The second Grand Prix event was Skate Canada, so here is another post concerning the main highlights (for me) of the ladies, pairs and men’s events. Firstly, the ladies event was rather interesting. Concerning the short programs, the best, for me (and that turned out the first and second best programs in terms of marks as well) were delivered by Russian Evgenia Medvedeva and Canadian Kaetlyn Osmond.
The free programs to watch were, yet again, by this two ladies and also the one performed by Japan’s Satoko Miyahara. Medvedeva’s free program this year had a quite dramatic interpretation to it. The jumps show no problems at all, with multiple jumps being performed with an arm over the head. She commits deeply to it. Is one of those programs that you will be watching from beginning to end and that will make you feel something. She is the skater to watch if you follow the ladies event. The question will always be if any lady will be able to beat her this season.
Moving on to the pairs event, world champions Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford delivered two good programs (the best score-wise of the event) and went away with gold.
Finishing up, the men’s event. Two men stood out in this event. Firstly, the winner of the event, Canadian Patrick Chan had a remarkable short program. I will not include the video because the music is removed due to copyright, which is quite unfortunate. The program had a mistake in the triple axel (a fall), but apart from that it was a good performance.
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This week Canada was the host of the second event of the Grand Prix Series. The competition was highly anticipated as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir initiated their Grand Prix participation against Madison Chock and Evan Bates (third at 2016 worlds), Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte (fourth at 2016 worlds) and their compatriots Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. In the mix was also the young russian couple Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin. The results were the following: 4. Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte (Italy) - Total of 180.35 points
5. Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin (Russia) - Total of 168.10 points 6. Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker (USA) - Total of 162.19 points 7. Laurence Fournier Beaudry/Nikolaj Sorensen (Denmark) - Total of 156.71 points 8. Alexandra Paul/Mitchell Islam (Canada) - Total of 144.85 points 9. Shiyue Wang/Xinyu Liu (China) - Total of 144.16 points 10. Cecilia Torn/Jussiville Partanen (Finland) - Total of 139.14 points Even though this blog’s focus is on ice dance, there are three other events in figure skating that I can’t leave unnoticed. As a result, every time I consider relevant, I will be making highlights from the ladies, pairs and men events. Here is the one concerning the Progressive Skate America. First of all, let’s start with the best short program of the ladies event. Maybe most of people associate figure skating with classical music. Well, that is not always true, and Ashley Wagner proves that with this program. It is so fresh compared to all the classic tunes and she interprets it so well, which led me to give it the attention it deserves. It is true that the program was not technically perfect (the judges did see that the second jump of the opening combination was underrotated and all her spins and set sequence were given a level 3 instead of the highest, level 4), but she does draw you in the performance.
The surprise performance of this event and, for me, the one I think of when anyone mentions Skate America this season, was the free program of Mariah Bell. She won it, ending up moving from sixth to second place, edging relevant names like Mao Asada, Gracie Gold and newcomer Mai Mihara. In one word, gorgeous, and I would also add delicate. This is a program that I will certainly re-watch several times. She has tremendous potential to make the American World team if she manages to keep up this quality. Moving on to the men’s event, there is little to say about Shoma Uno. He did great and is setting himself up to be a World Medalist after his disappointing seventh place at the last Worlds. Things are looking good for that purpose. I just leave here both his short and free programs, which are a must-watch.
Last but not least, the largest surprise on what concerned the gold medalists here. Maybe it was not such a large surprise if you had watched Seguin and Bilodeau last season. However, this free program was beautiful and clean, which is really hard to accomplish in pairs, particularly if you are relatively new to the senior scene. These two are just amazing to watch and they will likely have a great future ahead of them. The first week of the Grand Prix Series did not bring a surprise on what concerns the winner in ice dance: Maia and Alex Shibutani won by a large margin. Some could be surprised with the silver medal of Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue over the Russian champions Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev. Actually, I was expecting that because of the progression Hubbell/Donohue have been showing. Below you can find the results of Skate America: 4. Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri - Total of 165.44 points
5. Elena Ilinykh/Ruslan Zhiganshin - Total of 165.16 points 6. Isabella Tobias/Ilia Tkachenko - Total of 161.99 points 7. Elliana Pogrebinsky/Alex Benoit - Total of 151.76 points 8. Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed - Total of 147.37 points 9. Alisa Agafonova/Alper Ucar - Total of 146.10 points 10. Yura Min/Alexander Gamelin - Total of 141.50 points You can find the detailed results here: SD FD This week we have the first event of the senior Grand Prix: the Progressive Skate America. Here are the participants, and a little to know about them: SD: That's life from Frank Sinatra; Jay Z FD: TBA SD: Feeling Good by Nina Simone; Hip Hop Medley FD: I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Bootstrap; Can't Help Falling in Love by Ingrid Michaelson; Earned it by Bootstrap SD: Trouble by Elvis Presley FD: Sadko by Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov; The Feeling Begins by Peter Gabriel SD: Mercy On Me by Christina Aguilera; Sing Sing Sing by Louis Prima FD: Prelude No. 20 by Frederic Chopin; The Four Seasons by Nigel Kennedy SD: Big Bad Love by Ray Charles, Diana Ross; Sing Sing Sing by Louis Prima FD: Slumdog Millionaire (soundtrack); Ang Laga De by Aditi Paul SD: There Are Worse Things I Could Do; Grease Lightning FD: From the "Nutcracker" by Petr I. Tchaikovski: Pas de deux; Waltz of the Flower SD: By the Weekend - Real Life; Can't Feel My Face FD: Pas de deux from "The Nutcracker" by Petr I. Tchaikovski SD: By Ray Charles - The Sun's Gonna Shine Again; I've Got a Woman; Mess Around FD: By Vincente Amigo - Poeta en el Puerto; Amor Dulce Muerte; Nada Puede Dormir; Poeta en el Viento SD: Why Don't You Do Right by Amy Irving; Straight To Number One by Touch & Go FD: Near Light by Olafur Arnalds; Beethoven's Five Secrets by The Piano Guys; Sand by Nathan Lanier SD: Your Heart is as Black as Night; I Am the Bet x Bang Bang Bang by 2NE1 & Big Bang FD: Cinema Paradiso soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (voice of Dulce Pontes) News from First PracticeFinally we had a first look at Maia and Alex Shibutani's Short Dance. Here are some clips and photos:
