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2006 World Championships BlogMonday, March 20First, I feel like I need an official disclaimer. I am not in Calgary this week. I would give my right arm, or actually, pretty much any/all of my appendages, to go, but instead, I am stuck in the always thrilling Lansing, Michigan. Reasons for this include school, work, and a severe lack of cash flow. This blog merely contains my thoughts about the events of the week as I view them through the powers of the internet. They are not reviews from attending the actual competition. With that out of the way, let's get started, shall we? Today marked the opening day of the 2006 World Championships in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The event is being held in the Saddledome, home of the 1988 Olympics, and more recently, home to the 2000 Canadian National Championships. The arena is famous for being shaped like a saddle and for having an extremely small lower bowl. Tickets this week are famous for being overpriced, but I caution gripers to take a look at the cost of attending U.S. National Championships. Still, prices were moderately ridiculous, but a late push in sales ended up giving the event a respectable turnout. It's not sold out (so by all means, feel free to buy me a ticket to the free dance on Friday), but it's reasonably filled. Any complaints about the lack of a sellout can be directed to Pam Coburn, only not, because she's no longer with Skate Canada, but according to the haters, she is solely to blame for low ticket sales, or something. I didn't pay much attention to it, because instead of fitting into the "haters" group, I'm actually proud to be one of Pam Coburn's biggest fans. Seriously. Just ask her. But back on topic... Today kicked off with the Men's Qualifying Rounds, Group A. Those daring enough to brave the frigid arena at 9.15 am were in for a bit of a letdown, as the morning was littered with sub-par performances. Starting off the group was Canadian hopeful Emanuel Sandhu, but unfortunately, Sandhu Can-Do was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he was hiding out with his triple axel, which also failed to make an appearance. I haven't seen the program yet, and as a Sandhu fan, I'm not sure that I want to. From reports, it sounds like it was not only marred by mistakes, but altogether uninspired as well, leaving him in sixth place. Horrible luck that he had to skate first, and so early in the morning, but someone had to get stuck with it. The group was highlighted by Stéphane Lambiel's incredible performance, featuring two quad toes and he actually landed a real-live triple axel, and on his feet, at that! A single mistake on a triple flip left only the tiniest snag in an otherwise beautiful program. I admit, I'm a big fan of his skating, but I wasn't expected to be left in tears by his qualifying skate! I won't "if only" about the Olympics, but instead, I'll just hope that our world champion holds it together for the remaining portions of the competition. If he skates like that on Thursday, we should have ourselves a two-time Swiss world champion. How about that! Sitting in second, behind Lambiel, is Evan Lysacek. After starting his program with a terrifying fall on an attempted quad toe that was likely only called a triple, as well as a splat on a triple axel, he fought back for the rest of his program, going on to land two triple-triple combinations after the halfway mark. His second place ranking, ahead of Ilia Klimkin, is a point of contention. Klimkin landed a beauty of a quad toe loop, but only managed two triple-double combos. He left a lot of points on the table by only having two combinations and by placing his lowest scoring jumps in the second half of the program. I haven't seen either program yet, so I'll hold off on forming an opinion until I do, but given the technical content of both programs, I could see either skating coming out ahead, depending on the points scored through footwork and spins. In addition, I'm also quite the fan of Lysacek's skating...I have to rep Illinois, you know. Two Chinese are in fourth and fifth, Min Zhang ahead of Chengjiang Li. Both landed quads, and in fact, Zhang even landed both a quad toe and a quad salchow, and both have made marked improvements on their style and choreography. Instead of having Group B follow Group A, the pairs short program took place in the afternoon, breaking up the event a bit. As expected, Chinese and Russian pairs are in the medal places going into the free, and as expected, the order follows that of the recent Olympics. Zhang & Zhang are leading, but their countrymen, Pang & Tong, are only trailing them by .60. Both pairs executed relatively clean programs with impressive "air" elements and trouble on the side by side spins, but I felt that both teams also struggled with the program as a whole. Zhang & Zhang were solid, but I felt that they looked a little awkward with the choreography, as if they were still thinking everything through. Pang & Tong, on the other hand, had great flow, but I thought that they looked rushed and their elements were slightly unfinished, as is often the case with them. Just under two points back from second place are the top Russian pair, Petrova & Tikhonov, who also skated a clean program, save for a turnout on the landing of the throw by Petrova. They skated well, but I felt that their performance was not as good as at the Olympics, or the European Championships. Their skating between the elements was superb, but I detected bits of hesitation as far as the elements went, so I can understand their third place ranking. Still, the top three teams are all extremely close, as was expected. What was not expected by most is the fourth place standing of Marcoux & Buntin, the three-time Canadian champions. Also skating clean and electrifying the home crowd, they are less than half a point from the podium and in a great spot to, at the very least, improve on last year's ninth place finish. Their side by side triple toes were timed perfectly with the music, and they boasted the best executed side by side spins in the competition, as well as a solid throw triple loop and a very high and neat double twist. About a point and a half behind the Canadians are the Germans who have really burst onto the scene this year, Savchenko & Szolkowy, who ran into some problems with their throw jump. U.S. national champions Inoue & Baldwin are sitting in sixth place, a position which raised some eyebrows after they, once again, successfully completed a throw triple axel. It is the third one landed in competition, the third from them in the past three months, and obviously the first at a World Championships. However, the throw was not completed without a struggle, and when they did their side-by-side jumps, only double axels to begin with, Rena was in Calgary, but John was just about in