Olympics - Pairs LP
Well, the first skating event of the Olympics is officially in the books...
First of all, the CBC evening coverage has been sucking like whoa. Apparently they showed twelve pairs in the afternoon, but I'd thought the afternoon and evening coverage were identical, so I didn't bother taping that. Then, in prime time, they only showed seven pairs! WTF! The ones we did get to see are below.
Marcoux & Buntin - They looked almost as generally off as they did in the SP. They had troubles on both the jump passes - Val stepped out of the first 3T and didn't do the 2T on the end of it, and Craig stumbled out of the 2A later in the program and I believe she singled that one. Val also fell on the throw 3S in the dying seconds of the program - they've struggled with that all season and I think it would've been smart to rework the end of the program to put the throw in the last minute instead of, like, the last five seconds. I hope they do that before Worlds. I mean, it's a smart idea (and is exactly what GRATE MONIQUE AND JOSH are planning to do in one of their programs in In Unison and were planning to do before Val and Craig ever did it!), but it's just not working for them. They didn't seem that upset, though, and managed to put on a game face and say they were pleased with the rest of their elements even with the mistakes. Still, they've gotta be pissed at not only ending up out of the Top 10, but placing behind Dubé & Davison to boot.
Dubé & Davison - They were skating as well as they have in ages for the first 2/3rds of the program, and then inexperience (and possibly fatigue) caught up with them and their last two lifts were botched. I first watched their program on SRC (French CBC) and it was hilarious listening to Alain and Richard, the commentators, exclaiming in glee over the first half of their skate and then exclaiming in panic over the last two lifts. I also watched their skate on NBC and noticed that Dick and Sandra both seemed to like them a lot. Their double axels and triple salchows have really improved in consistency this season and are starting to look very secure. Their unison is also starting to really solidify and lose that "good team, but new" look. For a David Wilson program, though, this LP is quite empty. Their Romeo and Juliet from the past two seasons was a much better vehicle for them. Still, if they keep improving at the rate they have been, they will be medal contenders come 2010. Plus, I lurve these two. They're adorable, and a top-10 finish in their first big senior international is pretty great for them.
Shen & Zhao - Man, life really isn't fair sometimes. THESE TWO SHOULD BE OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS RIGHT NOW. Damn injuries! I seriously believe that if the Olympics had been two months from now, or even a month from now, they would be golden. To skate like this after such a serious injury and such limited training time... amazing. Simply AMAZING. Their Madame Butterfly LP was also the best piece of choreography in the competition, with interesting entrances and exits into everything, innovative spins, tricks coming out of nowhere, full use of the music and well thought-out (and not front-loaded!) placement of elements. Yes, they were a little on the slow side, and yes, they had minor jump issues, but they skated like champions. I'll admit it - I was totally crying when they finished. As much as I loved GRATE JAMIE AND DAVID's skating, I love these two like I haven't loved a pair since Brasseur & Eisler, and am selfishly glad that they've said they aren't ready to retire yet.
Petrova & Tikhonov - I like Maria and Alexei, but seriously, this program is the worst program ever. It's hideously front-loaded, and they still managed to mess up. (Both their jump passes were botched.) In the last minute and a half of the program, they do next to nothing, and they still looked like they were half-dying by the three minute mark. I have to admit that I was sekretly kurzing them in my head because it was necessary for people to mess up so Xue & Hongbo would end up on the podium, but I don't think my kurzes were necessary. Now I think it's time for P&T to go away and accept their OLD AGE.
Pang & Tong - A virtually clean skate, and yet void of... well, anything but well-executed technical elements. I felt they could've been skating to any music and the program would've looked the same. Plus, they just looked rather frantic throughout, like they weren't taking the breathing time to skate in the moment, or whatever it is that Barb is always going on about. I'm surprised that Barb and Paul thought they'd be placed above S&Z; to me, S&Z were clearly ahead despite their mistakes. Pang & Tong, to me, just seem like they've been stuck at around the same level for a few years now. I don't think they're ever going to make the leap that S&Z made into truly world-class skating, and now that they've been passed by the Zhangs, well... they aren't getting any younger. Where do they go from here?