The mystery also applied to Elena Ilinykh and Ruslan Zhiganshin. Here are also some photos and a video:
We were also able to see Bobrova/Soloviev: The Finlandia Trophy was the last event of the Challenger Series to take place before the start of the Grand Prix Season. Some surprises were in store, with Russians Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin winning gold ahead of the favorites, the Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue. Here are the results of this competition: 7. Cecilia Törn/Jussiville Partanen (Finland) – Total of 126.93 points
8. Taylor Tran/Saulius Ambrulevicius (Lithuania) – Total of 117.63 points 9. Emi Hirai/Marien de la Asuncion (Japan) – Total of 102.03 points 10. Olesia Karmi/Max Lindholm (Finland) – Total of 101.02 points The beginning of the 2016-2017 ISU Challenger Series happened in Bergamo, Italy: the Lombardia trophy. There were present seven teams after the initially listed Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte (Italy), Juulia Turkkila and Matthias Versluis (Finland) and Kate Bagnall and Benjamin Allain (France) had been removed. With such a smaller number of teams with most of them unknown, we can say the new figure skating season had a modest start. Hence, I will go through the programs of the top three teams. Without surprises, Italians Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri placed first. Their Short Dance had as main theme the movie Grease. I think it was a fun idea for this season has it matches swing really well. I found that part fun and energetic, which is a good indication since we are early in the season, meaning it will likely get even more upbeat by the end of the season. I would also like to stress that the entrance in the lift is really hard and it looks perfectly in the music chosen. In fact, it was awarded level four. The most negative point I can make is that I think there was something missing in the blues part. In fact, the three step sequences were awarded level three, which shows there is some room for improvement. The twizzles were given level three as well. Still, it was a great debut this season. They earned 63.04 points, which was slightly lower when compared to the score they obtained last year on this competition. The Free Dance is to the Nutcracker soundtrack. I found that they had good speed and interpreted the music well. They only earned levels three and four. I found the curve lift to be really good but it needs to be more assertive next time to be spectacular. I think with the course of the season, it will have to be more eye-captivating. Maybe a change in the costumes will help, as I don’t think they match the music chosen. They earned 99.08 points for a total of 162.12, which was a better score than what at the 2015 Lombardia Trophy.
Great Britain’s Lilah Fear/Lewis Gibson placed a surprising second (I thought they would for sure be behind Torn/Partanen but that did not happen). I did not have the chance to previously see their international debut at Lake Placid Ice Dance International but I will sure do it now as I enjoyed both their programs. I had never heard of this partnership before and that is because it is new. In fact, Gibson was a singles skater before. If I had known this team was training in Montreal with Roman Haguenauer, Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, I probably would not have been that surprised about their quality (that technical team also train Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron, Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir and Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue, among others). However, being one of their first competitions, I think it would still be surprising. Going into detail, I was really impressed with the fantastic quality of the Midnight Blues pattern, which earned level four (the maximum) and, in my opinion, should have been given some Grades of Execution (they got 0 bonus, which I did not understand). In fact, the technical base value they got was slightly higher than the one of Guignard/Fabbri but then the judges barely gave them any GOEs. I believe this happened because they are new in the scene but they will have to revise that soon if they keep this quality. The same can be said of the program components (they got the 5th market of components and I can’t seem to figure out why as I found that they were really committed to their performance). I think the distance of 10 points they had from the Italians was excessive. They got a total of 53.38 points, being the only team with three out of five elements with level four (all other teams had at most one). Focusing on the free dance, they skated to “You raise me up” by Josh Groban. I really like the curve lift and I think the rotational lift fits really well in the music. Overall, it left a good impression. They had the same technical base value of Guignard/Fabbri, which is a clear indicator of the quality of this team. Having only levels three and four for a new team is really good. For me, it was really positive to see a young couple from Great Britain rising in the circuit. If Penny Coomes/Nicholas Buckland are out this season (Coomes is currently overcoming an injury), I would say we are likely to see them again this season. I have to say that the gap on program components for the Italians was huge. They did have a good score compared to the other teams (which did not happen on the short dance) but I think the difference was larger than it should have been. They received 86.22 points for the free dance, having a total of 139.60 points.
