Yeah, Russia may move their teams. There's not too much compulsion to do so, as odds are that Ushakova & Nekrasov, Nguyen & Kolesnik, and Kazakova & Reviya could plausibly be everywhere else. (Also this is convenient for Igor as he has to be in France anyway with Wolfkostin & Chen). And based on Russian Junior Nationals results last season, Davis & Smolkin are ranked behind Andreeva & Desyatov and Tyutyunina & Shustitsky on the Russian sub list (D&S split results with T&S).
But a lot of these teams are fairly unproven, and Russia has a whole slew of reshuffled teams, with 3 or maybe 4 former JGP medalists that could be at test skates with new partners? (Khudaberdieva, Ivanenko, Karpov, Vakhnov?). Generally speaking you're probably ahead of the game if you have a JGP medal, have stuck it out with your partner, and are ready to go; but it's pretty hard to know where all the Russian junior teams/athletes are likely to fall relative to each other. So I'd assume there'll be some strategizing after test skates.
Last year, it was really obvious that Russia just listed two teams at the first event and didn't have any intention of keeping both there. This year it's hard to know because the hierarchy is a lot less clear among the Russian junior teams. I think it's likely at least Shanaeva & Narizhnyy remain here, though, if they skate well at test skates.
). Top 5 remaining teams from last year's Junior Nationals are sprinkled all the way through the line up from Bronsard & Bouraguia and Makita & Gunara to start, D'Alessandro & Waddell in the middle, and Galiyanova & Lochhead and McIsaac & Circelli at the end.
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. Best wishes to them.
