Can anyone challenge Papadakis and Cizeron? | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Can anyone challenge Papadakis and Cizeron?

blue_idealist

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
I’ve followed P/C since Zazoui period. In 2014 I’ve loved their Woodkid FS and I miss that vibe...I never thought they would have the SAME FD type 4 years in a row.

Cizeron is a joy for the eyes, I think he’s one of the best male ice dancer ever: such a flow, upper body works, deep edges...not sure Gabriella always follows him properly, but they works togheter (to remain in France I think Abachkina was a better dancer in SS than Gabriella is).

They works...but they’re not the invincible duo the judges want us to believe. I think they deserve to win but not with such a gap...it’s not the real situation in the ice dance and I’m very sad that every other contender is forced to change to emulate them only to be rewarded by the judges...

I recently re-watched the Woodkid FS and I like it better than anything they've done besides their 2017-18 SD and 2018-19 FD. The SD was good in 2014, too.
 

brushalley

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Country
United-Kingdom
All the detractors.They know P/C are that good so the only thing they can say about them is .
1.They have same style for four years.
2.Their lifts are too basic/simple.
 

shmy

Rinkside
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
Sadly no, I think they will do the same program for the next four years and win OGM. Not having competition really hurts them too, because they aren't challenged to do anything new.

I don't know if Nikita and all the Russian politicking would amount to much.
 

mrrice

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 9, 2014
Sadly no, I think they will do the same program for the next four years and win OGM. Not having competition really hurts them too, because they aren't challenged to do anything new.

I don't know if Nikita and all the Russian politicking would amount to much.

I agree. Not right now and I'm happy to let them enjoy this time at the top. We all know they can't remain there forever.
 

Skater Boy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
All the detractors.They know P/C are that good so the only thing they can say about them is .
1.They have same style for four years.
2.Their lifts are too basic/simple.

And their inability or lack of talent in a wide range of emotions, her skating skills while imroved not to the level of his.

But then on the other hand they are so etheral, smooth like butter, effortless and refined and consistent.

Overall, they are more consistent and refined than the others. They are well packaged and do what they do best where the other teams are chasing tryign to find a way to knockthem off but generally just fighting among themselves for scraps of silver and bronze.

It wasn't until this year that I heard how "wonderful" HD skills were but I think part of the problem is they aren'tclearly the Best American team and while HB may be upset they have not moved up they could drop back if the Shibsibs return or while they don't have to worry about the Parsons they do need to worry about CP. It is hard to think an American team who seem to be the faves can challenge PC when it isn't clear who is their best.


I really feel for Weapo. it is too late for them to move to MarieFrance. I think she could have done something with them. They have stagnated and I fear will retirebut ambe stay on to skate in Canadat at worlds. They could be motivated to stay on for one more olympics to try to earn a team medal But that they might consider what the talent pool is for that competition. WTT gives some indication but fortunately for Canada only 1 single skater for men and 1 for lady is required. So if Gabby and or kaetlyn stay and remain top 8 competitive and 1 men can also stay top 8 competitive Canada would be a medal contender. I would love to see someone who can work on their tech especially twizles and do something artistically challenging. They were so close to a world title years ago it would be nice to see them give PC a run. They both might need to up their innner divas.
 

peepsquick

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 26, 2016
And their inability or lack of talent in a wide range of emotions, her skating skills while imroved not to the level of his.

But then on the other hand they are so etheral, smooth like butter, effortless and refined and consistent.

Overall, they are more consistent and refined than the others. They are well packaged and do what they do best where the other teams are chasing tryign to find a way to knockthem off but generally just fighting among themselves for scraps of silver and bronze.

It wasn't until this year that I heard how "wonderful" HD skills were but I think part of the problem is they aren'tclearly the Best American team and while HB may be upset they have not moved up they could drop back if the Shibsibs return or while they don't have to worry about the Parsons they do need to worry about CP. It is hard to think an American team who seem to be the faves can challenge PC when it isn't clear who is their best.


I really feel for Weapo. it is too late for them to move to MarieFrance. I think she could have done something with them. They have stagnated and I fear will retirebut ambe stay on to skate in Canadat at worlds. They could be motivated to stay on for one more olympics to try to earn a team medal But that they might consider what the talent pool is for that competition. WTT gives some indication but fortunately for Canada only 1 single skater for men and 1 for lady is required. So if Gabby and or kaetlyn stay and remain top 8 competitive and 1 men can also stay top 8 competitive Canada would be a medal contender. I would love to see someone who can work on their tech especially twizles and do something artistically challenging. They were so close to a world title years ago it would be nice to see them give PC a run. They both might need to up their innner divas.

