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2006 World Championships BlogThursday, March 23General disclaimer: I am not in Calgary. Instead, I'm in central Michigan, which is kind of like Calgary without the mountains, the Saddledome, and the beautiful skaters. Well, it's time for the original dance, and I'm selling clothes to cranky women in Lansing. There are a few nice ones, but by the time they get to me, I'm the cranky one, because I'm missing the original dance. Right after I leave work there, I have to head to my new job, at a scrapbook store, so much of Thursday night is spent catching up on the action that I missed, which is why I am late in posting this. I was kind of sure that Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto would take the OD, so colour me surprised when they finished fourth. I don't know; it was a tough call, and all of the top teams performed extremely well. Tanith & Ben's OD isn't my favourite, but the OD is generally their strongest portion of the event, so I expected that if they were going to lead, it was going to be here. Instead, it was Albena Denkova & Maxim Staviyski who continued to lead after the second phase. Just over a point in the lead in the OD, I thought their dance was very well-skated, but it wasn't my favourite. Then again, I really don't like the Latin combination on the ice in general. Still, I think that Albena & Maxim excel in less traditional forms of dance, and that they always look a little on the awkward side, as if they're holding back unnaturally, during the original dance - and not just this year in particular. Second in the original dance and with an incredible performance were Isabelle Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder. I have to admit that I never liked their OD this year, until I saw it as performed today. Their mambo section was absolutely mambo...tastic? I don't know, but I was thoroughly impressed with them. And in the appearance that made everyone in the arena hold their collective breath, Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon performed their original dance with flying colours, finishing to an eruption of cheers as they sailed through the final rotational lift, a variation on the lift that sent Marie flying to the ice at the Olympics. I spent most of the season disliking their original dance, but it's really grown on me, and I like that they found something different to fit into the prescribed rhythms. The lyrics may have been in French, but it is a rhumba, and I've finally stopped whining about the language of the song and accepted that. See? I can make progress. All feelings about their OD aside, they skated wonderfully well, and my heart cannot help but be with them. All year, I have been hoping that they would be able to challenge for the podium in Calgary, and I ended up getting my wish, even despite a serious injury, less than a month ago. Belbin & Agosto followed, finishing a surprising fourth in the original dance. It was by an extremely narrow margin; they were just over a point off of the lead, and I was fairly sure that the fourth place ranking in the original dance would put them in fighting mode for the free dance. Comeback veterans Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas, a Lithuania team that is always popular with the crowd, were only .05 points behind Belbin & Agosto to place fifth in the original dance, with yet another strong effort from a top team. Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin put an exclamation point on the fact that they are the new Russians on the scene by edging out Galit Chait & Sergei Sakhnovski of Israel for sixth place. Rounding out the top eight were Megan Wing & Aaron Lowe of Canada, establishing that they were not going to let an opportunity to help earn three dance spots for next year's worlds pass them by. Giving the strongest performance in an original dance that I have ever seen from them, they brought the appreciative home crowd to their feet, and scored a personal best. It's worth noting that since the weight of the components in ice dance has changed, no other team in the top ten at worlds this year (besides Drobiazko & Vanagas, who were competing under the Code of Points for the first time) has scored a personal best in any portion of the competition all season. Although their 52.24 just maintained their eighth place ranking from the compulsories, it was quite the accomplishment when you look at it more closely. American silver medalists Melissa Gregory & Denis Petukhov moved past Federica Faiella & Massimo Scali of Italy to place ninth in the original dance, but still remained behind them and in tenth overall. John Kerr & Sinead Kerr placed just barely behind Faiella & Scali for eleventh place. The free dance promises to be quite interesting, with several battles going on - among the top five spots, for sixth and seventh, and in places eighth through eleven. With the preliminary event done, the Saddledome was ready for the banner event of the day and for the second set of medals to be awarded this week. The majority of those in the Saddledome were ready to cheer on the Canadian men to make the jump onto the podium, but some of the earlier competitors were eager to make moves of their own. The first competitor to make a giant statement was Frenchman Alban Preaubert who wanted to remind everyone that France had more than one competitor at these championships. Though he skated seventh, he delivered a free skate that would hold up well all night, one that ended up in sixth place. He even boasted the fourth best technical mark of the event and improved on a seventeenth place short program to wind up eighth overall. Also making a move and developing an impressive track record for free skate comebacks was Evan Lysacek, who won bronze last year. Skating fifth in the penultimate group, he took the lead with his performance that included a quad toe loop combination, though two-footed. He would have a long wait ahead of him, but his score would end up as the third best free skate and he would find himself earning a repeat bronze medal. Nobunari Oda of Japan has certainly had quite the season. After becoming the Junior World Champion last year, he made a big splash on the senior Grand Prix by winning bronze at Skate Canada and taking the title at NHK Trophy. In a bizarre series of events, he first won the Japanese National Championships and was given the gold medal, but later, it was determined that an error in the computer software had calculated his score incorrectly. The gold medal was taken back and replaced with a silver, and the Japanese Skating Federation sent champion Daisuke Takahashi to the Olympics, promising Oda a trip to Calgary. He made the most of this trip and really started off the final group with an excellent performance, but again, was bested by the rules. One of his combinations did not count, he ended up in fifth place, and I would recommend that he study the Code of Points over the