Cranberry Cup 2025 - Sunday Notables
Results and highlights from the men's and women's events, plus final thoughts on the overall weekend.
The first event of the 2025-26 ISU Challenger Series is officially in the books, but not without some surprises. Let’s get right to the action, starting with the women.
Women’s Free Skate
Bronze Medal: Jia Shin (Korea) - 179.97 overall (3rd in SP, 3rd in FS)
Making her senior debut, Shin was able to preserve her spot on the podium, despite a shaky free skate that saw her fall three times. It’s easy to see how this program — choreographed by David Wilson and set to Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia by Aram Khachaturian — could get significantly higher scores if/when she skates it cleanly.
Shin is currently assigned to just one Grand Prix, the Cup of China in late October.
Silver Medal: Sofya Samodelkina (Kazakhstan) - 203.15 (2nd in SP, 1st in FS)
(Note: Her official bio on the ISU site spells her first name with an I, but she spells it with a Y on her Instagram page, so I’m going with that).
I saw Samodelkina skate at Worlds in Boston in March, and in her return to Massachusetts, she looked worlds better (pun fully intended; may I remind you of this site’s title). And she was good at Worlds, finishing 14th overall. But this weekend she was great. Her free skate Sunday — choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne and Joey Russell, and set to a suite from “Sunset Boulevard” — resulted in the top score of the day. Samodelkina sent a message to the skating world this weekend: it’s time to consider her, at just 18 years old, a contender for the podium at the Olympics.
Samodelkina is currently assigned to just one Grand Prix, the NHK Trophy in November.
Gold Medal: Isabeau Levito (USA) - 207.61 (1st in SP, 2nd in FS)
Levito battled injuries last season, and though she found the podium four times, she hadn’t taken home a gold since the Grand Prix de France in November 2023. That drought ended in a big way this weekend. She was less than half a point behind Samodelkina in the free skate, allowing her large margin from the short program to hold up. I thoroughly enjoyed this program — set to "Cinema Paradiso" by Ennio Morricone — and if she can build on this momentum, this could be a massive season for her.
Levito has two Grand Prix assignments this season: Grand Prix de France in October, and Skate Canada in October/November.
My Favorite Outside the Top Three (non-Sonja Hilmer category)
(Note: I did a Q&A with Hilmer after her skate Sunday, so I’m saving that video for that post later this week.)
Olivia Elin Phillips (Sweden) - 147.05 (11th in SP, 7th in FS, 7th overall)
Phillips skates for Sweden, but her hometown is Boston, so she had a lot of crowd support. Just listen to the way the fans supported her after that fall midway through the program. And despite the fall, she jumped into first place after this skate, and held onto it for a few more skaters, moving up four spots from her placement after the short program. This free skate — set to “Medicine” and “Youth” by English folk band Daughter — is a great program for her.
Men’s Free Skate
Oh, the men were menning. Unlike the women, whose podium was exactly the same as the order following the short program, the men produced some wild results Sunday.
Bronze: Stephen Gogolev (Canada) - 231.81 (11th in SP, 2nd in FS)
I wish I’d recorded this whole program — set to a Rachmaninoff piece — but I was in desperate need of conserving space on my phone, and I had no expectation of Gogolev jumping all the way from 11th to the podium. But then he went out and posted his best ever score in an international event, medalling for the first time since the Autumn Classic in 2023.
Gogolev is assigned to the Skate Canada Grand Prix in October/November.
Silver: Aleksandr Selevko (Estonia) - 235.70 (3rd in SP, 3rd in FS)
Shoutout to Selevko for restoring some semblance of sanity to the men’s proceedings on Sunday. He was third in both segments, which given the chaos around him was good enough to bump him up a spot on the podium to silver. This program — choreographed by David Wilson and Sandra Bezic and set to compositions by Nico Cartosio — featured three quads (two salchows and a toe loop) could be strong enough to get him to Milan.
Selevko — who it should be noted now skates out of Skating Club of Boston (so this was a medal in front of his new hometown crowd) — is assigned to the Skate Canada Grand Prix in October/November.
Gold: Roman Sadovsky (Canada) - 243.23 (5th in SP, 1st in FS)
Welcome back to the top of the podium Roman Sadovsky! The reigning Canadian National champion hadn’t won gold in an international event since the Slovakia Junior Grand Prix in 2015-16, but now he’s off to a fantastic start in this Olympic season.
Sadovsky’s strong free skate — set to Clair de Lune/Photograph by Cody Fry — gave Canada two of the top three spots at this season opening event. He is also the lone Canadian man with two GP assignments, as he’ll be at both Skate Canada and Finlandia Trophy.
My Favorite Outside the Top Three
Lev Vinokur (Israel) - 170.34 (13th in SP, 14th in FS, 14th overall)
This is commitment to a theme. Vinokur skated to music from Formula 1, plus “Tokyo Drift” by Teriyaki Boyz, and did so wearing an F1-themed costume (there was debate online on whether it would actually be allowed beyond this event, even though the sponsor logos don’t appear to be actual sponsors). He incorporated driving-themed arm motions into the program as well.
Final Thoughts
Well, truth be told, my main thought right now is, “I am SO tired.” It turns out watching a full day of figure skating for three consecutive days is pretty exhausting. I can’t imagine how the skaters feel right now.
But in terms of entertainment value, Cranberry Cup delivered. If you’re a figure skating fan who can in any way get to Boston, I’d put this on your calendar for next year. Tickets were only $20 a day, and there isn’t a bad seat at Skating Club of Boston (especially when most of them are empty, as was unfortunately the case for most of the weekend). There were some strong performances by names we could see in Milan in February, and the junior and advanced novice levels delivered quality skating as well (I still can’t believe Sophie Joline von Felten landed a clean quad on Saturday).
Also, if you stuck around until the very end on Sunday, you got to see even more of Team USA’s best skaters, as they were starting to trickle in for Champs Camp on Sunday night (I passed Ilia Malinin in the lobby as I was leaving).
I’ll be back at the Tenley E. Albright Performance Center on Thursday for US Figure Skating’s Summer Sizzler, and be sure to check back Tuesday for my interview with Sonja Hilmer.
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