\u00a0<\/p>\n
by Melanie Hoyt <\/p>\n
With their program to \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain,\u201d Jennifer Wester and Daniil Barantsev danced their way to the top of the free dance standings and the top of the podium. Of the three teams that competed, Wester and Barantsev were the only team with experience together, and it showed. After performances that were somewhat disappointing in the first two phases of the competition, they soared to the finish with an overall seventeen-point lead on the silver medalists. They performed with a lovely light quality and appeared secure in their elements and with the choreography.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went well,\u201d Wester said of their free dance. \u201cWe just tried to put it all together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although this is the first season that they have been able to compete internationally, Barantsev insists that their training been at the same level of intensity during the past couple of years. \u201cNo, we\u2019ve been training the whole time,\u201d he said. \u201cIt isn\u2019t any different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mauri Gustafson and Joel Dear put on a great show for the crowd assembled at the Onyx-Suburban Skating Academy with a hip-hop program that earned them a silver medal. Set to a medley of music that ranged from \u201cTainted Love\u201d to \u201cSexy Love\u201d to \u201cLove Don\u2019t Cost a Thing,\u201d Gustafson and Dear performed with great enthusiasm and executed all of their elements confidently. They have quite a presence on the ice, especially for a new team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt really good about today,\u201d Gustafson said. \u201cWe were a little nervous, because it\u2019s a hip-hop program and it\u2019s something new, but we just really enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although they haven\u2019t set specific goals for Nationals, Gustafson said, \u201cI think it\u2019s more to make a splash than to go for a specific placement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dear knows that the hip-hop program is a risk. He explained, \u201cOne of the things we realized when we started doing this program and we came up with the concept for it is that a lot of people probably won\u2019t like it \u2013 and probably several people on the panel. We just want to perform well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Performing well was also a goal for Stacy Kim and Jonathan Harris, who skated a brand new free dance to \u201cAranjuez.\u201d Their skate was rough around the edges, and some of the elements were shaky, but they are a well-matched team with long lines. Since their program was only three weeks old, getting through it as well as they did was certainly an accomplishment.<\/p>\n
Harris was up-front about their expectations for this weekend. \u201cI think the biggest goal for this competition was to get out the jitters and compete before Nationals. You definitely don\u2019t want the first competition, the first showing of a program, to be at Nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n
All three teams will compete at Nationals in January.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 by Melanie Hoyt With their program to \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain,\u201d Jennifer Wester and Daniil Barantsev danced their way to the top of the free dance standings and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_gspb_post_css":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recap-archive"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,true],"et-pb-post-main-image":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?resize=400%2C250&ssl=1",400,250,true],"et-pb-post-main-image-fullwidth":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?resize=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,true],"et-pb-portfolio-image":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1",400,284,true],"et-pb-portfolio-module-image":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?resize=489%2C382&ssl=1",489,382,true],"et-pb-portfolio-image-single":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?fit=489%2C489&ssl=1",489,489,true],"et-pb-gallery-module-image-portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?resize=400%2C489&ssl=1",400,489,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/NOFM.jpg?resize=45%2C45&ssl=1",45,45,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Team IDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/author\/idcadmin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\u00a0 by Melanie Hoyt With their program to \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain,\u201d Jennifer Wester and Daniil Barantsev danced their way to the top of the free dance standings and the […]","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7GOSM-eT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5662,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/5662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}