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player ready...On the first anniversary of the injury that kept him out of the 2014 Olympics, Russian pairs skater Alexander Smirnov posted before and after pictures to his Facebook page.
The first showed stitches running nearly two feet down his leg from massive surgery in Germany to reconstruct his right knee. The second shows scarring that still remains on his 29-year-old body but that Smirnov clearly has put out of his mind after more than six months of rehab, also in Germany.
“It was very big surgery,” he said.
He and his skating nomad partner of 10 years, Yuko Kavaguti, 32, who has competed for her native Japan, the United States and Russia in her lengthy career, were by far the class of the field in Saturday’s short program in Skate America at the Sears Centre, taking a 6.88-point lead over Peng Cheng and Zhang Hao of China. Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier of the U.S. are third, 1.3 behind the Chinese.
“We are so happy to be back here in a competition,” said Kavaguti, known as Kawaguchi until she moved to Russia in 2003.
Smirnov hurt himself landing a triple jump in a low-level national competition Oct. 10, 2013 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Video of the incident shows him unable to push himself up from the ice. A fellow competitor pulled Smirnov across the ice on his back toward the gate until another person joined in to support Smirnov’s weight, pick him up and help him out.
Kavaguti vainly kept up her preparations for what she hoped would be their second Olympic appearance. They had finished fourth in 2010.
“I continued to train until the last moment,” she said. “I didn’t give up. I thought Alexander would go to the Olympics.”
If their original plan may have been to stop after the 2014 Winter Games, having won two world championship bronze medals and four European championship medals (including a title), it was soon changed.
“Last year, we had a program we loved, and to not show this program was very sad,” she said. “That is why we continued.”
They unveiled that program, to passionate, powerful excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, in winning the Nebelhorn Trophy last month in Germany. It included a successful throw quad salchow, a move few pairs skaters have mastered.
That is only part of this fall’s good news for Smirnov. Nine days ago, he became a father for the second time.
“We are happy to come back and to be able to do the most difficult elements again,” Smirnov told IceNetwork at the Nebelhorn Trophy. “We were able to land all our elements, but we know we can do better.”
They get the chance in Sunday’s final at Skate America.