Vancouver 2010: Compulsory Dance

The Eastern European bloc has had to have been working overtime since Evgeny Plushenko's untimely and unlikely demise, but given the nature of the CD their efforts did not quite manifest. Of course this can probably all change on Sunday and Monday, but for now, Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin are rightfully in first over hometown favorites Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir, Meryl Davis & Charlie White, and Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto.

Oksana was wearing a strangely-cut red dress that had too much material in the top front, and not enough in the back and bottom. The solid red with the back jeweled accent worked well with Maxim's suit though, and it was hard to imagine that these were the same people embroiled in the OD controversy. Their skating was fast, smooth, close together, and easy, and although much of it seemed less sensual than Tanith & Ben's, the point of the CD is to be technical and they pulled it off flawlessly.

I thought Tessa & Scott skated well, but there was a slight lack of ease compared to some of their past performances. Of course it was the CD, so there's not much room for expression, and it was the first segment of the Olympics. Everything was tight and clean, although after a while I have to admit I found myself staring at Tessa's dress more than anything. I also started wondering if there's any effect of doing a tango in the CD and another in the OD (and now that I think about it, is a flamenco really a "folk dance"?). Anyway, their skate was enough for a new personal best, just behind Oksana & Maxim, and they looked pretty satisfied afterwards.

It was hard for me to pick between Meryl & Charlie and Tessa & Scott on a technical level, and that was probably where the (slight) Canadian advantage came in. Then again I'm not a ice dancing judge by any means, so there likely were also differences I didn't notice that account for the placements and two-point gap. Meryl & Charlie skated fast and close together, and for me they actually seemed more relaxed than Tessa & Scott. I've heard that Meryl had a priceless expression on her face after she realized they were third, but unfortunately I've yet to see this.

Going into these Games I shared the opinion that Tanith & Ben's medal chances were relatively pretty low, but they held everything together to come in 4th. Before any skating could begin I was immediately distracted by Tanith's dress, which has a lot of gratuitous cut-outs and is pretty much in line with the style of her other recent costumes. It also had two TASSELS! With a load of rhinestones and glitter added, it seemed unnecessarily showy, but at least it was all black and white. The thing I most noticed about their performance is the sensuality they oozed the moment the music started. Tanith was incredibly intense throughout, and their lines and smoothness of skating really shone through. Their ending move was a little overdramatic for me, but all in all it seemed like a good package for them, especially considering they'd never competed this CD this season. Again, I'm not sure about the specific technicalities that separate them from the top 3, but I really enjoyed this performance.

Isabelle Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder had the strangest lead-up to their CD, with Olivier putting on his suit jacket and both of them stroking their own and the other's jaws. I have to say, though, Olivier in a suit makes for a pretty imposing cut on the ice. Their music sounded different from the others', although I didn't know that was possible--maybe I'm imagining it. They skated fairly well but compared to the top teams it seemed a little slow, and the scores reflected it.

Emily Samuelson & Evan Bates did not have a great day, although their results are not altogether surprising considering that the CD has never been their strong suit. She was dressed in some red, purple, and turquoise ball of glitter that didn't quite go with his red shirt and vest, but whatever. Their skating was slower, further apart, and shallower than the top teams, and she had a slight misstep in their final pose, but it was a good effort from them at their first Olympics.

2010 US Nationals: Compulsory Dance/Original Dance

Finally! I have been waiting for the Dance portion for what seems like so long, and now it's less than half an hour before the FD starts (although more than an hour before it gets interesting at all). I remember reading an article leading in the 2002 Olympics that said that ice dance was all about crazy costumes and little athletic ability. How times have changed (does saying this make me old?). There are still crazy costumes, but no one can deny how trained and skilled these skaters are.