Cecilia Törn/Jussiville Partanen from Finland got the bronze medal. They had their most successful season last year and are certainly hoping to overcome their scores this year. Their short dance is definitely not one of my favorites. I don’t think the music fits well with the pattern dance. Also, I don’t think their execution was the best, which did not help the overall impression (let’s hope it improves, since we are early in the season). The swing part looks more cohesive but it lost some speed towards the end, which is not ideal. However, what I feel they really need to improve is the blues part. They had all level threes with the exception of the Not Touching Midline Step Sequence which received level two, getting 52.14 points. On what concerns the free dance, there is not a nice way to put it but it was definitely not my cup of tea. I don’t think the music helps them in any way. Also, sometimes the fluidity between elements vanishes. I know this will likely be fixed as the season advances. Still, I didn’t like it so I hope in the next competitions I start liking it better. Maybe it was just not quite ready yet. The judges gave them level two on both the circular and diagonal step sequences and they got negative GOEs on the curve lift, so I would start by polishing these elements. They got a score of 78.62 points for the free dance, earning a total of 130.76. If we compare this score with the one they obtained at the 2015 Lombardia Trophy (119.96), we can say they are definitely at a better position now than they were last year. Still, the main difference was the short dance, so I would take some time to improve the free dance.
Taking place in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, the Ondrej Nepela Memorial had 13 dance teams. The most notorious ones were Americans Madison Chock/Evan Bates and Russians Ekaterina Bobrova/Dmitri Soloviev and Tiffany Zahorski/Jonathan Guerreiro. Chock and Bates obtained a silver medal in the previous week and were looking for a first-place finish here. Bobrova/Soloviev made their return to international competitions after the bronze medal in the 2016 Europeans. This competition results can be seen below: SD - Short Dance; FD - Free Dance The remaining couples placed in the following way:
6. Cortney Mansour/Michal Ceska (Czech Republic) - 143.10 points 7. Anastasia Cannuscio/Colin McManus (USA) - 138.76 points 8. Lucie Mysliveckova/Lukas Csolley (Slovakia) - 137.22 points 9. Taylor Tran/Saulius Ambrulevicius (Lithuania) - 131.34 points 10. Justyna Plutowska/Jeremie Flemin (Poland) - 124.66 points 11. Olga Jakushina/Andrey Nevskiy (Latvia) - 124.50 points 12. Mackenzie Bent/Dmitre Razgulajevs (Canada) - 121.22 points 13. Shari Koch/Christian Nuchtern (Germany) - 118.10 points This was a busy week for figure skating fans. We had the Ondrej Nepela Memorial and the Autumn Classic: two events of the Challenger series. The Autumn Classic International was held in Montreal and its main highlight was the comeback of 2010 Olympic Champions and 2014 Olympic silver medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada. They teamed up with Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon for the road to PyeongChang 2018, which rose to fame as coaches of two-time European and World Champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. Besides this team, eight others were present, from which stand out Americans Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker, Denmark’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen and Isabella Tobias/Ilia Tkachenko of Israel. Focus was also on Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac of France after their eighth place at the World Junior Championships last year. For all of you following Spanish ice dance, there were two teams present: Olivia Smart/Adria Diaz and Celia Robledo/Luis Fenero. The results of this competition were the following: SD - Short Dance; FD - Free Dance Besides these teams, the remaining placed in the following manner:
6. Olivia Smart/Adria Diaz (Spain) - Total of 141.50 points 7. Carolane Soucisse/Shane Firus (Canada) - Total of 128.78 points 8. Celia Robledo/Luis Fenero (Spain) - Total of 122.88 points 9. Haley Sales/Nikolas Wamsteeker (Canada) - Total of 112.52 points This week, attentions were in Obertsdorf, Germany, where the Nebelhorn Trophy was taking place. Despite the presence of ten teams, the focus was on three: Madison Chock/Evan Bates from the United States of America, Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte from Italy and Piper Giller/Paul Poirier from Canada. This was the first event to have what we can call a fierce dispute over the places of the podium. Chock/Bates were the defending champions but they were going up against Cappellini/Lanotte who are the 2014 World Champions, so nothing was decided at the start, making for an interesting competition to follow. Gilles/Poirier always bring interesting programs and their eight place finish at Worlds last year made sure they were not counted off. The standings turned out to be like this: SD - Short Dance; FD - Free Dance The remaining teams placed as follows:
6. Yura Min/Alexander Gamelin (South Korea) - Total of 139.26 points 7. Lorenza Alessandrini/Pierre Souquet (France) - Total of 131.78 8. Viktoria Kavaliova/Yurii Bieliaiev (Belarus) - Total of 127.28 points 9. Katharina Muller/Tim Dieck (Germany) - Total of 125.88 points 10. Ekaterina Fedyushchenko/Lucas Kitteridge (Great Britain) - Total of 110.90 points |
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