Free Dance Cup of China

[blackswanphoto]

Gosh that Shibutani program is AWFUL! they are going to have to go back to Cinema Paradiso for the rest of the season. They cannot lose anything at this point by doing so.

 

[dorispulaski]

8 Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV RUS

They are coached by Elena Kustarova, Svetlana Alexeeva, & Olga Riabinina. Their choreography is done by Kustarova.

FD Walpurgis Night (from the opera "Faust") by Charles Gounod
black raggy dress with lots of feather
handstand while he skids on his knees
she skates very bent over
2nd set of twizzles slow but OK
Lift flipped over into a crouch
this is better than at Russian test skate
step slow
picks her up off ice in a quick rotational lift
pair spin slow
in fact this whole part is slow
and careful
he throws her around on the ice again
lift with demon motions
rotational lift to end.
some trouble getting out of the pose.
Quite good for them.
about 10 people in crowd chanting
RussSeeYa
With their lead, that certainly wins.

 

[Mrs. P]

Happy to see that B/S held on to those twizzles and this program is nice. But uggghhh I can't stand her posture and these costumes, I mean really?!

 

[gold12345]

Gosh that Shibutani program is AWFUL! they are going to have to go back to Cinema Paradiso for the rest of the season. They cannot lose anything at this point by doing so.

How is it awful? I thought they were great.

 

[dorispulaski]

90.61 -- Solid score. Deduction for extended lift?

I think that was it.

 

[Buttercup]

The Shibs are lovely, but they have no range as performers. Eventually they'll have to find a way to be convincing in something other than old-fashioned programs.

Bobrova and Soloviev are so dull.

This has really not been the most inspiring of events - Carron/Jones medalled, which tells you something - and it seems to me that in general there's now very little depth in the ice dance field, which can be seen even at major events (top ten used to mean something... not so much anymore) and even more so at GPs.

 

[MikiAndoFan#1]

What a score!

 

[dorispulaski]

97.78.

Well, I wouldn't have given it that, but in any case, they deserved the win.
That's about 10 points below Meryl & Charlie, 9 below Tessa & Scott in the FD.

 

[sequinsgalore]

Bobrova/Soloviev

97.79, total 163.52 and they take gold by a large margin!

I actually liked the free dance... much more polished compared to the Russian test skates

 

[Shaba22]

1 Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV (RUS) 163.52
2 Maia SHIBUTANI / Alex SHIBUTANI (USA) 148.40
3 Pernelle CARRON / Lloyd JONES (FRA) 130.97
4 Penny COOMES / Nicholas BUCKLAND (GBR) 130.39
5 Xintong HUANG / Xun ZHENG (CHN) 120.11
6 Xiaoyang YU / Chen WANG (CHN) 115.59
7 Charlotte LICHTMAN / Dean COPELY (USA) 109.61
8 Emily SAMUELSON / Todd GILLES (USA) 106.74

 

[dorispulaski]

Well, we lost a lot of teams this year--

Samuelson & Bates
Crone & Poirier
Chock & Zuerlein.

All that their best were top 12 at worlds type teams.

So things are a little thin.

But now we have
Gilles & Poirier
Samuelson & Gillis
Chock & Bates
and Hubbell & Donahue,

so actually we have a net gain of one, but these four teams are just getting their feet under them...but I expect to see great improvement over the season.

And I hope Vanessa Crone finds a partner.

 

[blackswanphoto]

How is it awful? I thought they were great.

The program has absolutely no soul. they could do the same thing to any piece of music. I actually cannot believe this program got past the development stage in Canton. This along with their short dance are about the worst piece of work I have seen come from the Canton camp. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. They are going to have to dump that free program and go back to an updated version Cinema paradiso and they are going to have to change some of the music cuts in that SD, it's too late to change both programs completely but they need to make these changes pronto!

 

[Blades of Passion]

The Russian machine sure is working hard. It's funny, though, how such a long tradition of Ice Dance is now grasping at straws just to contend for Bronze at the World level.

 

[dorispulaski]

What Shibs need is to work on the SD. Sundance Serenade is OK, but I wouldn't have picked it for them.

Maybe Dirty Dancing, which when you come down to it, is about a guy teaching a young girl (to whom he is not attracted) to dance, but it has some good tunes.

 

[Mrs. P]

I'd agree that B/S deserved the win and I liked the FD, but they were definitely gifted a few points. That was not a mid-90s caliber skate, imo. That is getting into P/B territory and they are not in the same caliber as those two.

The Shibs were much better today, but they did seem somewhat tentative still today. Think they have improved the program quite a bit from Finlandia.

 

[dorispulaski]

BP,
It's interesting that B&S are being pushed. Have they overtaken I&K as top Russian team in the politics at home for sure? It looks like it.


One thing-I though skidding around on 2 knees was a deduction, and there was a lot of it in B&S's progras. From an audience point of view, it worked very well, but from a scoring point of view, I'm not sure whether one or two of those didn't rate a deduction.

 

[blackswanphoto]

Yes I agree. That score was definitely inflated but you can see with this competition, the Shibutani's are going absolutely nowhere with those programs, even if they skate them lights out, it will only be good enough for about 6th at worlds. They need a much better foundation than what those programs can provide.

 

[KKonas]

I'd agree that B/S deserved the win and I liked the FD, but they were definitely gifted a few points. That was not a mid-90s caliber skate, imo. That is getting into P/B territory and they are not in the same caliber as those two.

ITA The French are much better than this. B&S started out okay but then got sloppy as usual. Score way too generous.

The Shibs were much better today, but they did seem somewhat tentative still today. Think they have improved the program quite a bit from Finlandia.

I think the slow part is way too long and drags the program down. Going with the same kind of program as last season was not really a great idea. Would love to have them skate to Cinema Paradiso again.

 

[Mrs. P]

Protocals

B/S - Apparently hit all their levels (except for a level 2 circular step sequence and a level 3 element). The +GOE seems sort of high, but explains the extra points.
S/S - They lost some levels here (level 2 spin, which I expected; and level 2 step??) Decent +GOE But yeah, they left some points on the table for sure...they were 2 points below B/S in BV. So yeah, this program definitely has potential to get to that mid-90 range.
C/J - Solid GOE, a level two in two elements.
C/B - deduction for hte fall and an dextended lift, level two on two elements, level four on everything else.
H/Z- level 1 rotational lift, level 2 spin,
L/C - level two on both step sequences, and -negative GOE on both those elements. PCS quite low with averages in the 5's
Y/W- level 2 spin, level 1 rotational left, level 2 steps; some minus GOE.
S/G - -2 on illegal elements? Hm... -1 on extended lift; level 1 rotational lift and step; level two step not much +GOE.

 

[dorispulaski]

Revisit Cinema Paradiso? .

This is a team that already is and looks young. Best not to remind people of their junior career just yet, I think.

Maybe later.

It was a lovely program.