summer! Still, it is a performance that he can certainly be proud of. Not many people can break the top five in their first year at Senior Worlds. The task of following Oda fell to Brian Joubert and while some may have cracked at the pressure of responding to a standing ovation from the previous skater, Joubert built on the energy of the crowd, and I don't know that I have ever seen him skate better. Returning to "The Matrix" for his free skate proved to be an excellent decision for him, and in a program that included two quad toe loops, he took the lead and made quite the statement. After a couple of rough years, he was back, and he was the one to beat. Unfortunately, Jeff Buttle could not live up to the standards that Joubert set, and although the crowd was very appreciative of their Olympic bronze medalist, Jeff did not skate his best. Without a quad, he could afford no more mistakes, and unfortunately, he popped both of his triple axel attempts. Even his outstanding components scores could not make up the deficit on a night of such great skating and he fell to seventh in the free and sixth overall. I was very nervous about Emanuel Sandhu following Buttle, because I feel like Sandhu has such a head case about their rivalry, but he proved me wrong by skating very well. Although he has skated better, it was a performance about which he could be extremely happy, delivering an opening quad toe loop in combination with a double toe, and rotating and landing both triple axels, something with which he has struggled all season. Fourth in the free and fifth overall, he was less than six points from third place, and it's a bit sobering to realize that if he had really maximized the levels on the footwork and spins at the end of his program, he would have ended up on the podium. I felt like he started to rush through the elements towards the end, probably out of excitement over a solid effort, and it looks like that may have cost him. He's among the best spinners in the world, and only receiving a level one for a camel spin feels like a wasted opportunity. But I'm only so critical of him because I adore his skating, and I really believe in his ability. I am happy for him, and it must feel great to end an up-and-down season on a positive note. An ailing Johnny Weir was given the task of following Sandhu in front of thousands of excited Canadians, and it proved to be a bit much for him. Not soft-spoken about how he didn't really want to be in Calgary, he unfortunately had back spasms to deal with, along with a decreased motivation. He gave a solid effort, though, receiving credit for a quad toe loop after a beautiful triple axel-triple toe combination that opened his program. The back injury was really hurting him on spins, and as a result, two of his spins were downgraded to level ones, which of course had to contribute to his eighth place finish in the free, seventh overall. Skating through injury is always difficult, and he reminded his country of why he is the three-time national champion with this performance. Finally, the defending world champion was to take the ice and close the event. He still had a chance to win the title, but he had to be nearly perfect and although he was also fighting through injury, Stéphane Lambiel was just what he needed to be - nearly perfect. He opens his free program with his nemesis, the triple axel, and when he landed it (although we later found out that it was downgraded to a double), I knew that he had a chance. The following quad toe-triple toe combination was textbook and scored him a gigantic 14 points, and it sealed the deal with the crowd, who would be with him the whole way through. A slight mistake on the next jump, a triple loop, was the only noticeable fault to a beautiful program, one that equaled Joubert's technical content when he completed another quad toe, this one after the halfway mark and earning a bonus. In the end, the free skate and the title were his, unquestionably. I watched the performance with teary eyes and I gave into the tears as he finished, leaping to my feet in my living room when the first place showed up at the bottom of my screen. So despite a knee injury, a world champion successfully defends his title. Despite being written off by just about everying, and I confess, this includes me, a European champion proves that he can still belong at the top. And despite already defying the odds to make an incredible free skate comeback once this season, my hometown hero repeats as the bronze medalist. I only have one thing left to say about this. Seriously...what a good looking podium! If you know me at all, then you should know who's about to get the Rockstar of the Day award, because I haven't stopped gushing about them for five minutes during the past year. And I purposely waited to post this until after the free dance, so I could gush about them without restraint. Today's rockstars are, without a doubt, Megan Wing & Aaron Lowe, and since you might be scratching your head over how someone in eighth place can be a rockstar over two guys who landed two quads apiece, I'm about to tell you why. Last week, I sort of accidentally found out that Aaron was battling an injury, and then when my friends and I learned what was going on, we were...I don't even think there's a word for it. So while I was watching Megan and Aaron skate the most amazing original dance I've seen them do this season, and possibly the best one I've ever seen from them, all I can think about is how he missed two weeks of training right after the Olympics because he severed a tendon in his foot, practicing the compulsory dance that didn't even get picked for this championship. On top of that, they actually beat their personal best in an event where most teams were scoring about 3 or 4 points below theirs, with some teams even scoring about 9 points below their PBs. They did this and ten days beforehand, Aaron was on crutches. To top this all off, this isn't the first time they've had to skate on a freak injury at a gigantic event. This time, it was Aaron's foot, when they finally had the chance to skate at a Worlds at home, weeks after they finally made it to the Olympic Games. Three years ago, they had finally made it back to the world championships after spending the previous two years sitting at home, thinking about how great Nice was, and before the free dance, Megan tore her meniscus (in her knee) doing some stretching, not even on the ice. It may have me asking why bad things always happen to them, but it's situations like these that make me see how incredible they are, just when I think I can't admire them any more. So yes, for earning a standing ovation, and truly earning it (the sympathy factor was non-existent since they didn't tell anyone all of what was going on until the end of their competition), Megan & Aaron are today's rockstars of the day. Archives -- Contact -- Features -- Guestbook -- Links -- Webmistress (c)2004-7 Melanie L. Hoyt All rights reserved. |