Managed to watch most of this event(I overslept and missed most of the pairs free this morning), along with my Twitter feed, which is showing a disturbing level of hate and conspiracy theorizing directed at Gracie Gold. Though that bothered me a lot less after watching her skate her free; nothing they say can make her less exquisite. The highlight of the event, really, was watching all three of her, Ashley Wagner, and Akiko Suzuki show what they really can do when all three of them had left us with varying levels of doubt. One only wishes Jeremy Abbott had similarly taken advantage of this event…
Deeply sorry for what happened to Kostya, but you can’t say it didn’t serve Russia right. They snubbed him, they threw him this bone, he likely would’ve beaten Kovtun had he not had that fall, and now without him they couldn’t medal. But while one would hope he would recover quickly, as his age and history you seriously wonder if this could be it for him.
I am also getting more and more thoughts about the Russian baby ballerines lately, but that’s long enough I might eventually give it its own post, and it’s not really directly related to the WTT anyway.
Is it just me, or are there more instances lately of pairs events being more cleanly skated than singles events? Of course, when there are only five pairs, there’s less chance for messes. And of course, the ladies event suddenly turned good near the end anyway.
It seems things still can’t go quite right for Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje. This may just be the team event, but you still wonder how much being beaten by Chock & Bates damages their Olympic medal chances, or even their prospects if they choose to stay after Sochi. But there really need to be more events to send Ksenia Monko & Kirill Khalavian to.
Worlds:
Qualifiers for World Team Trophy
David Dore speaks on new rules & team competition
2015 short dance details announced
Purich & Tran confirmed
Following the ladies short from my computer at work today, crabby because our shared drives had malfunctioned and undone a whole lot of work I’d done on them *again,* I was initially very upset when I realized Gold and Wagner were not going to finish the night in three-spots position, and even if the latter could easily pass the two skaters just ahead of her in the free, the three skaters right behind her could even more easily pass her. But then I considered first poor Elene Gedevanishvili, not even making the free, though in her case her chances of qualifying for Sochi at Nebelhorn are pretty good, and then the Russian ladies, now needing some major comebacking to get three spots, and when their field was already shaping up to be far more of a bloodbath than the American ladies field would be with three. That really is a damn shame. Puts Gold & Wagner’s plight into perspective. Still, I’m going to be a wreck trying to watch Saturday night.
At least I properly enjoyed watching the short dance tonight, though I was anxious for Weaver & Pojé, but they seem to be doing fine. But now my twitter feed all seem to be of the opinion that the judging was an outrage, while all spouting different claims of how it was an outrage, some of which contradict each other. Pechalat & Bourzat deserve to be ahead of Bobrova & Soloviev , or behind Weaver & Pojé, or W&P don’t deserve to be put so high above Chock & Bates, or C&B are scored to high anyway. So…yeah. I think I’m just going to be happy Sara Hurtado & Adria Diaz got into the free, and I’d embed their short dance here, but there isn’t a vid available yet that I know of, so instead have a pair of Brits that I’m also very happy for:
ISU releases requirements for next year’s short dance
Lots of people interviewed
Dancing on Ice Finale
Other reality show updates
EDI Awards
JGP, GPF, Japanese Nationals, & Worlds locations announced
Russian Cup Finale underway in Tver
Canada adds skaters to Worlds roster, Spain downsizes for strategy
Tanaka out of Junior Worlds, lots of skaters out of Challenge Cup
Bavarian Open concludes with free dances
Hellmut Seibt Memorial takes place in Vienna
Evgeni Plushenko files libel complaint
Lots of people interviewed
Team Week on Dancing on Ice
Brubaker & Berton announce engagement
