Some 4CC thoughts for you...
PAIRS: Simply stated, the World Team goals for the top North
American pairs teams seem to break out like this:
With no Pang/Tong (Injured? Exhausted?), no Sui/Han (Long-term
injured? Long-term exhausted?), and no Takahashi/Tran (broken up), this year’s
4CC was all about Canada
and the U.S.
And they fell in line as you might expect: Canada 1st and 2nd;
U.S. 3rd and 4th. The good news for Canada
is that their one-two punch keeps getting stronger. Duhamel/Radford’s total
score of 199.18 would have given them the bronze medal in last month’s European
Championships, while Moore-Towers/Moscovitch’s total of 196.78 would’ve been
plenty for fourth place. Even better news for Canada —maybe—
is that Duhamel/Radford in particular had plenty of room for technical
improvement in their free skate. So in theory, they could do even better at
Worlds. But will they...? Or will M-T/Mosco get the advantage (and the medal)?
The good news for the U.S.
pairs of Castelli/Shnapir and Zhang/Bartholomay is that they gained much-needed international experience and skated
fairly well (in “Euros” terms they’d have ended up in the 6th/7th
place range). The bad news for the U.S.
is that we just do NOT have a one-two punch. And with only one of the U.S.
4CC teams headed to Worlds, while another (Denney/Coughlin) tries to heal up in
time for the trip... and all other recent Worlds pair competitors from the U.S.
either split up (Marley/Brubaker, Evora/Ladwig) or re-teamed and split up AGAIN
(Davis/Ladwig, who parted company last week)... momentum simply continues to
elude us.
DANCE
Without Weaver/Poje at this event, the top skaters were
all-American with a big dash of Canadian at its core. Because the rookie team
of Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier is progressing quickly, but not quite that quickly, you know? (Kudos to them
for finishing 5th nonetheless.)
So a battle for bronze emerged between the
Chock/Bates: 160.42 4CC; 175.91 Nats
Shib Sibs: 159.97 4CC; 174.21 Nats
So whether skating for international judges or national ones
(with traditionally higher scores all-around), it has become a virtual dead
heat—with Chock/Bates getting the edge both times, and in this case, the Shib
Sibs just missing out on the 4CC bronze medal for the second year in a row. Shibs
devotees must be losing their minds as we head into Worlds, wondering what it
could possibly take for the Sibs to feel the judicial love that was first
heaped upon them two years ago. And it surely doesn’t help that, as some of you
mentioned in the last post, that these two teams also represent opposite sides
of the Zueva/Shpilband coaching split of last summer.
And then came a little something I’m calling CARMENUS
INTERRUPTUS. If you haven’t yet seen Virtue/Moir’s FD from a few days ago, take
a look at it here ... it’s at the 2:56 mark when they seemingly missed a lift, then stopped the
program altogether, then ping-ponged back and forth between their coaches and
the judges a few times (well, Scott did anyway), then picked up where they left
off 4 minutes later and finished the rest of the program—complete with the
previously aborted lift. No, they didn’t win—Davis/White did, with another
season’s best score I believe—but their silver medal-worthy performance has
generated plenty of chatter just the same: Why no deduction for stopping down
the program? Why was so much time allowed for them to regroup and continue? Why
did they get another shot at that lift? Was it really another case of leg
cramps for Virtue (as she indicated later), or did Moir screw up the lift the
first time around?
Even though the deduction thing has been explained here and
there (with the most recent non-deduction happening with the Shib Sibs during
last fall’s GP series), I think the questions will remain for a while—at least
until we see what unfolds at Worlds next month.
Personally I try to cheer on V/M as much as I can—for a D/W
fan, anyway—but I can’t help but feel Moir is developing an above-the-law
attitude I can neither appreciate nor relate to in any manner. And last
weekend’s events only reinforced that feeling.
Men’s and Ladies commentary still to come... can you believe
I haven’t yet taken a look at Kevin Reynolds’ gold-medal free skate??
1 comment:
I totally agree with you about Scott. It sometimes seems in interviews that he kind of thinks he and Tessa are entitled to win unless something REALLY bad happens.
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