This week, skaters travelled to Latvia for the third Junior Grand Prix Season. In ice dance, this competition that took place between the 6th and 9th of September had as main surprise the placement of the Russian teams and how well the team of Israel performed.
Before next week's break of Junior Grand Prix's, here are the results of the ice dance couples:
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With the end of the season, I decided to explore what colour trends can be observed in the short and free dances, both from senior teams (on the left) and junior ones (on the right). Includes the couples present at the U. S. International Figure Skating Classic, Autumn Classic, Nebelhorn Trophy, Onderj Nepela and Finlandia Trophy, Grand Prix Events, U.S. Nationals, Canadian Nationals, Russian Nationals, European Championships, Four Continents and World Championships in the case of the senior couples. For junior teams, it includes the Grand Prix Series, U.S. Nationals, Canadian Nationals, Russian Nationals and the World Junior Championships. The reported colours correspond to the one the woman of the partnership wore, in the last version of the costumes presented. Concerning the senior teams, black was the choice to make in the short dance, followed by blue and red (42%, 22% and 18%, respectively). The choice of black turned out to be quite relevant, not only because most teams that chose hip hop wore it, but also because teams doing swing also chose it (to mind comes Bobrova and Soloviev, for instance). One thing to note through this analysis, though, is that the preferences are just the dominant colours of the costumes; that is, a costume can be black and have other colours like red or green, for instance, and it will show up classified as black as it is the dominant colour. Therefore, this does not mean that 42% of the costumes were exclusively black (they may have had other colours, like Tessa Virtue’s which shows up as black in these statistics). Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships; Photo Source: Zimbio Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev at the 2016 Grand Prix Final; Photo Source: @fs_evolution If we look at the choices made by the junior couples, black is once again the main choice (44%). And yet again, it is followed by blue (19%) and red (11%). In their case however, purple has a slightly higher importance than in seniors, and white (which was only used by 1% of the senior teams) shows up as the choice of 7% of the couples. Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter at the 2017 U.S. Nationals; Photo Source: Two for the Ice Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko at the 2017 U.S. Nationals; Photo Source: Two for the Ice Moving on to the free dance, Black, Red and Blue are tied at the top of the choices of senior teams with 21%. Other colours showed up as choices, with purple and rose/pink with 12% each. However, the same is not observed in junior couples, where red making a statement, being used by 28% of the girls. Black and Blue follow with 19% and 16%, respectively. Hence, these three colours are chosen by around 60% of the teams in both junior and senior ranks. Curiously, in juniors purple and rose/pink emerge also as the colours that are most used when excluding the favourite three aforementioned. The main difference between ranks comes from the others component. Firstly, in juniors it amount to 15% whereas in seniors it is only 4%. This comes from the fact that while seniors have three other colours in this component (Brown, Green and Yellow), juniors have six (Brown, Yellow, Silver, Grey, Orange and Gold). Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships; Photo Source: Zimbio Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen at the 2017 European Figure Skating Championships; Photo Source: Getty Images Rachel Parsons and Michael Parsons at the 2017 U.S. Nationals; Photo Source: Two for the Ice Anastasia Shpilevaya and Grigory Smirnov at the 2017 World Junior Championships; Photo Source: Getty Images Can we expect that these trends are verified next season? On what concerns the short dance, I expect black not to have such an expressive amount of teams picking it, since it will be danced to latin rhythms. Nonetheless, it will be present. Actually, the last time the rhumba pattern was chosen I was surprised that a number of themes decided on black dresses. In my view, teams should try to depart from that since black was heavily used this season and teams surely do not was to look the same year after year. Regarding the free dance and the fact that it is the Olympic season, I am expecting blue, black and red to continue their dominance, as teams will likely not take colour risks. It will also be interesting to see if purple and rose/pink rise in percentage or not. After all, in 2016 one of the colour of the year from Pantone was the rose quartz, which was seen in figure skating (the tone of Tessa Virtue’s Free Dance dress, as well as Meagan Duhamel’s Free Program dress, among others). All in all, I expect a wide range of colours in the short dance for next season and a distribution of colours for the free dance identical to the one observed this year. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships; Photo Source: Zimbio Obs: In this analysis, purple includes violet and lilac; orange includes peach.
The end of the season has arrived for the junior teams. Junior Worlds had as main contenders to the podium the three American teams (Parsons&Parsons, McNamara&Carpenter, Carreira&Ponomarenko) and the three Russian teams (Loboda&Drozd; Shpilevaya&Smirnov; Skoptcova&Aleshin). With the possibility of surprising this more accomplished field were Canadians Lajoie&Lagha and French Abachkina/Thauron. This turned out to be a really good warm-up for the senior worlds, with some surprising results and some fantastic performances. Here are the results:
Russian Junior Nationals took place between the 1st and 5th of February. After the European Championships and while people await for the Four Continents, all eyes were on Saint Petersburg particularly for the ladies event, which is always of remarkable quality in Russia. Nevertheless, ice dance was also an interesting competition especially because of the closeness of some teams that could have made the team for Junior Worlds. Here are the results of the competition: On what concerns the review of the competition, I will comment on what went down with the main teams and will highlight the couples that I really liked. I will be talking about them by the order in which they started the short dance, with the exception of the first couple which only competed the short dance. Ekaterina Andreeva / Ivan Desyatov
Yana Buga / Georgiy Pokhilyuk
Evgeniia Lopareva / Alexey Karpushov
Eva Kuts / Dmitrii Mikhailov
Sofia Shevchenko / Igor Eremenko
Daria Rumyantseva / Dmitry Ryabchenko
Sofia Polishchuk / Alexander Vakhnov
Angelina Lazareva / Maxim Prokofiev
Elizaveta Khudaberdieva / Nikita Nazarov
Anastasia Skoptsova / Kirill Aleshini
Arina Ushakova / Maxim Nekrasov
Polina Ivanenko / Daniil Karpov
Anastasia Shpilevaya / Grigory Smirnov
Alla Loboda / Pavel Drozd
Ksenia Konkina / Grigory Yakushev
Overall, this competition was quite exciting and I think the judging was better than in the senior competition (there was not a large inflation of marks). Moreover, the fact that Shpilevaya/Smirnov earned the title with strong performances may be an indication of what will happen at Junior Worlds. One thing is certain: this is a team that next year will be on the podium. Another couple standing out was Polishchuk/Vakhnov, as they were quite close at making the team for Junior Worlds. With Lodoba/Drozd moving to the senior ranks next season, this team will be given more opportunities to gain experience.
Finally, one thing than concerns figure skating fans is which teams will probably be present at the Junior Grand Prix circuit next season. Based on the results, the teams that will make it may be: Shpilevaya/Smirnov; Skoptsova/Aleshin (I think their best bet would be to move to seniors this year, just like Pogrebinsky/Benoit of the USA did last season, but I don’t think it is going to happen); Polishchuk/Vakhnov; Konkina/Yakushev; Shevchenko/Eremenko; Khudaberdieva/Nazarov and Ushakova/Nekrasov (this couple has not been showing that great results, so maybe Lopareva/Karpushov may have a chance, while I would prefer Kuts/Mikhailov). One team I would love to see would be Ivanenko/Karpov. I guess the last spot will be decided in Test Skates between them, Lopareva/Karpushov, Ushakova/Nekrasov and Kuts/Mikhailov. Moreover, Andreeva/Desyatov may also have a say, because they did well in the short dance and did not perform the free, so if they show they are reliable they may be assigned a Grand Prix. |
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