2017 Junior Worlds: Ice Dance recap

Rachel and Michael Parsons continued the success of the U.S. ice dancers and clinched the Junior World title Saturday in Taipei City at the 2017 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Teammates Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko came from sixth place to take the bronze, while Russia’s Alla Loboda and Pavel Drozd slipped from first to second and settled for the silver.

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Parsons and Parsons were second in the short dance, but it was close. Skating last in the free dance, the brother-and-sister team turned in a strong, flowing performance to “Singing in the Rain” in a modern arrangement by Sophia Sin and Alexander Goldstein. As in their short dance, they earned a level four for almost all elements. The ISU Junior Grand Prix Final champions earned a personal best score for the free dance and edged ahead of Loboda and Drozd with a total of 164.83 points. The difference in the end was a mere 0.55 points.

What are your thoughts on the performances? Placements?

Parsons last lift should have been level 1 with -3 goe. That would have cost them the win. They looked totally incompetent on that lift.

I think that L/D have much potential, Russia should send them to America to train with the top coaches. They know hide weakness and highlight the talent of their teams, the Montreal team even know how to get high scores doing less effort.
Their (L/D) twizzles are very good, and this is very appreciated when you see many teams struggling with it.

chapis said:

I think that L/D have much potential, Russia should send them to America to train with the top coaches. They know hide weakness and highlight the talent of their teams, the Montreal team even know how to get high scores doing less effort.
Their (L/D) twizzles are very good, and this is very appreciated when you see many teams struggling with it.

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They must be sent to any major north American coach and not only that be left alone! I hope there is never a time where Tarasova orders a program of theirs to end with baffling clashing nonsensical musical selection.

gmyers said:

Parsons last lift should have been level 1 with -3 goe. That would have cost them the win. They looked totally incompetent on that lift.

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No. Just watched the tape again and I disagree. It was still a difficult lift that they completed without interruption, so the negative GOEs and the levels they got were perfectly appropriate. This was actually well scored. They've done that lift perfectly many times, and if they had this time they would likely have been close to 100. Otherwise, their performance was mesmerizing and pretty close to perfect.

skatemd1 said:

No. Just watched the tape again and I disagree. It was still a difficult lift that they completed without interruption, so the negative GOEs and the levels they got were perfectly appropriate. This was actually well scored. They've done that lift perfectly many times, and if they had this time they would likely have been close to 100. Otherwise, their performance was mesmerizing and pretty close to perfect.

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Only 4 out of 9 judges gave negative goe. It should have been unanimously negative. One judge said it was plus goe worthy. They need to be banned from judging. In fact the element goe was only -.21. It was interrupted by extreme disarray however much there was recovery.

Well deserved victory to the Parsons. Shame they had to get a "controversial" level 4 call on their last lift to make it happen. It should have happened regardless. Anyway, I find that people are harping on it because that's the only thing they can hang on to even if the lift was uninterrupted and wasn't nearly as bad when one actually watches it as all the self-serving editorializing is making it sound like.

Look, I barely follow senior dance but, I just watched Parsons and Parsons and I absolutely loved them. They seemed quite mature for a Junior Team. Are they getting ready to move to up? I really liked their music and the choreography was very interesting for a Junior Team. The scores were so close that it could have gone either way. Now, I did not enjoy their last lift but, even cleanly done, I don't think I would have liked it. I know that choreographers are striving to be original but, it wasn't my cup of tea.

I don't have a problem with the lift. I get the arguments that it should have been scored a little lower, but as others have said, they usually get higher scores on it and although I liked L/D, to my eyes the Parsons were the deserving winners even with the lift.

I have a small bone to pick with the author of the article.

I have got to say that I was one of those who completely enjoyed Shpilevaya and Smirnov's FD. I don't think visible joy and good attention to the beat and character of the music ever goes out of fashion nor should it!

Shpilevaya and Smirnov’s free dance to Italian pop songs looked somewhat old-fashioned, but the crowd enjoyed it.

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