Totmianina & Marinin - Clean, precise, almost textbook-perfect, and yet... boring, boring, boring, and virtually devoid of soul. There was nothing about this skate that felt Olympic, as perfect as it was. Paul had it right when he said that they looked more relieved to be done than actually happy with their perfect skate. I've never gotten the feeling that these two - Tatiana in particular - actually enjoy skating, and they definitely don't seem to enjoy competing. I don't know if it was the pressure from the Russian federation or what, but the happiest Tatiana looked last night was when CBC was interviewing her and she told them that this had been their last competition. Good riddance!
Zhang & Zhang - Holy cow, that fall looked incredibly painful, but when they were standing by the boards and the commentators were all talking about how sure they were that their Olympic dreams were over, I could see on her face that they were going to skate on. What they did was amazing, but IMHO, there's no way that was a silver medal performance. This is where CoP's deficiencies came through most clearly. It isn't a connect-the-dots exercise where you can put your pencil down when you make a mistake and then pick it up again and keep going without ruining the picture! I was certain that S&Z were going to be the silver medallists (which would've made my GUT's prediction, which was that they were going to have a comeback of Olympic proportions and win the silver, correct), and when Z&Z's marks came up, I howled at my TV in protest. WUZ ROBBED! WUZ ROBBED! S&Z WUZ ROBBED.
Overall, the whole night just made me think about how deadly boring pairs is going to be for the next year or two if S&Z aren't around. I mean, it's going to take a few years for teams like Jess & Bryce to become world class, and for brand-new teams to form and emerge as contenders. Until then, we've got Savchenko & Szolkowy as the bright (ORANGE!) lights of the field, with the Zhangs having potential to become really good, I suppose, and then also-rans like Pang & Tong probably filling up the podium for awhile, and Moskivina trying her damndest to make something out of Obertas & Slavnov. Gah, even thinking about it puts me to sleep!
So the moral of this whole story is that Shen & Zhao are amazing, and were robbed by FATE of what should be their Olympic gold medal. Esta says that FATE MADE REVENGE because S&Z had leftover BLACK MARK OF TARASSOVA from working with her on their 2004 SP, but that they won the bronze because they repented and didn't go back to her for future choreo. Esta also says that BIG POLITIKS will make an upset in dance. Hmm.
I need a Shen & Zhao icon. Will have to make one later tonight.
First of all, the CBC evening coverage has been sucking like whoa. Apparently they showed twelve pairs in the afternoon, but I'd thought the afternoon and evening coverage were identical, so I didn't bother taping that. Then, in prime time, they only showed seven pairs! WTF! The ones we did get to see are below.
Marcoux & Buntin - They looked almost as generally off as they did in the SP. They had troubles on both the jump passes - Val stepped out of the first 3T and didn't do the 2T on the end of it, and Craig stumbled out of the 2A later in the program and I believe she singled that one. Val also fell on the throw 3S in the dying seconds of the program - they've struggled with that all season and I think it would've been smart to rework the end of the program to put the throw in the last minute instead of, like, the last five seconds. I hope they do that before Worlds. I mean, it's a smart idea (and is exactly what GRATE MONIQUE AND JOSH are planning to do in one of their programs in In Unison and were planning to do before Val and Craig ever did it!), but it's just not working for them. They didn't seem that upset, though, and managed to put on a game face and say they were pleased with the rest of their elements even with the mistakes. Still, they've gotta be pissed at not only ending up out of the Top 10, but placing behind Dubé & Davison to boot.
Dubé & Davison - They were skating as well as they have in ages for the first 2/3rds of the program, and then inexperience (and possibly fatigue) caught up with them and their last two lifts were botched. I first watched their program on SRC (French CBC) and it was hilarious listening to Alain and Richard, the commentators, exclaiming in glee over the first half of their skate and then exclaiming in panic over the last two lifts. I also watched their skate on NBC and noticed that Dick and Sandra both seemed to like them a lot. Their double axels and triple salchows have really improved in consistency this season and are starting to look very secure. Their unison is also starting to really solidify and lose that "good team, but new" look. For a David Wilson program, though, this LP is quite empty. Their Romeo and Juliet from the past two seasons was a much better vehicle for them. Still, if they keep improving at the rate they have been, they will be medal contenders come 2010. Plus, I lurve these two. They're adorable, and a top-10 finish in their first big senior international is pretty great for them.
