 cm height was useless. I forced her to go to the dance. She cried.

There was such a difficult moment: she got down on her knees crying and said, “Mom, why don’t you believe me?” he was saying. I said: “Diana, you will be tall.” “No, I will not be tall, I will be small,” he said. The formula did not work, it turned out to be 163 cm, but okay, whatever God does, everything is for the best, ”Tuberize said in an interview with Dmitry Borisov.

A more or less successful transition from single skating to double skating can be called the story of Katarina Gerboldt, who began as a single skater. In 2008 she became the champion of Russia among juniors, in 2009 she won the bronze of the adult national championship, worked with such coaches as Alexei and Tatiana Mishina, with whom she moved to Svetlana Sokolovskaya. However, in 2010 she performed unsuccessfully at the Russian Championships, finishing only ninth, after which she won a silver medal in the final of the Russian Cup, after which she decided to switch to double skating.

Gerboldt teamed up with Alexander Enbert in 2011, where they finished fourth twice at the Russian Championships and the European Championships.

The couple broke up in 2014, and then another very unusual transition from single to double skating could take place. The French skater, world champion Brian Joubert expressed his readiness to skate with Gerboldt, but their debut at official competitions did not happen – the couple only performed together at the show. The skater ended her career in 2015, as she could not find a new partner.