MOSCOW (AP) — The Cup of Russia could mark a return to prominence for the host nation's female figure skaters.

Russia has two strong contenders in the Grand Prix event beginning Friday — Ksenia Makarova and Alena Leonova. But a challenge could come from Japan's Miki Ando and Akiko Suzuki.

After a decade of dominating the competition, Russian women have been nearly absent from the podium since Irina Slutskaya won in 2005. The only medal since was Leonova's bronze last year.

Makarova, the daughter of the 1984 Olympic bronze medal pair Larisa Selezneva and Oleg Makarov, could be undermined by having only a single combination jump in her free program. But it's a triple-triple and her coach, Viktor Petrenko, said this week he thinks the programs are "sufficiently complicated."

Leonova says her long program this year, to the soundtrack of "The Witches of Eastwick," forces her to adopt to a new persona and she hopes that will drive her to new heights.

"I've long been attracted to this supercharged music. In order not to mess up, I have to get into the role," she told the newspaper Gazeta this week.

Ando, the 2007 world champion, brings years of experience to the ice at Moscow's Megasport arena, along with the gold from this year's Cup of China. Suzuki won silver at the same event. Ashley Wagner of the United States, the 2009 silver medalist in Moscow, returns to add to a tough field.

The Russian prospects in the men's competition are much dimmer. Artem Bordodulin, who took bronze at the event in 2009, withdrew from the competition this year because of difficulty adapting to new skate boots. He's replaced by Ivan Tretyakov, who finished 10th in Moscow last year. Fellow Russian Artur Gachinski managed only a seventh-place finish in this year's Skate Canada.

They face formidable competition as well, including reigning world silver medalist Patrick Chan of Canada and U.S. national champion Jeremy Abbott. Chan won this year's Skate Canada — where he landed his first competition quad — and Abbott took silver at the NHK Trophy. The Czech Republic's Tomas Verner, who placed third at the Cup of China, also is in contention for a medal in Moscow.

Russia's Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov, the current world bronze medalists, make their only Grand Prix appearance of the season in Moscow. They face Narumi Takahashi and Mervin Tran of Japan, who were third at the NHK this year, and Skate Canada bronze winners Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers of Canada.

Ice dancing features Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali of Italy, the world bronze medalists, and Russia's Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, who placed second at the Cup of China. Britain's brother-sister team of Sinead and John Kerr, third in the International Skating Union's rankings, withdrew. She hurt her shoulder in October.

The Cup of Russia is returning to its previous name after being called the Rostelecom Cup in 2009. It is the fifth of six competitions in the Grand Prix series. The Trophee Eric Bompard concludes the series a week later in Paris. The top finishers from the six preliminaries meet in the Grand Prix Final in Beijing Dec. 9-12.

People who don't know Nancy Kerrigan sometimes think it is funny to approach the former Olympic figure skater, laugh heartily and say, "How's the knee?"

Even 16 years after the event everyone remembers, Kerrigan doesn't find a lot of humor in this.

"I really don't know what's funny about getting attacked," she told me this week during her visit to Charlotte - which served as a sort of unofficial kickoff to what is to be a huge three months for her sport in this state. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships will be Jan.22-30 in Greensboro - the first time that competition has occurred in North Carolina.

Back to the knee. Kerrigan doesn't really say what she thinks when people ask how it is. To avoid the awkwardness, she has a standard reply.

"The knee is fine," she will say. "It's everything else that hurts."

At 41, now raising three children in Massachusetts and long retired from competition, Kerrigan remains instantly recognizable. Her flashy smile and icy gracefulness helped claim millions of fans during the 1990s, when she won two Olympic medals (one silver, one bronze) for the U.S. in the Olympics.

There's no getting around this, either - part of Kerrigan's fame comes because she was the sympathetic victim in one of the strangest, high-profile assaults in sports history.

It was the ex-husband of Kerrigan rival Tonya Harding who arranged the metal-baton attack on Kerrigan's knee not long before the 1994 Olympics. The whack heard around the world was designed to ensure Kerrigan wouldn't compete and steal Harding's thunder.

But Kerrigan recovered. Both she and Harding - who denied prior knowledge of the attack - competed during the 1994 Winter Olympics and ultimately scored some of the highest ratings in the history of TV. Kerrigan finished second and won worldwide acclaim. Harding was eighth, was eventually banned for life from U.S. Figure Skating events and has been a punchline ever since.

Kerrigan was in Charlotte this week to work with longtime friend Paul Wylie, another former Olympic silver medalist who now is a coach and has lived in Charlotte the past five years.

The two practiced a pairs routine together at Extreme Ice in Indian Trail, which is Wylie's home rink, in preparation for a "Golden Age of Skating" Christmas special that will be filmed in New Jersey and aired Christmas Day on NBC. They still looked very graceful together.

Neither will compete at the Greensboro nationals - there is no "legends" division. But Wylie, 46, is its honorary chairman.

"It's huge to have it here for the first time," Wylie said. "This is the crown jewel of figure skating in this country - the U.S. Olympians not only for the 2014 team but also 2018 will no doubt be competing. It's surprising, really, that our state got this. It's almost like we don't know what to make of it, but we better make something of it pretty quickly because it's coming in January."

As for Kerrigan, her life mostly revolves around her husband and their children (ages 13, 5 and 2). But she has had her share of tragedy. During January, her father, Daniel Kerrigan, died of heart problems shortly after he and her brother fought. Her brother, Mark, has been charged with manslaughter, although the Kerrigan family has said it doesn't blame Mark for the death.

Kerrigan said she doesn't think about Harding and the attack on her knee anymore unless others bring it up.

"It's sort of sad to be remembered for being attacked instead of being one of six U.S. women to have two figure skating medals," Kerrigan said. "That's too bad, because I worked really hard. I didn't work hard to be attacked."

I would argue, though, that Kerrigan is remembered as much more than a victim.

She has lived a life hard for most of us to imagine, both for its peaks and its valleys. And she has persevered.

Scott Fowler: 704-358-5140; sfowler@charlotteobserver.com

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