Egor Bazin: “If Russian skaters had participated in this Worlds with fair judging, Stepanova and Bukin could have easily fought for a spot in the top three. If the judging had been fair, Chock and Bates wouldn’t even have been in the top five.”
Egor Bazin about the results in ice dance at the 2025 World Championships.
original source: Sport24
Russian ice dancer who has recently announced his retirement, commented on the results of 2025 World Championships in ice dance. Here’s a translation of his comment.
“I watched the World Championships, and it was interesting to hear Liza (Kudryavtseva, his partner)’s commentary. Overall, I wasn’t satisfied with the World Championships. In my opinion, the winners of the free dance should have been the Canadians (Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier), with Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck in second place. I also really liked Carreira and Ponomarenko. On the other hand, I didn’t like Chock and Bates at all.
I was so frustrated that I went back to watch the 2018 World Championships — there, it was a real battle across all three warm-up groups. Liza and I talked about how ice dance hasn’t just stagnated — it’s regressed. In Russia, we had a kind of deadlock for a while, but now there’s progress. Meanwhile, the global scene is a completely different story.
If we had participated in this World Championships with fair judging, Stepanova and Bukin could have easily fought for a spot in the top three as the Russian leading pair. We, as the first pair, could have battled for 3rd or 4th place, and David Narizhny and Maxim Nekrasov could have been close to the top three as well.
That’s just my opinion — it could be completely wrong. But that’s how I see it. If the judging had been fair, Chock and Bates wouldn’t even have been in the top five,” said Bazin, the Russian national champion in ice dance.
Related topics: Alexandra Stepanova Ivan Bukin, Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva Egor Bazin, Madison Chock Evan Bates, Piper Gilles Paul Poirier
If ISU was fair, Stepanova/Bukin should have been banned for life for doping. There, I said it. Also, the irony of taking a dig at Chock/Bates when Stepanova & Bukin were as slow as molasses on ice.