Two thoughts : the 'packaging' bit or, as I have heard it on CBC the 'refining of a winning product' (not verbatim but close enough) is surely part of a trainer's job helping their team put their best assets forward but it is not P/C's motivation. They are not into 'marketing' which also means that they will stick to whichever artistic project motivates them and will not follow the 'if you don't style-hop, people will think you can't do it'-train of thought. So that is an angle that other teams may use to their advantage.
The other one is that the skaters who do better are those who choose to challenge themselves (along the line of their own motivation) rather than those who aim at unseating others. (There might be some exceptions for very competitive-minded skaters who thrive on the challenge. V/M comes to mind). The pressure of looking inward instead of outward has also the advantage of creating a healthy working environment. You think less of knocking others off than to progress from your latest competitions. It might help with the consistency issue.
 

Eleanor

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
Two thoughts : the 'packaging' bit or, as I have heard it on CBC the 'refining of a winning product' (not verbatim but close enough) is surely part of a trainer's job helping their team put their best assets forward but it is not P/C's motivation. They are not into 'marketing' which also means that they will stick to whichever artistic project motivates them and will not follow the 'if you don't style-hop, people will think you can't do it'-train of thought. So that is an angle that other teams may use to their advantage.
The other one is that the skaters who do best are those who choose to challenge themselves (along the line of their own motivation) than those who aim at unseating others. (There might be some exceptions for very competitive-minded skaters who thrive on the challenge. V/M comes to mind). The pressure of looking inward instead of outward has also the advantage of creating a healthy working environment. You think less of knocking others off than to progress from your latest competitions. It might help with the consistency issue.

And that is something I respect a lot and that draws me to enjoy their performances more and more each time they perform. I am tired, in many discipline, to see cookie-cutter code-w.oring routines. I don't follow Gymnastics (RG and AG) anymore because of how BORING and unartistic it has become. It's all about difficulty and choosing a catchy music to get the audience to clap for you. No more polished skills, refinement, real musicality. Even the russians who used to spend hours in a good dancing training seems to have given up to follow the current trend .That lives us with a soulless sport.

So yeah, I respect those who like or need to change style every year, who like to explore and get to know themselves this way. But I also respect those who try to do something new, to push their own boundaries. What I want for artistic sports is a wide range of performances. Not couples hopping from style to style to try to prove something to fans who are never going to enjoy them anyway. Let's just let all the skaters do what they want and what they feel like doing. It's only going to make the sport better and more enjoyable to watch for everyone :hap85:
 

Escarbille

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 8, 2016
Country
France
Who will be world champion next year? The story is already written.
Saitama 2014: the 13th place is occupied by a comet in power, and we know the rest of the story ...
Saitama 2019 ... who is 13 th?
Sound drums and trumpets! Future champions are Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson !!
Rock'n roll :rock:
 

fzztsimmons

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Who will be world champion next year? The story is already written.
Saitama 2014: the 13th place is occupied by a comet in power, and we know the rest of the story ...
Saitama 2019 ... who is 13 th?
Sound drums and trumpets! Future champions are Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson !!
Rock'n roll :rock:

hahaha please don't tempt me, cause god the things i would give for Team GB to actually start succeeding in skating again! :sad4:
 

DSQ

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Country
United-Kingdom
Who will be world champion next year? The story is already written.
Saitama 2014: the 13th place is occupied by a comet in power, and we know the rest of the story ...
Saitama 2019 ... who is 13 th?
Sound drums and trumpets! Future champions are Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson !!
Rock'n roll :rock:

Yes please!
 

La Rhumba

Supporting All British Skaters!
Medalist
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Country
United-Kingdom
Who will be world champion next year? The story is already written.
Saitama 2014: the 13th place is occupied by a comet in power, and we know the rest of the story ...
Saitama 2019 ... who is 13 th?
Sound drums and trumpets! Future champions are Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson !!
Rock'n roll :rock:

:agree: Do you know, I was thinking the very same thing! :cool:

Love your avatar pic BTW, stunning! :love:

hahaha please don't tempt me, cause god the things i would give for Team GB to actually start succeeding in skating again! :sad4:

Excuse me, you make it sound like it's been a lifetime ago!

FYI Britain has won 3 Bronze medals in Dance at Europeans in the past decade.
The Kerrs 2 :medal":medal" (robbed of silver in 2011) and Coomes & Buckland 1 in 2014 :medal" (but for Nick's heart condition and Penny's knee could have gone on to win more).

Aswell as countless International medals at non Championship events.
Many other countries would love to have Britain's record in Skating, with minimal facilities and financial support in a country where FS is very much a minority sport.