Medicine Hat. Again, I haven't seen the programs yet, so I'll reserve judgment until I do, but the general consensus is that fourth through sixth places were extremely close. As far as the points go, they are less than two points apart, so it should not end up making too much of a difference in the free. In their first full year as seniors, Dubé & Davison lit up the arena to end up in an extremely respectable seventh place, ahead of Obertas & Slavnov and veterans Zagorska & Siudek. Hinzmann & Parchem gave a strong performance to round out the top ten. Finally, the rest of the men were up, and Group B began at 6.54 this evening, a distinct difference from the first group that skated at 9.15 am. Leading the group is the young Japanese star, Nobunari Oda. Along with the excitement of a first place finish in this group and scoring an excellent 144.90, Nobu has also put himself in an excellent place to secure two spots for Japan next year, important because both Nobu and Daisuke Takahashi are excellent skaters, and important because next year's host for Worlds is Tokyo. I'm having trouble locating reports of what was completed by the Group B skaters, but it appears that Oda completed quite a lot. With 137.90 and carrying 2.00 in deductions, home crowd favourite Jeffrey Buttle finished second in this group. Despite the deductions, he still had the third best technical scores, and his components that soared above the rest of the field kept him in second place. Rounding out the top three and securing the last spot in tomorrow's final flight of the short program is Frenchman Brian Joubert, just barely trailing Buttle with 136.20 points. He went back to his "Matrix" program, which proved to be a good strategy to keep the crowd involved at the end of a long day, but it wasn't quite enough to keep him going through the entire performance, leaving him to double some jumps at the end. Finally giving an answer to the will-he-or-won't-he in regards to the quad, Johnny Weir did, in fact, try a quad, but it was not successful. Still, I think it was a good move to try it in the qualifying round, like Lysacek, where the damage is reduced to 25% if unsuccessful. Weir earned 133.50 points, which is only about a point behind Joubert, when the factoring is applied. Alban Preaubert and Sergei Davydov round out the top six and the penultimate flight in the short. It's worth noting that Preaubert's technical scores were nearly as good as Oda's, but that the PCS mark held him back. Matt Savoie, a personal favourite of mine and fellow Illinoisan, struggled and managed only eighth place and 120.30 points. I hoped for better from him, but at least I got what I expected as far as the marks went - hugely undermarked on transitions. It just boggles my mind. The notion that Savoie has the best transitions in skating is almost universally accepted among a widely diverse skating fan population, as well as among commentators and other skating "experts." Why then, do the judges consistently give him only mediocre marks in transitions? Skating skills, performance, interpretation...I don't have as much of a problem with those, though I do think he's undermarked there as well, because those areas vary from performance to performance, depending on how well it is skated. As for transitions, they are the same from performance to performance as long as he skates the same program, and they're the same for everyone else as well, so I feel more confident about griping about the transitions mark, even without having seen his program, or anyone else in his group, for that matter. But this is getting lengthy, so I'll step down from my soapbox now and wrap things up. Overall, I would have to complain that the men gave lacklustre performances. It may only be qualifying, but it's still the World Championships. You know, it's that competition at the end of the year where everyone is supposed to come out and show their stuff and fight to the death? Yeah, that one. I certainly hope that the short program brings some more zing. Not needing more zing, however, are Stéphane Lambiel, who reminded us that, silver at the Olympics or not, he's still the reigning world champion, and Nobunari Oda, who reminded us how unfortunate last year's Worlds were for Japan, with Takahashi's meltdown, and Takeshi Honda breaking his ankle in qualifying. I would have loved to have seen this kid light up the Palavela in Torino, but at least the federation gave him a chance and let him tackle the Saddledome. The pairs, on the other hand, have made a statement, that the discipline has finally recovered from the retirement of its habitual leaders after Salt Lake, and that the pairs of tomorrow are ready for the challenge of taking over in the next quadrennium. I know I nitpicked about the way the programs of the top three came off, but really, the overall quality of pairs skating today is leaps and bounds ahead of what it was three years ago. Three years ago, we certainly did not see ten fantastic, clean (or close enough) short programs, and tonight, we sure did. Less than thirteen points separate tenth from first, and while I'm not expecting to see Hinzmann & Parchem crowned world champions on Wednesday afternoon, I do expect to see some movement and I think that the pairs have set up a fantastic competition. Finally, the Rockstar Award for Monday, March 20, goes to Valérie Marcoux & Craig Buntin. I suppose that's somewhat predictable if you know me, but honestly, way to light it up. Last month, they skated one of their most disappointing competitions since they were first crowned Canadian Champions, and they did it while the world was watching. Tonight, they came back fighting, confident, and ready, and they gave the home crowd a reason to get on its feet. It's funny, last week, I was chatting with certain Canadian national team members who shall remain nameless, and they were snickering at me because I was irritated about an article that said that Canada had medal chances in three disciplines, but that their pairs were way too far back to challenge. Well, it's true that this is only the short program and that a lot can change, and I won't say 'I told you so' just yet, but I think that by placing fourth in the short program, and being less than half a point from third and less than three points off of the lead, they've already proven that journalist wrong. Canada has the potential and ability to contend for medals in all four disciplines, thank you very much, and I've been saying it all year. The last time that Canada put a pair in the final flight at Worlds was five years ago, and it was about time for them to do it again. Whatever happens on Wednesday, Val & Craig can certainly be proud of themselves and of their effort for making it to this point. I know I'm proud of them. Archives -- Contact -- Features -- Guestbook -- Links -- Webmistress (c)2004-6 Melanie L. Hoyt All rights reserved. |