Zagitova became the winner of the Grand Prix in Finland‍

The triumph of the Russian team, the invasion of Japanese fans, the army of Winnie the Poohs and a toy the size of Zagitov - ALL IS the second competitive day at the Finnish Grand Prix in Helsinki.

Hanyu Yuzuru - living idol of Japan

If the Japanese love something, they do it with all their hearts. It so happened that figure skating in the Land of the Rising Sun is adored, and the representative of this Asian country became the best single man in the last five years.

Wherever Yuzuru Hanyu went, he was met by crowds of fans everywhere. It would seem, where is Finland and where is Japan? But the distances of dedicated fans do not scare. During the short program, it seemed that the Grand Prix stage was not taking place in Helsinki, but somewhere in Osaka.

Yuzuru was flawless. The fourth Salchow received almost all the fives from the judges - 4.30 on the GOE scale - an incredible result for an element of four turns. Next - a triple axel, a cascade of quadruple and triple sheepskin coat with a very beautiful skating. None of the nine judges dared to put less than nine for any of the five components of the program. The result was cosmic - 106.69 points.

The ending of the program brought the stands to ecstasy, the fans jumped up from their seats. A real rain of gifts began on the arena.

The most popular gift for the Japanese star was Winnie the Pooh - the favorite hero of a 23-year-old athlete. But it is unlikely that Hania will be able to appreciate each toy.

There were so many yellow bears that it looks like they will need a special truck following the Grand Prix.

The appearance of Hania caused real chaos in the arena. Journalists could not get into the press conference room due to the fact that the local security services were trying to regulate the movement of a crowd of fans who chaotically, but peacefully in Japanese, loafed between sectors in search of an idol.

As a result, a large number of Japanese people crowded around the entrance to the hall for communication with journalists, hoping to get an autograph from the two-time Olympic champion.

But their dreams did not come true. For Hania, a special car was served to the emergency exit to avoid passing through the crowd of fans. Together with him left Czech Michal Brzezina and Chinese Boyan Jin, who took second and third places in the short program, respectively. The rest of the athletes left the press conference through a common with the audience.

Konstantinov surprised everyone, Zagitova reassured

Despite the fact that on the eve of the Olympic champion Alina Zagitova made a grave mistake on the cascade, very few people doubted her victory.

The athlete went out on the ice of the first of the top three and left no chance to the other competitors.

Her rental was not perfect, but worthy of her status. The only element that the judges rated negatively is the same corona cascade of triple lutz and triple rittbergera. Otherwise, everything was top notch - double-double axel, triple lutz + triple toe loop, triple salchow, triple flip + double toe loop + double rittberger, closing the program with a clean triple flip.

From the stands, it was heard: “Well done”, and the gifts flew. Most of all, Alina liked a huge toy, almost the size of an athlete herself.

Of course, before the popularity of Hania it is still far away. In Russia, figure skating is loved, but so far it is not so warm, and so far Zagitova won one Olympiad. But the athlete is growing. Grows physiologically and psychologically. At the same time, its status as one of the main stars of the national sport is growing.

However, in addition to the winner of the Games in Pkhenchkhane, there were other heroes in the Russian national team. The 18-year-old representative of St. Petersburg, Stanislav Konstantinov, has perhaps given her best free program in life - all the elements received positive judgments from the judges. The 2018 World Cup participant performed triple lutz + triple toe loop, double axel + oyler + triple salchow, triple rittberger, double axel, triple flip + double sheepskin, triple lutz and triple flip.

Konstantinova in the free program showed the best amount for the elements. Stanislav on this indicator even ahead of Zagitov.

However, the components Konstantinov was only fifth. However, 135.01 points for an arbitrary helped her to fly up to second place.

Darya Panenkova didn’t work - the former student Eteri Tutberidze made some gross mistakes, once she fell and was in sixth place. Bronze went to a Japanese woman, Kaori Sakamoto.

The medal stage

The Russian national team at each stage of the Grand Prix this season took one gold medal. At Skate America, Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov won top-tier awards in competitions for sports couples, and at Skate Canada, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva won women's single skating.

The proximity to the homeland of the Russians in Finland influenced only positively.

According to the results of three of the four types of the program, domestic athletes took the maximum number of gold medals.

In the tournament of sports pairs, Natalia Zabiyako and Alexander Enbert took the first place. Third place was taken by another Russian duo - Daria Pavlyuchenko and Denis Khodykin, who spend their first season at an adult level.

The dancing duet of Alexander Stepanov and Ivan Bukin rose to the highest step of the podium, ahead of the Italians Charlene Guinard and Marco Fabri.

Crowned the competitive day three award ceremonies. And three times the audience listened to the Russian anthem.