Victoria Sinitsina

They have also won several medals on the Grand Prix and the Challenger Series, including winning the 2018 CS Ondrej Nepela Trophy.With former partner Ruslan Zhiganshin, she is the 2012 World Junior champion and won bronze medals at the 2013 Winter Universiade, 2012 Rostelecom Cup, and 2014 Russian Championships.[3] Sinitsina and Ruslan Zhiganshin met in a group led by Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh but soon joined Elena Kustarova and Svetlana Alexeeva.After taking the bronze medal at the 2013 Winter Universiade in Trentino, Italy, they stepped onto the senior national podium for the first time at the 2014 Russian Championships.On 11 April 2014, Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov applied for approval of their partnership from the Figure Skating Federation of Russia (FSFR).[12] Sinitsina/Katsalapov made their competitive debut at the 2014 Rostelecom Cup, a Grand Prix event in Moscow; they placed fourth in both segments and finished well behind their former partners.[14] A stress fracture in his foot that kept Katsalapov off the ice in early 2015 recurred in the summer of 2015, keeping the duo out of test skates organized by the FSFR.[citation needed] Competing in the 2015–16 Grand Prix series, Sinitsina/Katsalapov won the silver medal at the 2015 Skate America, obtaining the highest total technical elements score in the free dance, and then bronze at the 2015 Rostelecom Cup, behind Italians Cappellini/Lanotte.Sinitsina/Katsalapov started their season at the 2018 CS Ondrej Nepela Trophy where they won the gold medal with a personal best score of 196.42 points.[21] Sinitsina/Katsalapov were medal favourites going into the 2019 European Championships, but encountered issues in the rhythm dance when first Katsalapov and then Sinitsina fell during their twizzle sequence."[22] They placed third in the free dance, winning a bronze small medal, with Katsalapov saying that they "fought hard to show the beautiful choreography of our program and avoid any stupid mistakes.[29][30] Competing at the Final, they unexpectedly placed fourth in the rhythm dance after a number of technical issues, leading him to comment "I made a mistake on the twizzles and realized that level would be definitely reduced.[32] Competing at the 2020 Russian Championships, Sinitsina/Katsalapov placed first in the rhythm dance despite a slight loss of balance by Katsalapov in his twizzle sequence.[39] Sinitsina/Katsalapov thus began the season at the second stage of the domestic Russia Cup, but had to withdraw midway through the free dance after Sinitsina suffered severe tendon inflammation.Four-time and defending champions Papadakis/Cizeron declined to attend due to their own illness with COVID and lack of training time, leading to much speculation that Sinitsina/Katsalapov were the frontrunners to claim the World title.[46][47] Their placement combined with the fifth-place finish of Stepanova/Bukin qualified three berths for Russian ice dance at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.[54] The results qualified them for the Grand Prix Final, to be held in Osaka, but it was subsequently cancelled due to restrictions prompted by the Omicron variant.[59] Skating the free dance segment as well, they finished second behind Americans Chock/Bates due to an extended lift deduction, but nevertheless won the gold medal as part of Team Russia.[63][64] Sinitsina and Katsalapov's presence at the rally was criticized by their former training partners, Ukrainian ice dancers Oleksandra Nazarova and Maksym Nikitin, who spent weeks caught in the siege of Kharkiv.