Day Three (of 2010 Worlds): OD and Men's final...

My Original Dance notes are as follows: No one fell.
There… do you really need to know anything else? :-)

Well, there’s a little movement in the standing that’s worth talking about…

+ Faiella/Scali had some twizzle trouble that might have put their potential bronze medal in jeopardy…
+ Except that then Pechalat/Bourzat went out and had practically the same mistake. So those two are still 3rd and 4th.
+ Khoklova/Novitski had a sub par OD as well… it was enough to drop them to 6th overall, nearly 4 whole points behind…
+... The Kerrs (yay!), who made the interesting decision to abandon their Johnny Cash number in favor of their Scottish, kilts-for-two folk dance from several years back. Twizzles were OK, everything else clean too… and they’re in 5th and less than a point out of 4th.
+ The Zaretskys (ISR) came up a notch and are now in 7th…
+ Crone and Poirier (CAN) did the same and are now in 8th…
+ Cappellini/Lanotte (ITA) are the other ones that had an off day in the OD. Home country crowd booed as they fell from 7th to 10th overall.
+ Though Samuelson/Bates (USA) seemed to skate well and had the 10th best OD (and the 10th best compulsories)… their OD score was several points below their season’s best (look for protocols), and they are in 11th overall. The good news is that they are only .05 behind #10 (Cappellini/Lanotte)…and unlike last year with Davis/White missing the podium by about that much, there’s still another phase of the competition to come.
+ For anyone who follows Cathy and Chris Reed, representing Japan… they came back from 23rd in compulsories to have the 14th best OD and pulled all the way up to 16th overall. Pretty unusual move for ice dancing!


And later in the day, the men’s season came to an end. Here’s what I saw:


Ryan Bradley: 4 toe landed, though waay pitched forward… 2nd attempt (at other end of rink) FALL. 3ax 2’d I think… 3lutz ok… lots of footwork, eventually taking him to 3 flip OK… 3Loop way off axis, but he saved it… (where are the combos??) Ah, ask and ye shall receive… 3sal/3loop nice… then a 3/2/2 (I think)…big combo spin… end. I suppose he will be the court jester in just about any ice show he can find in his pro career. (Should add that Weir mentioned yesterday that he’s about the nicest guy in the biz right now, always with a joke (no kidding!), and “loves a good video game”.)
123.14/179.24 Total. FINISHED 18th.

Javier Fernandez (SPAIN): I didn’t see but the last 1/3 of his program and in fact he looked rather tired… but based on crowd reaction (and his own) I think made a good impression. On the replays it appears he fell out of his Quad toe, but 2 Triple axels were clean as well as other jumps…144.01/215.66. FINISHED 12th.

Denis Ten (KAZ, also Joined In Progress)… 3Loop popped…3lutz/2toe rough… 3 sal to 2axel sequence… he looks tired. But good combo spin at the end with a MAN-Biel (male Bielmann spin)…looking at the replays, I see he fell on a triple flip I think. 125.06/202.46 Total. FINISHED 13th.

Sergei Voronov (RUS)… 4 toe landed!...then the bad pop on 3axel… saw a FALL on another 3axel…(sorry, had some interruptions on watching this one)… nice 3flip/3toe… spreadeagle (?) into 3 sal/2toe/2loop… 2axel… 127.18/200.60 Total. FINISHED 14th.

Oh boy, Italy’s Samuel Contesti is here and he brought his panpipes again!…3axel fall out…3flip good…3lutz good. Combo spin…circular FW…change-foot sit spin… 3ax hand down, still combo’d it w/3 toe that was OK… split to 3Loop… 2axel… 3sal/3toe scratchy, but done… one more crazy 2 axel combo that finally failed him and he went splat on the last one. Aw… sloppy work but he looks like he had fun, and he’s feeling the homecrowd love. Good. 140.26/218.66 Total. FINISHED 7th.

Adam Rippon’s up next: 3flip/3toe NICE…3axel flip out again (same problem as in SP; adds 2toe anyway…really flexible and creative change foot spin… 3loop… GREAT 3axel!! ‘Tano 3lutz… then “Rippon” 3lutz/2toe/2loop… Russian split to 3salchow!! Wait for it … combo spin…OK, he’s done and I can say it: THIS almost..COMLETELY.ROCKED. except for the 1st axel. But otherwise… SO excited for this guy’s future. 151.36/231.47 Total. FINISHED 6th… awesome debut.