So I didn't actually watch the CD--I love figure skating, but not always that much--but tracked the scores on IceNetwork instead. There weren't many surprises, other than the hugely inflated scores (a 45? Really?), although I didn't expect Kim Navarro & Brent Bommentre (am I the only one who wants to pronounce this Beau-mont-ruh instead of Beau-men-tree?) to beat Emily Samuelson & Evan Bates. It didn't really matter, though, because they were separated by less than half a point, and the same for Meryl Davis & Charlie White and Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto. I should probably watch one or two of them before this is all over, though--the Golden Waltz sounds pretty and is supposed to be one of the more challening of the ODs, and Meryl's purple dress was gorgeous.

I did, however, watch the OD, and was a little surprised by the results. Tanith & Ben skated pretty early on, and they skated to a Moldavian folk dance. Their costumes, of course, were lovely and seemed quite traditionally Eastern European, but I wasn't totally sold on the program itself. Tonia Kwiatkowski (who as a rule is far less annoying than Tara Lipinski) mentioned that Moldavian dances involve a lot of jumping up and down, and it's great that Tanith & Ben incorporated that, but to me all of the jumping seemed a little wild and exaggerated, and interrupted the flow of their skating. Maybe if Tanith & Ben both tied their hair back things would appear more calm, but in general things appeared a little chaotic.

Meryl & Charlie skated soon after them to their now-famous Indian folk dance. Meryl is so uniquely beautiful, and she pulled off her costume and its colors really well. From what I've seen of Indian dance, it also involves a lot of jumping, but this program seemed to incorporate that better into the style of ice dance. Given my overall impression of Tanith & Ben's skate, I was pretty sure that Meryl & Charlie would beat them in the OD as well--until Meryl partially fell out of her twizzles. Based on past experiences watching ice dance, I thought that a mistake on the twizzles would be pretty costly, but it didn't seem to hurt them much at all, and all of their elements had positive GOEs (even the twizzles, which were rated Level 4!). They placed safely first with a 68, compared to Tanith & Ben's 66. I know the time had to come and that Meryl & Charlie are the new stars of US ice dance while Tanith & Ben are getting older (although to be fair, they are not old, and ice dancers seem to have a much longer career than singles skaters), but it is still so weird to me to consider that Tanith & Ben could possibly not win Nationals.

Anyway, after them came Jane Summersett & Todd Gilles--one of my personal favorites. Not a threat to win, but always entertaining and also incredible people off-ice. I mean, they can do this:

An Evening with Champions 2008. Copyright Sarah Brannen, a remarkably talented and generous photographer. A more explanatory picture of this move is on her website.

How weird is that, right? With moves and creativity like this, the OD and FD are usually their strong portions, but surprisingly they lost ground on 6th place after what I thought was one of their best OD performances ever. I really liked the simplicity of their costumes as well, so overall that was a little bit of a letdown.

And then came Kim & Brent, who skated to some Afro-Brazilian hybrid. For all of the controversy surrounding Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin's Aborigine-inspired OD, there sure has been nothing on these two. I'm not saying that there should be (much more on this later), but Kim & Brent are also wearing costumes designed to make their skin look darker, and Brent is even wearing a "wig" made out of what looks like strips of leather. That's one for the PC mill. Anyway, as usual their performance was entertaining and energetic, although their overall impression was somewhat similar to Tanith & Ben's, and I had a vague feeling going in that they would be dropped to 4th no matter what happened, barring Emily & Evan falling or something.

And, sure enough, Emily & Evan moved up to 3rd. I'm sure their skating was all quite clean and technical, but I'm not a fan of this OD. Other than the fact that Emily's dress has gratuitous back exposure, their last rotational lift seemed remarkably simple (Emily riding piggy-back on Evan). I know that a lot of moves in figure skating can look deceptively simple or difficult, but I just can't really see the point of spinning someone around on your back. Oh, wait. I just realized that the last lift is non-scoring. Never mind... Either way, though, I don't love this one. But it was impressive to me that they would decide to go with American instead of some other culture's--I think the locality/familiarity of the style would actually make it more scary to challenge the field field with.

In between I saw Madison & Keiffer Hubbell and Madison Chock & Greg Zuerlein, which were both fun although I don't remember too much of it. They did well, though, and I'm excited to see what happens in the next two hours!