Ice Challenge 2011: Expect Fierce Fights for the Podium

The 2011 Ice Challenge will be held Nov. 1-6 in Graz, Austria. Ice Challenge is an annual competition hosted by the Austrian Figure Skating Association and sanctioned by the International Skating Union. Skaters compete at the international senior, junior and novice levels. Eleven teams representing eight countries are currently scheduled to compete, although recent weeks have shown us that rosters change at the last minute.

Louise Walden & Owen Edwards of Great Britain won Ice Challenge in 2010 and will be in Graz to defend their title. Walden & Edwards will be competing in back-to-back events for the second time this season as they finished fifth at Cup of Nice last week. They have steadily improved their performances over the first part of the season, but chose to scrap their free dance to music from the Burlesque soundtrack and debut their new free dance to Love Actually.

In 2009, Lynn Kriengkrairut & Logan Giulietti-Schmitt won the silver medal at Ice Challenge and could claim gold in 2011. Kriengkrairut & Giulietti-Schmitt have the advantage of familiarity; they are seasoned skaters and well matched after five years of skating together. The team came in fifth at last year’s nationals and sixth at Skate America in 2010; their personal best score of 130.72, set in 2010 at Skate America, is much higher than most of the other competitors.

Another American duo is also in the medal hunt: Isabella Cannuscio & Ian Lorello (pictured). They made their senior debut in 2011 and finished sixth at nationals, seventh at Trophée Eric Bompard and 10th at Cup of China. This summer, they won the free dance at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships by one hundredth of a point. Two weeks ago at Skate America, they came in seventh, scoring 115.22.

Like Walden & Edwards, Siobhan Heekin-Canedy & Dmitriy Dun are competing in back-to-back events, only the Ukrainians were making their debut last week at Cup of Nice, where they finished seventh. Now that they have one competition under their belts, they’ll look to improve upon the score posted last week, 101.70.

Hungary sends two teams to Graz. Zsuzsanna Nagy & Balazs Major have been a team since 2009 and are two-time Hungarian silver medalists. This is their second event of the season as they finished fourth at Ondrej Nepela Memorial. They are joined by Dora Turoczi & Balazs Major, who finished seventh at this event last year. Although the team competed at two Grand Prix events in 2010, they did not receive any assignments in 2011 due to the truncated rosters.

Junior and senior short dances as well as novice pattern dances will take place on Thursday, November 3rd with the free dances on Friday. The event will be streaming live (and free!) at http://www.icechallenge.at.