Things are not looking good for Meryl Davis & Charlie White. I am fairly confident that they will medal, but their chances of realizing their gold-medal dream seem pretty slim at this point. Their strength compared to the rest of the field (well the other teams in the top 4, namely) is their OD, and while they unsurprisingly beat Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin they still lost ground to Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir. Tessa & Scott's strength is definitely their FD, so it seems like it will be difficult for Meryl & Charlie (and everyone) to beat them tonight.
Anyway, to the specifics...
Emily Samuelson & Evan Bates: They were the only couple shown in between skicross races, and while I am still not a fan of her dress or their OD in general, it was very well executed and they successfully moved up several spots. They seem to be much more comfortable once they can get out of the CD, and it showed here. Emily & Evan are very well-trained technically, and Susie Wynne(?) was all over them.
(By the way, can I mention that skicross is a terrible idea? Wiping out with skis is so much worse than wiping out on a snowboard... or at least worse to watch... eek.)
Isabel Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder: Considering that they are former world champions, everyone knows what they are capable of, so the timing of her injury and pregnancy couldn't have been worse. I really liked the concept of their OD, which was a French Can-Can, but their performance was painfully heavy and slow. Susie described it as "rough around the edges," and it seems like they simply ran out of training time.
Sinead Kerr & John Kerr: They were as sweet and as entertaining as ever, but had a problem on their second set of twizzles that really held them back. They were also skating to American country music, and had a cool move at the end that involved them skidding to a stop to the sounds of a car. It's great that Sinead can use her relative size to their advantage and come up with these lifts and tricks, but all in all I guess their program had more show-skating qualities than technical ones.
Oksana & Maxim: This was the first time I saw their much-disputed OD and all "authenticity" controversies aside, I am not a fan of this program. It looked slow and labored, and nothing really grabbed at me because all of their ice dancing skills seemed hidden in wild moves and appearances. They were slow and seemingly messy, without a real emotional connection between them. I always wonder why they feel the need to do illusory programs, as they clearly have skating skills (see: CD), but they did and the result was a fairly empty routine. Susie nearly choked on her own voice trying to get all of her criticisms out, and I have to say that NBC's journalistic professionalism really fell here. While reporting that Australian aborigines have been offended by their program is fine, remarking that the portrayal of the culture clearly is not authentic is amateur, when she herself has no knowledge of the culture either. The commentators would later insert a snide comment when talking about Meryl's dress, which was pieced together from several Indian dresses purchased in a Indian shop in her hometown--"So her costume is authentic, unlike the Russians'." Completely unnecessary. "...so her costume has not generated controversy" is a valid journalistic move, making judgments on authenticity is not. The media in the US is as biased towards its athletes as it is possible to be, but NBC last night really crossed a whole new line. Anyway, the judges tried to hold Oksana & Maxim up as much as possible through their PCS, but in the end it wasn't enough to keep them anywhere higher than 3rd.
Meryl & Charlie: And then actually came the routine that has been used as the foil. They put out a great performance that really grabbed the audience, and again I was struck by Meryl's unique beauty. They beat their personal best pretty significantly, and at this point it looked like they had really gotten the job done.
Tessa & Scott: ...until Tessa & Scott skated, that is. Given the problems that they had on their OD earlier in the season, and the fact that the flamenco is less relatable than the Indian music, it seemed like they would lose the OD to Meryl & Charlie and then make up the difference in the FD. Susie kept making inane comments about how "there is no room for error," as if the other programs do have this room, but indeed Tessa & Scott's OD was super technical and high-paced. Everything was tight and close together, and there was none of the uncertainty of their previous competitions. I'm not sure what the male commentator meant by "they have a tendency to hold back," but either way there was no holding back in this flamenco. I loved their lift, although I could have sworn her legs were neater in previous attempts, but whatever. They looked amazingly and adorably pleased at the end, and their scores were even bigger than Meryl & Charlie's. Unlike in the pairs the scores probably weren't due to the Magic Canadian Bonus, but in general the scores seemed very inflated.
Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto: They have changed their costumes since Nationals. Why, I do not know, because these new ones looked needlessly heavy and someone described it as "looking as if they'd jumped off a deck of cards." I am still not a fan of their strangely jumpy OD, but their performance was the best I've seen from them in a while. There was energy, speed, and power, and most of all they looked happy. However the EEB decided that an all-North American podium just wouldn't do, and made sure their OD lost narrowly to the Russians. I have no idea how this happened, but because of it Tanith and Ben are still in 4th place.
FREE DANCE TONIGHT!
Showing posts with label Original Dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Original Dance. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
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!
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!
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