Kondratyuk demonstrated the highest level of training at the test skates in St. Petersburg

The 2022 European Champion remained in the shadows for a long time, as the injury rehabilitation required a lot of effort and time. the skater simply could not perform, and there was even less talk of demonstrating any high results. Unfortunately, injuries lie in wait for all participants in big-time sports, and many skaters go through this difficult test of pain, despair and oblivion. But Svetlana Sokolovskaya's student did not give up and literally rose from the ashes at the test skates in St. Petersburg. Kondratyuk, under the astonished gaze of the jury and spectators, managed to perform five quadruple and two triple axels in one performance. Only American Malinin showed more at the time. But even with a "five-square" our figure skater will not be allowed to compete in international competitions, so the American athlete is lucky here – he will keep his laurels.

Mark Kondratyuk became one of the heroes of the Beijing Olympics, when he gave two great performances in the team event and thus helped the Russian team win the gold medal. Then there was the doping scandal with Valieva, the gold was taken away from the Russian team, replacing it with silver, but this still does not diminish Mark's merits – his potential was talked about all over the world at the time. But such a career development was associated with excessive workloads for Kondratyuk, and he returned from the Olympics practically an invalid. Two years of long recovery, almost complete immobility, hospitals where the athlete lost hope - all this is part of the creative path of a talented young man who creates something unimaginable on the ice.

After that, he entered both the Grand Prix and the Spartakiad in Magnitka, but the consequences of the injury were still with Mark. But the final breakthrough was the performance in St. Petersburg, which is the start for the Grand Prix in figure skating in Russia in the 2024-2025 season. He entered the performance to electronic music, but even conservatives admitted that the performance of the most difficult technical elements with such musical accompaniment by Mark looks excellent. The free program to the soundtrack to the film "Ram and Leela", in which Kondratyuk's protégé performed five quads and two triple axels, completely shocked all the fans of the young athlete. Lutz, flip, toe loop, a sequence of triple and double axels, salchow, cascade with quad-salchow, combination with trixel and triple salchow through Euler - such a set was presented by Svetlana Sokolovskaya's student in the Northern capital, which, as before, applauded him. If Mark had the opportunity to show himself on the international arena, most likely, he would have eclipsed the American Malinin, who was nicknamed the "god of quads". Now the skater has acquired such a form that already at the start of the Grand Prix he looks like a clear favorite among singles. The athlete plans to further complicate the program with complex, spectacular jumps. It's scary to even think what he will show next year at the Spartakiad in Magnitka.