There was at least one sports blogger who, in his “preview” of the Worlds Figure Skating Championships, held in Tokyo last month, who refused to write about ice dancing, saying, “Ice Dancing doesn’t get a preview because Ice Dancing is s***.”
In a previous post, he attempts to support the above assertion this way: “When I say ‘Figure Skating’ I don’t mean any of that wussy crap that comes under the category of ‘Ice Dancing.’ ‘Ice Dancing’ is not a sport, it’s what skaters do when they can’t make it as figure skaters. ‘Ice Dancing’ is the Rugby League of the Ice World.”
This fellow doesn’t know what he’s talking about, of course. He obviously hasn’t watched ice dancing in the last few years, and he certainly didn’t watch ice dancing at Worlds. The original dance portion of the competition was full of all kinds of excitement. Of course, Worlds ice dancing could be called“the D&S competition,” since three out of the top five competitors’ initials were D and S.
By the end of the original dance, the race was tight, the top three couples separated by only half a point. Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria edged out Canada’s Marie-France Dubrueil and Patrice Lauzon to take the lead. Americans Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto moved up from fifth to third place.
Much of the reason for the excitement with the ice dancers at Worlds happened before the competition began. Canada’s Dubrueil and Lauzon, who in recent years have garnered a great deal of attention, came to Tokyo the favorites by plagued by recent injuries.
As Sportsnet, a Canadian sports webpage, reported, “It’s been one thing after another for Dubreuil.” They continue:
“A terrible fall in the original dance at the Turin Olympics last year left her with an injured right hip and lower back, forcing their withdrawal. They recovered to win silver at the world championships in Calgary last March, but misfortune again befell the Montrealers when Dubreuil hurt her right knee and ankle just before the Canadian championships in January.
They again pulled themselves together just in time to win another national title, and they went on to win Four Continents gold while Dubreuil continued to undergo physiotherapy on her right thigh. If anybody needed a break before the world championships, it was Dubreuil and Lauzon.“It feels so great just to concentrate on training and still have fun with it,” a healthy Dubreuil said from Leon, France, where the couple trains. “Last year I was in so much pain it was hard to focus on anything else other than the problem.”
Dubreuil and Lauzon’s original dance ranked third place, and they were in second place going into the free dance. All their elements were awarded a level four. “It was pretty good,” said Dubreuil. “Probably the best of the season. We love the tango. We even look Spanish so it’s easy to put the feeling and expression into the moves.”
Another thing that garnered a great deal of attention had very little to do with ice dancing, at least not technically, and that was American Tanith Belbin’s hair color change. The native Canadian, who was granted U.S. citizenship before the Olympics, pulled a Jennifer Aniston on Tokyo, which was all a-buzz about her change to darker locks. She and her partner Ben Agosto came in second after the original dance, a mere 0.2 points behind first place.
This in spite of a near-miss of the boards by Belbin. She assured at least one reporter that it wasn’t a new part of their choreography. They were able to go on like nothing happened, though, but it did slightly affect their performance.
“We didn't actually have (an original dance) practice in this arena before, and it doesn’t have hockey lines like the other arena,” Belbin said. “I think we just started our beginning too close to the boards. I’m staring at Ben the entire opening, and I don’t look away from him. So by the time I stepped forward to see where I was, it was too late. But I recovered all right. The rest of the program could have gone better had I not been disappointed and distracted by that little bobble.”
“She recovered really quickly,” said Agosto of his partner touching the boards. “I’m always impressed how she recovers when she has to, and I felt like the rest of the program was strong. We’ve been trying to work on connecting with each other and looking at each other a bit more and expressing that passion between two people in the tango. I think we did a pretty good job at that today.”
So ice dancing delivered in the area of excitement, musicality, and athleticism. By the end of the original dance, the score between the competitors was as close as it gets. There was plenty of drama as well, and that continued later in the week going into the free dance.
References:
Dubreuil and Lauzon carry Canadian hopes.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/more/article.jsp?content=20070317_143125_4580
ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2007 Tokyo (JPN) Day 3.
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vcontent/content/news/0,10869,4844-131973-133281-18886-268038-news-item,00.html
Kaye, R. 2007 World Figure Skating Championships, Original Dance Highlights. http://goldenskate.com/articles/2006/032307_od.shtml
Preview: World Figure Skating Championships 2007. http://shottonothing.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/preview-world-figure-skating-championships-2007/
Why am I so Damned Obsessed with Figure Skating? http://shottonothing.wordpress.com/2007/01/23/why-am-i-so-damned-obsessed-with-figure-skating/
Showing posts with label Original Dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Original Dance. Show all posts
Monday, April 09, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Day Three
Still having frustrations with our hotel—still no wireless in any rooms. Plus, we got back late last night (due to transportation frustrations), so I decided to blog this morning and went right to bed. The skating’s been great, though!
