#SCI24: Sharp dressed for some success
Stephen Gogolev reminded everyone in Halifax of his bountiful talent in the men's short program. And he seems to have found a situation that suits him well.
Stephen Gogolev is the mystery man of Canadian skating.
Since winning the Junior Grand Prix Final in Vancouver in 2018, he’s long been seen as one of the future hopes of men’s skating in this country. But it’s been a roller-coaster ride in recent years for the Toronto native, with growth spurts, training base changes and, most notably, health issues standing in the way of unleashing his full potential.
There have been flashes of his bounty of talents, to be sure — remember, for example, the outstanding long program he put together at 2023 nationals in Oshawa, Ontario? — but the words erratic and inconsistent might better describe the past few years or so of his still young career.
But a lot has changed in the past several months, and maybe the 19-year-old (yes, he’s still that young) has finally found his comfort zone to thrive. Gogolev has been settled with Lee Barkell at the Granite Club since June (he previously divided his training between Toronto and California, where he worked with Rafael Arutyunyan) and added French choreographer Benoit Richaud to his coaching team.
Add it all up, and we saw the very good side of Gogolev on Saturday in Halifax. With a clean skate that included a quad Salchow and triple Axel, he posted an 82.70 score that landed him in fifth place after the short program. Best of all, he exited the ice with a smile on his face — not the forlorn look of the 2024 Canadian Championships in Calgary, when a flareup of a previous back injury scuttled his short program and forced him to withdraw.
While Barkell said there had been “some issues” in dealing with his back during the off-season, all is well for the moment and the decision was made to scale down his programs this week to protect his health (the short program will eventually have two quads. Gogolev has been landing quad loops in practice, and Barkell said either that or the quad toe will be added down the road in the combination. The long will be similarly watered down, with the plan to have three or four quads in it by season’s end).
“It’s been kind of on and off,” Gogolev said of his back health. “We took it very carefully leading up to this competition.”
Gogolev was all business, you could say, as he glided onto the ice in suit and tie (“It’s actually quite light. It’s really stretchy,” he said when asked what it’s like to skate in such attire). The music for the program — “Mugsy’s Move Medley,” by Eddie Nichols — had a lighter feel to it, especially compared to the dark tones of last season’s “The Sound of Silence,” by Disturbed.
“This program is really fun. It’s the short program I’ve enjoyed the most doing in the past couple of years,” he said, adding he’s already halfway to his goal at Skate Canada. “Short and free, clean skates. So I got the first part of that done. Overall, I’m pretty happy and I just wanted to enjoy this experience.”
The enthusiastic audience at Scotiabank Centre did its part to make that happen. “There was a lot more people than I expected and it was louder, which was nice to see,” he said.
Both his programs this season are Richaud creations, and Gogolev decided he wanted to expand the Frenchman’s role this season. “I work with him as a choreographer and I really like his work ethic and his strategies, and I thought it would be a good idea to add him as a coach.”
His score held up at the top of the leaderboard until well into the final group, and he’ll skate in the final flight in Saturday’s free skate. It’s no surprise that World champion Ilia (the Quad God) Malinin of the United States has a commanding lead (106.22), followed by a pair of Japanese, Shun Sato (96.52) and Sota Yamamoto (92.16).
Among the home side, 2024 national silver medallist Aleksa Rakic stands ninth (76.74), while Roman Sadovsky finds himself back in 12th spot (63.37).
For the 20-year-old Rakic, it’s his second straight appearance at Skate Canada International. A year ago in Vancouver, he was a late substitute for an injured Sadovsky but this time, he’s known for months that he’ll be here. It surely made him a much more relaxed skater this time — he also noted SCI a year ago was at home, and all the distractions that go along with that — and it showed. He’s also got three competitions under his belt already.
“Going into the short today, I was like ‘I feel good. I’m going to be able to compete now,’” he said. “It went well, I’m pleased. There was a mistake (a botched landing of his triple Axel), so it could be better. It was a good score considering the mistake, and shows the improvement I made and where I could be if I do everything.”
Sadovsky, meanwhile, fretted over an intended triple Lutz-triple toe combo that was missing its finish. He also singled a planned triple Axel, which made it an invalid element worth zero points. It meant a huge hit in the scoring.
