The Opening Ceremony of the Figure Skating Russian Cup Rostelecom 3rd stage Held in Krasnoyarsk yesterday.

The Opening Ceremony of the Figure Skating Russian Cup Rostelecom 3rd stage was held in Krasnoyarsk in Platinum Arena Ice Arena on October 17.  Also, ice dancing pairs competitions were completed on that day, and figure skating pairs, as well as single men's competitions started on that day.

The Opening Ceremony commenced with a promotional movie about the Winter Universiade 2019 and a show performance by Krasnoyarsk figure skaters. Then welcome speeches to the participants and spectators of the competitions were made by Sergey Alekseev, the Acting Minister of Sport of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Alexander Kogan, the Director General of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia, Maxim Urazov, the Head of ANO "Directorate Krasnoyarsk 2019"and Marie Lundmark, the FISU representative.

"In my opinion, the test figure skating competitions have started very successfully. Platinum Arena Ice Arena provides quite comfortable conditions for the athletes.  My previous visit to Krasnyarsk, more than a month ago, cleared up all the issues of holding the competitions in Krasnoyarsk at a top level," Alexander Kogan pointed out.

Maxim Urazov mentioned that the less time until the Winter Universiade 2019 is left, the more intensive and efficient the preparation becomes. "Platinum Arena Ice Arena is a key venue for us, because here the Opening and the Closing Ceremonies of the Games, as well as the figure-skating competitions will be held. The crucial thing now is to perform the tasks and the job, scheduled for each day, and to welcome with smiles and hospitality all our guests in Krasnoyarsk in March 2019."

The grand ceremony finished with the awarding of winners and medalists of the Figure Skating Russian Cup Rostelecom 3rd stage. The first to compete for the medals were ice dancing pairs. Eva Kuts and Dmitry Mikhailov from Moscow are the junior winners. Their total sum after the rhythmic and free dance is 166.10 points. "We are satisfied with our performance. This tournament is extremely important for us, because its final result is the selection for the forthcoming championship of Russia. Now we have a real chance of participating there", the winning junior pair said. The dance duet Ksenia Konkina and Alexander Vakhnov (the Moscow Region) became the silver medalists among the Candidate Masters of Sports, Nika Daineko and Leonid Okin from Moscow have won the bronze medals.

After the juniors were awarded, adult competitors (Masters of Sports) podiumed. The first place was taken by Ludmila Sosnitskaya and Pavel Golovishnikov (Moscow Region) who were leading the competitions in both rhythm and free-dance.  "We are happy to get 153 points in total. There were some inaccuracies, for example, we didn’t like our twizzles but in general we skated flawlessly, so we will go on working," commented the athletes.

Moreover, ice dancing pairs started to compete on October 17. These are the leading pairs after the short programme: Diana Mukhametzyanova and Ilya Mironov among juniors (57.99 points), Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov among adults (73.41 points). Short programme has also been shown today by male single skaters (Masters of Sports), the leader of this stage is Arthur Dmitriyev (84.58 points).

We would also like to mention that live broadcasts of the of the Figure Skating Russian Cup Rostelecom 3rd Stage as well as the schedule of events, results and statistics can be found at  the official Winter Universiade 2019 website . The tickets for the Figure Skating Russian Cup Rostelecom 3rd Stage can be purchased at the official site as well. The tickets are also available at the ticket centre of the Winter Universiade 2019 (2 B Mira Street, Krasnoyarsk), and at the ticket office of Platinum Arena Ice Arena (21 Lesnikov Street) opened from 11 a.m. to 21 p.m. seven days a week, no breaks.

Let us remind that additional security measures are applied at Platinum Arena Ice Arena for the championship period. In particular, piercing and cutting objects, alcohol, glass and metal containers, bottles, and flasks are prohibited to carry (the complete restrictions list is published on the official Winter Universiade 2019 website). Food is also prohibited to carry into Platinum Arena Ice Arena; one can buy meals in food service areas.

In addition, personal transport passage through the Platinum Arena Ice Arena territory is limited during the tournament. The organisers advise all guests arriving by own cars to use the transit parking lot at Lenta supermarket (73 Sverdlovskaya Street) and then get to the ice arena on a free shuttle bus. The shuttles start running 2 hours before the competition begins and stop an hour after it ends, the time interval will be 15 minutes.