We decided to start things a bit later, since things didn’t really get started until 10am, so we slept in and hung out in the hotel most of the morning. Yesterday was all about ice dancing.
10am: Watched the junior original dance at the Convention Center. We weren’t sitting in a place where I could see the scores well, so I wasn’t able to look into my theory about the judges cracking down on point deductions. It didn’t seem to be the case, but I’ll research it when I have more time and internet. (There wasn’t the kind of deductions we saw with the novices with the seniors, however.)
12:30pm: Ditched out on the junior men’s pairs short program to go have lunch. Also, we figured that if we wanted to eat lunch and go see the senior compulsory dance at 3pm, we’d miss some of the men, anyway. Ate at Chili’s, a sentimental favorite of mine because I used to eat there with my buddies in college. We got to the Spokane Arena way early and hung out, watching the junior girls’ warm-up.
3pm: Seniors compulsory dance. My favorite ice dancers, Belbin and Agosto, kicked butt! My mother-in-law, who isn’t as familiar with Ben and Tanith as I am, but who has watched figure skating for forty years, could tell they were far and above much better than anyone else. I can’t really say much more than that, since I haven’t had much experience watching the compulsories. They’re fun to watch, though—so pretty and elegant. I wish that I had more opportunities to watch them.
4:30pm: Early dinner at the Ticket.
5:40pm: Got back to watch the junior women’s long program. One of the things about this competition is my assumption that the lower level skaters perform at, well, a lower level. That’s only somewhat true—these girls do triples and the intricate spins and footwork as the seniors, but much better than I assumed coming here. And the drama’s just as exciting. It’s my intention to write a more extensive article about the juniors at a later time.
8:30pm: Senior original dance. Again, we were treated to excellent skating. Ben and Tanith blew everyone else out of the water. They’re almost a full ten points ahead of the next-best couple, Gregory and Petukhov (who did a great skate anyway). I want to compare these scores with previous ones; I believe that Ben and Tanith might have made their personal best; if not, pretty close.
At the end of Ben and Tanith’s program, Ben did this uncharacteristic little slip. While they were sitting at the kiss and cry, Tanith was gesturing—probably explaining to someone what had happened. It was very cute. Man, I love those guys.
I don’t want to describe the struggle we had getting back to the hotel last night. We’re driving in and paying for parking this morning.
We decided to start things a bit later, since things didn’t really get started until 10am, so we slept in and hung out in the hotel most of the morning. Yesterday was all about ice dancing.
10am: Watched the junior original dance at the Convention Center. We weren’t sitting in a place where I could see the scores well, so I wasn’t able to look into my theory about the judges cracking down on point deductions. It didn’t seem to be the case, but I’ll research it when I have more time and internet. (There wasn’t the kind of deductions we saw with the novices with the seniors, however.)
12:30pm: Ditched out on the junior men’s pairs short program to go have lunch. Also, we figured that if we wanted to eat lunch and go see the senior compulsory dance at 3pm, we’d miss some of the men, anyway. Ate at Chili’s, a sentimental favorite of mine because I used to eat there with my buddies in college. We got to the Spokane Arena way early and hung out, watching the junior girls’ warm-up.
3pm: Seniors compulsory dance. My favorite ice dancers, Belbin and Agosto, kicked butt! My mother-in-law, who isn’t as familiar with Ben and Tanith as I am, but who has watched figure skating for forty years, could tell they were far and above much better than anyone else. I can’t really say much more than that, since I haven’t had much experience watching the compulsories. They’re fun to watch, though—so pretty and elegant. I wish that I had more opportunities to watch them.
4:30pm: Early dinner at the Ticket.
5:40pm: Got back to watch the junior women’s long program. One of the things about this competition is my assumption that the lower level skaters perform at, well, a lower level. That’s only somewhat true—these girls do triples and the intricate spins and footwork as the seniors, but much better than I assumed coming here. And the drama’s just as exciting. It’s my intention to write a more extensive article about the juniors at a later time.
8:30pm: Senior original dance. Again, we were treated to excellent skating. Ben and Tanith blew everyone else out of the water. They’re almost a full ten points ahead of the next-best couple, Gregory and Petukhov (who did a great skate anyway). I want to compare these scores with previous ones; I believe that Ben and Tanith might have made their personal best; if not, pretty close.
At the end of Ben and Tanith’s program, Ben did this uncharacteristic little slip. While they were sitting at the kiss and cry, Tanith was gesturing—probably explaining to someone what had happened. It was very cute. Man, I love those guys.
I don’t want to describe the struggle we had getting back to the hotel last night. We’re driving in and paying for parking this morning.
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