Adrian Schultheiss is here too, and he brought his crazy pills: 4 toe-got it. (I’m still pulling for top 10 with this guy. 3axel/2toe good… 3lutz (?)/2toe… ah, learned to love this circular FW and all it’s wicked Pac-man funkiness. 2nd 3ax good! 3flip good, real nice run out… 3loop little forward but OK…. 3salchow good. Last jumping pass (a 3/2/2) is completed but shaky all around… aaaaugh!!! (that’s me re-creating his primal scream at the end) 145.91/ 218.26 Total… FINISHED 9th. (He’s so nice for fulfilling my goals for him…)

Kevin VanDerPerren just did a freaking quad/triple/triple… and a triple axel after that. Jeez! Then a 2flip… will he have anything left for the rest of the FS? Looong break till next pass.. 3flip... then a 3flip/2toe at the other end…3 loop… 2axel… dang, I would never have guessed him to skate so relatively strong … 3salchow barely hung on, but still… ! Immediately threw his hands over his mouth in shock at the end. Then bent down and kissed the ice, I think. Way to go! (NOTE—this wasn’t same FS as he used in Vancouver… Wylie informs us his music is “familiar to anyone who’s ever been to Disneyworld”… I’ve never been, so I’ll have to take his word on that.)
144.88, season’s best… 218.43 TOTAL. FINISHED 8th.

Fill fill fill with what is rapidly becoming “the loft crew” (Carruthers, Lipinski, Weir) as the ice gets resurfaced. Peter desperately needs to find another word for Wow… drinking game people, take note!

Meanwhile, here’s the online Thesaurus alternatives for “wow” (as a verb):
bowl over, break one up, charm, cheer, crack up, entertain, go over big, kill*, knock dead, knock someone's socks off, make laugh, make roll in the aisles, slay, tickle, tickle pink, tickle to death…

Sorry, Peter… but remember when I interviewed you for my book Skating on Air, and you said you didn’t remember any particular phrase you leaned on too much? I’m just saying…. (Oh, wait, he also indicated he didn’t really read skating blogs.)
Anyway, back to work:

Jeremy Abbott: (I’m nervous for JeremEEE). 4 toe… underrotated; FALL. (sigh) 3flip little forward, no combo (uh-oh)… 3axel/3toe good (whew)… 2axel out of footwork FALL (wha…??). 3axel/2toe good (exhale)… 3lutz/2toe/2loop ok (hang in there)… 3loop had to fight for it a little (I said HANG IN THERE)…3salchow OK (thank you)… “he missed the hardest jump.. and the easiest jump,” noted Wylie. Word.
151.05/232.10 total… just barely over Rippon… FINISHED 5th.
And that guarantees 3 spots for next year. Yea!

Takahiko Kozuka: FALL on 4toe…3axel popped/2toe. Oh, pull it together… 3lutz/2toe/2loop ok…footwork galore, till 3sal/2toe…3axel #2 opened up into some incomplete mess… 3 flipOK…3loop OK…3lutz OK…nice spin at end, but I’m only counting five triples to Abbott’s and Rippon’s seven each.
132.53/216.73 Total. Ouchie. FINISHED 10th, which seemed low even under the circumstances.

Brian Joubert: quad #1/2toe Done…quad #2 Done… can he get the 3ax landed too? Yes… 3lutz? No… fall (Wylie indicates it comes too soon in the program after the axel. Hmmm)… 3flip is a mess… another 3lutz (w/2toe); this one’s OK… 3loop ugly…3sal/2toe/2toe OK…is this redemption? Hard to say.
154.04/241.74 Total. WON BRONZE… and you know what? I think he should have had silver over…

Patrick Chan: 3ax/2toe OK but put other foot down near end… 3flip/3toe OK…3lutz good… 3 axel good… 3lutz/2toe/2loop good… 3loop FALL… 3salchow, off-balance yet again… 2axel. 159.42 /247.22 Total. WON SILVER.

Michal Brezina: 3axel good… 3flip nice… 3salchow, yep… 3axel/2toe good.. 3flip/2toe not so much… 2axel… 3lutz good…2ax/2toe/2loop good… simpler than others, but also much cleaner. 154.31/236.06 Total. FINISHED 4th. (I see Ripon/Brezina smackdowns in the future…”

Daisuke Takahashi attempted a 4 flip where his other quad used to be. Do the judges even know how to score that?! Everything in his program is stellar, 3flip/2toe… 3loop… 3flip/3toe has some trouble. But then triple salchow…2nd triple axel was better than the first…3lutz OK… 2ax/2toe…Done, and a quad flip!!??!?!
168.40/257.70 total. WINS GOLD.

Ladies get started bright and early; Free dance follows in the afternoon….