Shen & Zhao - Man, life really isn't fair sometimes. THESE TWO SHOULD BE OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS RIGHT NOW. Damn injuries! I seriously believe that if the Olympics had been two months from now, or even a month from now, they would be golden. To skate like this after such a serious injury and such limited training time... amazing. Simply AMAZING. Their Madame Butterfly LP was also the best piece of choreography in the competition, with interesting entrances and exits into everything, innovative spins, tricks coming out of nowhere, full use of the music and well thought-out (and not front-loaded!) placement of elements. Yes, they were a little on the slow side, and yes, they had minor jump issues, but they skated like champions. I'll admit it - I was totally crying when they finished. As much as I loved GRATE JAMIE AND DAVID's skating, I love these two like I haven't loved a pair since Brasseur & Eisler, and am selfishly glad that they've said they aren't ready to retire yet.
Petrova & Tikhonov - I like Maria and Alexei, but seriously, this program is the worst program ever. It's hideously front-loaded, and they still managed to mess up. (Both their jump passes were botched.) In the last minute and a half of the program, they do next to nothing, and they still looked like they were half-dying by the three minute mark. I have to admit that I was sekretly kurzing them in my head because it was necessary for people to mess up so Xue & Hongbo would end up on the podium, but I don't think my kurzes were necessary. Now I think it's time for P&T to go away and accept their OLD AGE.
Pang & Tong - A virtually clean skate, and yet void of... well, anything but well-executed technical elements. I felt they could've been skating to any music and the program would've looked the same. Plus, they just looked rather frantic throughout, like they weren't taking the breathing time to skate in the moment, or whatever it is that Barb is always going on about. I'm surprised that Barb and Paul thought they'd be placed above S&Z; to me, S&Z were clearly ahead despite their mistakes. Pang & Tong, to me, just seem like they've been stuck at around the same level for a few years now. I don't think they're ever going to make the leap that S&Z made into truly world-class skating, and now that they've been passed by the Zhangs, well... they aren't getting any younger. Where do they go from here?
Totmianina & Marinin - Clean, precise, almost textbook-perfect, and yet... boring, boring, boring, and virtually devoid of soul. There was nothing about this skate that felt Olympic, as perfect as it was. Paul had it right when he said that they looked more relieved to be done than actually happy with their perfect skate. I've never gotten the feeling that these two - Tatiana in particular - actually enjoy skating, and they definitely don't seem to enjoy competing. I don't know if it was the pressure from the Russian federation or what, but the happiest Tatiana looked last night was when CBC was interviewing her and she told them that this had been their last competition. Good riddance!
Zhang & Zhang - Holy cow, that fall looked incredibly painful, but when they were standing by the boards and the commentators were all talking about how sure they were that their Olympic dreams were over, I could see on her face that they were going to skate on. What they did was amazing, but IMHO, there's no way that was a silver medal performance. This is where CoP's deficiencies came through most clearly. It isn't a connect-the-dots exercise where you can put your pencil down when you make a mistake and then pick it up again and keep going without ruining the picture! I was certain that S&Z were going to be the silver medallists (which would've made my GUT's prediction, which was that they were going to have a comeback of Olympic proportions and win the silver, correct), and when Z&Z's marks came up, I howled at my TV in protest. WUZ ROBBED! WUZ ROBBED! S&Z WUZ ROBBED.
Overall, the whole night just made me think about how deadly boring pairs is going to be for the next year or two if S&Z aren't around. I mean, it's going to take a few years for teams like Jess & Bryce to become world class, and for brand-new teams to form and emerge as contenders. Until then, we've got Savchenko & Szolkowy as the bright (ORANGE!) lights of the field, with the Zhangs having potential to become really good, I suppose, and then also-rans like Pang & Tong probably filling up the podium for awhile, and Moskivina trying her damndest to make something out of Obertas & Slavnov. Gah, even thinking about it puts me to sleep!
So the moral of this whole story is that Shen & Zhao are amazing, and were robbed by FATE of what should be their Olympic gold medal. Esta says that FATE MADE REVENGE because S&Z had leftover BLACK MARK OF TARASSOVA from working with her on their 2004 SP, but that they won the bronze because they repented and didn't go back to her for future choreo. Esta also says that BIG POLITIKS will make an upset in dance. Hmm.
I need a Shen & Zhao icon. Will have to make one later tonight.