This week, another Challenger event took place: the Nebelhorn Trophy. However, this event was special as many teams were competing to earn the last spots for the Olympic Games. Here are the results of the ice dance event: In the end, the countries who have earned one spot for the Olympics were: Great Britain, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Congratulations to these athletes!
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Alonside the Lombardia Trophy, the US International FS Classic took place last week.
Here are the results of the ice dance event: 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 The U.S. International Figure Skating Classic marked, at least for me, the enthusiasm of having figure skating back for another season. Of course, it had to do with the “premiere” of Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue of the United States of America. They were coming as the winners of last year’s edition and the ultimate favourites to the victory after a highly successful season, which indeed happened. Despite a not so great season for Canadians Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam, they could never be counted off, especially in the roster of athletes present. Nevertheless, my excitement was particularly large due to the presence of the new Spanish team Olivia Smart and Adria Diaz. Why is that? Well, being Portuguese entails that we support Spanish athletes (as we don’t have any) and I was always particularly fond of Sara Hurtado and Adria Diaz. The results of this event are here: SD - Short Dance; FD - Free Dance Perhaps the largest surprise was the silver medal of Kana Muramoto and Chris Reed of Japan. At least, I was certainly not expecting it. Also, Manta/Johnson finished well ahead of Thomas/Eaton even though last year they were behind them at US Nationals.
Besides the couples above, Yura Min/Alexander Gamelin of South Korea were 6th (134.74), Alisa Agafonova/Alper Ucar of Turkey were 7th (131.76), Danielle Thomas/Daniel Eaton from the USA were 8th (128.64), Tina Garabedian/Simon Proulx-Senecal of Armenia 9th (127.38), Cortney Mansour/Michal Ceska of Czech Republic were 10th (120.20), Mackenzie Bent/Dmitre Razgulajevs of Canada were 11th (112.10) and Katharina Muller/Tim Dieck of Germany were 12th (109.84). The season has finally started with the Lombardia Trophy. While initially Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte where supposed to start this competitive season at this event, that turned out not to be the case. Hence, this international event lost some of its appeal, not having highly notorious names. The attention went for Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri, who were 10th at worlds last year. Here are the results of the competition: SD - Short Dance; FD - Free Dance Besides these couples, Justyna Plutowska / Jeremie Flemin from Poland were 6th with a total of 114.34 points and Mina Zdravkova / Christopher M. Davis from Bulgaria were 7th with a total of 86.10 points.
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