Not-So-Quick Notes: Worlds, Day 2

It’s hard to write a lot about a competition so big, still in progress… at least it is if you aren’t a “twitterer” (twittee?) like some of my fabulous fellow bloggers. But since I was able to catch some of the action and see some of the results, here are just a few quick observations as I sit here waiting to see some pairs competitors I recognize:

-- So far, it looks like I’ve underestimated both Belbin/Agosto and Evan Lysacek… both are sitting in second after their respective first rounds.
-- (As I just saw McBru blow their first side-by-sides… sigh)
-- (And she blew the second SBS too… double sigh)
-- Khoklova/Novitski down in 5th after the CD makes my 1st place prediction a hard sell right about now! Good thing there’s more movement in the standings (from dance to dance, I mean) than there used to be…
-- (Aaugh! A popped throw jump by McBru too? Seriously??)
-- I missed the top pairs in the SP last night—just on too late for an Eastern time-zoner like me. Only caught the Americans and Duhamel/Buntin from Canada…
-- (Gotta give a WHOO to Denney/Barrett, who are doing… ah, don’t jinx it... OK, no comment yet.)
-- I was, however, fortunate enough to catch most of the last flights of men in the SP today, even if I had to do so in between dishes, kids’ baths, bedtime, etc., and…
-- (Sorry, very distracted by Denney/Barrett again, because WOW DID THEY JUST NAIL EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT IN THEIR FREE SKATE OR WHAT!!!) I wonder how much they can move up, being newbies and all…
-- Anyway, the men were interesting as usual. Seems to be a lot of angst over the fact that Joubert came out on top with a performance that he himself seemed quite upset with…
-- (hang on, the scores are up… how could that not be their season’s best??) Anyway, I was kind of surprised to see Joubert up there too, but since I happened to pick him to win the whole thing how can I complain J
-- Nice time for Tomas Verner to turn in one of his better SPs of the whole season! (He’s in 4th.) Ditto for Brandon Mroz, in a very respectable 8th.
-- (As Dube/Davison wrap up—not looking like they’re going to get that bronze I predicted, huh?—here come Pang/Tong, who I noticed a lot of bloggers have pegged for gold. Wow, an actual music miscue—haven’t heard one of those in a while. Hope it doesn’t affect their concentration. So far so good…)
-- As for Mr. Abbott: when I saw him take a hard fall in the warmup on a triple loop, and the camera followed him around a bit afterwards, he looked nothing like the “relaxed” guy I’d read about coming into Worlds. And he REALLY didn’t look happy at the end of that program (which left him all the way down in 10th). I’m going to have to go lower case this time as I say… poor Jeremeeee.
-- Oh, and my bronze pick Yannick Ponsero? Yep, that’s him… all the way down in 11h. He could still come up considerably on the free skate—he’s gone from 9th to 1st in other events, after all—but bronze is probably out of his reach at this point. Cue my “spoilers”…especially Kozuka and Lysacek.
-- (Speaking of spoilers, there goes Craig Buntin spoiling their awesome Tosca program by falling on an SBS jump… after flipping out of an earlier SBS…dang; wish they could do better.)

Well, now, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. The hardest part is stopping, as the final flight of pairs is still to come and I need to get to bed… again. More tomorrow night if I can squeak it in…