The Kerrs and Coomes & Buckland's successful :medal" winning performances weren't even shown on British TV. That's a disgrace! :disapp:

I appreciate for younger fans watching British TV the only skating you see is Olympics and Worlds, which is all BBC covers, and we haven't won medals there, no.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
I agree that the top teams are far closer than the judging depicts but I have no idea what it is like in person. They must be awesome re speed and edges and flow to be departed from the pack. We all thought they would win in Korea but along came a revitalized Virtue and Moir and it was so close. Would they have won if her costume hadn’t snapped? I think Virtue Moir deserved the win with two amazing and different programs but I was not in the arena. As much as I love the shibsibs I could see 4 teams with the bronze. Hey it is dancing on ice after all. Weapo don’t get their due and I have always loved Chock and Baites above Hubble and Donahue. They are similar to the French and have done the modern thing without athletic lifts. They are very similar and I think they skate divinely. But ice dance is more judge preference than other disciplines. The judges seem to like the modernist dancing. It is worse when you watch a show like So you think you can dance and the art of dance has gotten bizarre. I am a purist and I don’t think dancing has to be athletic to the point of gymnastics but it does keep it interesting that there are tricks. Athletic dancers built like gymnasts tend to win. I don’t even watch anymore for years now. I guess my idea of technical brilliance is Balanchine in his prime at NYCB doing Jewels.

But hey even that looks rudimentary when you see what Misty Copeland does and look at the incredibly muscled body. Taste does evolve and people tend to accept what is offered when they are young as the best and the norm.
 

skylark

Gazing at a Glorious Great Lakes sunset
Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Country
United-States
This all seems very subjective though.

Personally, I don't think they create the same mood/emotions. In each FD, I always see them create something unique, very personal to them and intense. Mozart was a love story, Build a Home was about moving to Canada, Oddudua was darker, more intense and MS is a pure classical virtuose program. As for Duet, it's just so intimate, I actually never thought we could see a program like this even in a gala.

Their short dance are very interesting IMO. It might have been their weakness technically but I always thought they had fantastic program. And again, everytime they did something different, they made bold choices of music and they stuck to it whatever happened. And it always paid off.

I am surprise to read that you see no difference between MS and Ed Sheeran :confused:. These two programs could not be more different. Gabby SHINES in Ed Sheeran. She is the star actually. I can't stop watching her. She is sexy, sensual, confident, playing with Guillaume. And Guillaume is a leading man, showing the way to Gaby and yet letting her shine on the ice. As for MS, they are like one soul in two bodies. They move together like one, they feel the music and respond to each note written by Beethoven. The program is melancholic, romantic and what I like is that they are able to step down as individuals and just let their skating and the music live. MS is a masterpiece. And it's totally different from Shape of you.

I agree. And I'm baffled by people who think that Gaby and Guillaume keep repeating the same style. Those critics are certainly looking for something different than I am; and they're looking for something different than what Gaby and Guillaume have to offer. P/C are to be commended for letting criticism roll off their backs and being true to themselves, their talents, their art, desires and emotions. If they did change to please their critics, chances are 9 out of 10 that their critics wouldn't be pleased.

Not being a fan of Virtue/Moir since 2010, I don't want P/C to be like them. Versatility doesn't hold a candle to what Gaby and Guillaume have, which is the ability to create poetry on ice and to give their audiences an experience of being inside a work of art. Note I said their audiences. That doesn't mean everybody; no artist appeals to everyone, and shouldn't try.

Those who don't see P/C's versatility make me think of a hypothetical person who would enter a room full of Monet paintings and complain that all the paintings are the same style. Well, Monet is going to paint like the impressionist he is. But people who love his paintings don't feel we're looking at the same painting. We enter each painting. In one, we stand on a bridge and experience the beauty all around us. In another painting, we may become one luminous water lily. In the water lily painting, we have the experience of floating on the water and becoming part of it. In the bridge painting, we experience a solid structure, we feel the texture of the wooden rail underneath our hands, we stand in the mist among the trees. It's something different in every painting. Just as it's something different in each Papadakis/Cizeron program.
 

Eleanor

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
I agree. And I'm baffled by people who think that Gaby and Guillaume keep repeating the same style. Those critics are certainly looking for something different than I am; and they're looking for something different than what Gaby and Guillaume have to offer. P/C are to be commended for letting criticism roll off their backs and being true to themselves, their talents, their art, desires and emotions. If they did change to please their critics, chances are 9 out of 10 that their critics wouldn't be pleased.

Not being a fan of Virtue/Moir since 2010, I don't want P/C to be like them. Versatility doesn't hold a candle to what Gaby and Guillaume have, which is the ability to create poetry on ice and to give their audiences an experience of being inside a work of art. Note I said their audiences. That doesn't mean everybody; no artist appeals to everyone, and shouldn't try.

