Event Previews
2011-2012 Previews
Nice Prepares For a Battle Royale
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- Created on Sunday, 25 March 2012 03:14
by Jacquelyn Thayer & IDC Staff
The lovely city of Nice, on the French Riviera, has played host to the World Figure Skating Championships once before, in 2000. That year, the typically static ice dance event saw back-and-forth movement between rivals, a terrible on-ice accident, and a triumphant home team. While radical changes have been made to the sport in the 12 years since that competition, the inherent drama of the World Championships remains a constant. This year, the ice dance event is expected to feature several close battles in its record field of 38 teams. The entire season has been building to this, and the showdown here will be as spectacular as its environs.
For the reigning world champions, Meryl Davis & Charlie White of the United States, the season has been one of consistency. With minor exceptions, their programs have remained unchanged from their Grand Prix outings, with training adjustments based more on movement and expression, particularly focusing on intensifying the "Latin flavor" of their short dance. The team took gold at their first four events of the season, including the Grand Prix Final, improving upon their scores with each outing. Combined with their unbeaten season in 2010-2011, Davis & White were on a 10 event winning streak.
The Four Continent Championships, however, disrupted that trend. In home-country ice in Colorado Springs, the team earned their lowest free dance score of the season due to level 3s on most elements, and the streak was snapped as training partners and reigning Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir of Canada took the top step of the podium away from the Americans for the first time since the 2010 World Championships. Davis & White have acknowledged the added incentive of the second-place finish into the World Championships.
"The role of the hunted is something we've had to adjust to over the last two years," Davis said, "but the role of the hunter is something we're very familiar with."
World's Best Juniors Turn Up the Heat in Minsk
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- Created on Sunday, 26 February 2012 19:41
by Melanie Hoyt
This week, 32 junior ice dance teams will descend upon Minsk, Belarus, to compete in the 2012 World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Fortunately, the temperatures have stopped descending in Minsk. The deadly cold spell the plagued the country earlier this month has snapped, and the temperatures outside should not be much worse than the temperatures at ice level. The competition will certainly heat things up inside the rink, where the rest of the world's best junior teams try to fend off a Russian podium sweep. A sweep has only happened once before, by the Soviet Union in 1988.
For the second year in a row, the competition is divided into two segments. Countries are awarded direct entries to the short dance based on results from last year's event, and 14 teams—many of which are top contenders—have until Wednesday to get settled in Belarus. For the remaining 18 teams, though, competition will begin on Monday with the preliminary round free dance. The top 11 finishers in that event will advance to the short dance. Between the short dance and the free dance, the field will be reduced from 25 to 20 teams.
The three Russian teams that threaten to repeat their podium sweep from the Junior Grand Prix Final are all direct entries to the short dance. They are led by Victoria Sinitsina & Ruslan Zhiganshin, the strongest team on the international junior circuit this season. Sinitsina & Zhiganshin easily won both of their Junior Grand Prix assignments, setting an ISU season's best score of 151.10 in Innsbruck, Austria. They won the JGP Final by a margin of almost 11 points, and they took the Russian junior title at the beginning of February. It seems that only a disaster will prevent them from perfecting their season and adding a World Junior title to their list of accolades.
Russia's second and third entries, Alexandra Stepanova & Ivan Bukin and Anna Yanovskaya & Sergey Mozgov, are more closely matched. Stepanova & Bukin have the advantage of time; they are closing in on six years together. They also won both of their JGP assignments in the fall, but took home a second consecutive bronze medal from the JGP Final, finishing behind Yanovskaya & Mozgov. The rankings were flipped at the Russian Junior Championships, when Stepanova & Bukin won the silver medal, closing the gap between them and Sinitsina & Zhiganshin to within three points. Stepanova & Bukin's ISU season's best score is 149.98, and if their countrymen falter, they may be ready to step in.
A Pair of Exciting Contests Expected at Four Continents
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- Created on Tuesday, 07 February 2012 20:08
by Jacquelyn Thayer
As the home of U.S. Figure Skating, Colorado Springs, Colo., is a deservedly popular competition base. This week, it will host the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships for the third time in a seven-year span. When the city last hosted the event in 2007, current Olympic and world champions entered as the runners-up to North America's then-top couples. Future champions may once again be honing their competitive skills here, amidst a diverse field that encompasses teams from Canada to Kazakhstan.
Prepare for Round Two of the season's battle between Meryl Davis & Charlie White and Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir. The first match at December’s Grand Prix Final went to Davis & White, but the outcome of the second is no easier to predict. Most recently, each couple added a fourth national title to their records. While Davis & White set new personal bests at the U.S. Championships with two strong skates, Virtue & Moir earned season's best program component marks at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships for their newly-tweaked programs.
As the distance separating the two teams in the GPF's free dance was narrow enough for a single GOE correction to give Virtue & Moir an additional 0.5 points and unofficial win in that segment, the short dance may once again serve as the greater deciding factor. Davis & White have improved their levels and technical marks over the course of the season, earning all level 4s at the GPF and only one level 3 on the first Rhumba sequence at the U.S. Championships. Virtue & Moir have yet to achieve an all-level-4 program, and had uncharacteristic but significant errors at both the GPF and the Canadian Championships. A clean and sharp event for both teams would even the playing field and give both teams and idea of where they stand, heading into the World Championships.
Read more: A Pair of Exciting Contests Expected at Four Continents
The Best in the U.S. Prepare to Battle in San Jose - Senior Preview
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- Created on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 17:16
The senior ice dance event at the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Championships is an embarrassment of riches. Two of the three teams from the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships podium highlight a field of skaters who possess too many medals to count. With relationships and former partnerships that intersect and intertwine more than the most elaborate spider's web, the athletes on the roster this week in San Jose, Calif., will show the audience why ice dance has become the top discipline in the United States. The downside to all of this talent? Too many outstanding teams will go home without a national medal.
Read more: The Best in the U.S. Prepare to Battle in San Jose - Senior Preview
The Best in the U.S. Prepare to Battle in San Jose - Junior Preview
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- Created on Monday, 23 January 2012 16:49
by Jacquelyn Thayer
When the junior ice dancers compete this coming week at the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, they face an impressive legacy from the junior dancers who competed the last time San Jose, California hosted Nationals. The Junior Class of 1996 included five future Winter Olympians: Jessica Joseph & Charles Butler (Nagano, '98), Naomi Lang (Salt Lake City, '02 with Peter Tchernyshev), Melissa Gregory (Torino, '06 with Denis Petukhov), all of whom represented the United States, plus Kristin Fraser who competed in '02 and '06 for Azerbaijan with now-husband Igor Lukanin.
Thirteen teams will compete for spots on the podium and potential trips to the World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Twelve of the teams earned their way through one of the three Sectional competitions.
Read more: The Best in the U.S. Prepare to Battle in San Jose - Junior Preview