“Hard to say what happened in my head space to going into that,” he said of the popped Axel. “The bigger frustration is that third jumping pass for me. That needs to be an easy jumping pass for me that I should be doing every time. I struggled with it last competition (Nebelhorn Trophy) and this one. It’s stuck in my head right now. That’s the one that really picks my brain a little.”
Bopping with The Beach Boys
The bright yellow and pink costumes were gone, replaced instead by a more subdued (but perhaps rather appropriate, given the venue, don’t ya think?) red and while lifeguard outfits.
Barbie and Ken go to the Canadian beach, perhaps?
“We had discussed it,” admitted Piper Gilles afterward. “Carol (Lane, their coach/choreographer) was kind of nudging us a little bit … maybe we’ll do red and white because it’s Canada colours.”
The fashion choice aside, Gilles and longtime ice dance partner Paul Poirier gave their new Beach Boys-themed rhythm dance a first run on Saturday and it was a hit with the good folks at Scotiabank Centre. It’s upbeat, it’s bubbly and the kind of vehicle that, as Gilles put it a day earlier, “is so us.” And when the 86.44 score went up on the board — 7.10 points better than the rest of the field here — it got their nod of approval.
“It was really solid performance as a first outing. Felt confident, felt solid. We really enjoy this program and I think that’s what’s going to really sell this program,” said Poirier. “This whole event is fun, the theme is quite fun and it’s the programs where you really see people enjoy themselves. Just win people over, and that’s what we want to do every time we skate this program.”
Regarding the score, Gilles said: “That’s exactly what we wanted to see.”
Now, about those outfits … as Gilles and Poirier noted earlier this week, they’ve got four sets of them lined up for this program for this season (they actually unveiled a second one during practice earlier Saturday. “We wore scuba outfits this morning. Like wetsuits,” she said). As to what they’ll wear at their next competition (the Grand Prix of Finlandia in November) … well, it’ll depend how they feel on the day.
“Overall, we really wanted to showcase that we really were trying to create a little Barbie moment and rotating costumes. Especially here, we felt that was really important,” said Gilles. “(People might think) why do they keep changing their outfits? Maybe they don’t believe in what they’re doing. So we wanted to make it very clear that this is what we’re doing. We’re just going to make a decision on the day and make it fun for people. In the end, they’re going to think ‘what are they going to wear today?’”
Have they chosen a favourite themselves yet?
“I always feel like I have a favourite and I put another one on and we skate in it and I go ‘ohhh.’ Then we put another one on and … now I’m confused,” said Gilles. “They’re all great.”
Now, speaking of men of mystery … Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha brought Austin Powers, the big-screen man of mystery himself, to life with a rhythm dance that is sure to be a hit with audiences all season. The choreography is incredibly fun (are you sensing a theme yet?) and these two bring it all to life in an entertaining way. That being said, their performance was marred a bit when Lagha slipped to the ice as they changed direction. While it just cost them a one-point direction and they’re sitting second heading into Sunday’s free dance, they had a hard time letting it go afterward.
“When it happened, I was really pissed. But after it, I had to really focus again. What else can you do?” a clearly bothered Lagha said afterward. “It was OK but now, after I fell, it kinda sucks.”
Lajoie took a more logical look at the unfortunate mistake.
“I did the same thing in practice; it’s something you gave no control over. That’s why we’re going to change it for sure,” she said. “It was in exactly the same spot. For me, it was in practice. For him, in competition.”
“It happens. It can’t always be 100 per cent clean in every competition. Things happen sometimes … The way we came out of it and we continued to perform … we learn from everything and it’s good, it’s OK.”
Canada’s third team at the event, Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer, stands ninth heading into Sunday’s free dance, which will close out the competition on Sunday. It’s their second of back-to-back Grand Prix events, after having been late additions to the field at Skate America, where they placed 10th.
“Considering it wasn’t planned at all, it’s been very exciting,” said Ayer. “We know that it’s opportunities that we have to take, knowing where we want to be in the next two years.”
We’re not done yet …
Decided to split up today’s coverage into two parts. We’ll have more to come on the women and pairs free skates later. Until we meet again …
I thought it was great that there were so many people in the stands. And having school kids coming for the practice sessions was a great idea.
We bought rush tickets for the 2 days and saved a lot of money.
Any chance Skate Canada has learned from this?