Those who don't see P/C's versatility make me think of a hypothetical person who would enter a room full of Monet paintings and complain that all the paintings are the same style. Well, Monet is going to paint like the impressionist he is. But people who love his paintings don't feel we're looking at the same painting. We enter each painting. In one, we stand on a bridge and experience the beauty all around us. In another painting, we may become one luminous water lily. In the water lily painting, we have the experience of floating on the water and becoming part of it. In the bridge painting, we experience a solid structure, we feel the texture of the wooden rail underneath our hands, we stand in the mist among the trees. It's something different in every painting. Just as it's something different in each Papadakis/Cizeron program.

Excellent post !
I also think that many critics just don't want to see what P/C have to offer (youtube comments section, I am looking at you :confused2:)
It's just the easy argument to explain why they should not be on top or why they should not have come close to V/M's scores but in the end, it's hard to find someone who can give a detailed explanation on how to score "that versatility" and which skaters should have an advantage over the others based on their "ability" to "change style". What we truly need to have this discussions are criterias, not opinions or wishes. It's easy to criticize edges, speed, flow, difficiulties, twizzles and so on...but versatility ? It's entirely subjective and that's why, IMO, it's should not be held against them.

Besides, would you want to excel at something or be average at everything ? It's a choice....Lopatkina never danced roles she thought she could not master but was mesmerizing everytime she was on stage. Zakharova can dance everything but is not mesmerizing in every role she interprets. We all have our personalities and style and they help us put on an act whether it's as actors, dancers, singers, artists and so on. But we all have our limits... If you want my two piece of cents, I find that V/M, the versatile couple by excellence, to be average at best artistically. I'm going to get a lot of hate for that but that's my opinion. The only time I found them spectacular was Prince, maybe because they did not put on an act.

In the end, I think we like a couple because we see something special in them and it's a good thing. We all have our favorites and skaters all have their fans. We all have our piece of the cake and that make things a lot more interesting :)
 

skylark

Gazing at a Glorious Great Lakes sunset
Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Country
United-States
My answer to the question posed by the thread title is yes. Think back to 2014-15 season. Weaver/Poje dominated the GP season. It was seen as finally their turn, after V/M stepped away. Chock and Bates were virtually tied with W/P, but a mistake in GPF put W/P ahead. Then the French brought a whole new, beautiful dynamic to Worlds and won it. From their skating skills to their lyricism to their otherworldly gliding, they changed the equation in ice dance.

A team who have been flying under the radar could come along at any time, offer something different or similar, and change the dynamic. Or, one of the top teams we saw at this Worlds could. Everything is temporary in skating. And I don't see it as a problem that so many top teams have moved to Gadbois. I think it's the Gadbois approach that's winning converts. Rather than emphasizing competition among their top teams, the coaches encourage all their skaters to compete with their own record, to bring out their own best skating and develop the qualities that they already have. Express themselves, rather than battling for the top. What a joy and a relief that must be! And IMO, it's a joy and a relief to fans. It changes the conversation.
 

StephenGfan

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Versatility is important and people are going to get bored if its the similar pretty painting over and over again and lots of people have gotten bored over P/C because of this. Not only could V/M display poetry and artistry on ice with Mahler, umbrellas, valse triste, the waltz goes and latch on but they had could do sensual like Carmen, Moulin rogue and farrucas, Funky musicial programs like prince and latin SD, Experemental rograms like Pink flloyd. P/C are very limited skaters in what they potray outside of the same ethreal overdone pretty painting skating they do. Versatility is what makes a legendary skater legendary, its what pushes boundries and creates iconic programs and its pushed skating forward.
 

CHCreation

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 9, 2019
LOL, I didnt know all of P/C shorts were lyrical as well. Thanks for letting us know :)
And people are not bored. What are you talking about?
And I would like to remind you that lyrical artistry executed by V/M is easier to perform then P/C's. It is not so easy like people want to think. Not to mention that 80% of FS from V/M are lyrical as well. Actually, after seeing P/C short form last Worlds in Saitama I am sure PC would perform amazing Carmen. Anyway, it is clasical music, right ? ;)
I think people dont know what versality means. It is not changing a music. Turn off the music and watch Umbrellas and Mahler. Or Funny face. Intepretation is the same. Sweety lovey dovey acting. Nothing more. Nothing deeper.They smile all the time. Turn off the music and watch valse triste and frees from 17/18 and their second olympic season or and (sorry I dont remeber the music,they were lyrical) The same stuff, right? But people will be saying that Mozart is the same as Black Eyes (lol) They danced to clasical music twice - Mozart in 14/15 and Moonlight sonata in 18/19 but the interpretation is COMPLETELY different. Mozart is more modern , with a story while MS is pure intepratation of the music..They are in completely different mood.
 
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