Thanks to the ISU’s free stream I was, by going to bed a little early at night, able to watch the whole thing, except for the pairs short and half the free dance, which I accidentally slept through, and get tweets from everyone(except those unfortunates in Korea, and, ironically enough, Japan, who apparently had to wait on delayed TV coverage). Just a few thoughts:
Mainly, what is with all the Canada hate? Yes, Patrick Chan is annoying, and yes, it was nice to see some other guy win for once. But why hold his against his countrymen the way everyone seems to be doing? Seriously, Scott Moir, coming off a disappointing performance at an event that didn’t serve him and Tessa well in 2009 either, makes one little off quip about not liking the WTT, and everyone reacts like he’s threatened Michelle Kwan or something! Would, say, Nathalie & Fabian gotten such hate had they suffered the misfortune and he made the remark? I highly doubt it. And tarring Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford with the same brush? And , leave the two ladies alone. Really…just leave them alone.
Though I do admit, I was rather befuddled at the end by Canada winning the bronze, since the points managed to complete confuse me. But I’m sure it all makes sense, and it’s not like you can argue with any of the placements themselves. On the contrary, I think there’s a good argument Duhamel & Radford should’ve finished first in the pairs; they might not have been clean but neither were Vera Bazarova & Yuri Larionov(I wonder if the judges even held them up a little because the Russians were having such trouble). If France had wanted the bronze, they shouldn’t have had their successful ladies’ skater from the short program fall four times! Though there’s an argument Meite’s long program was the highlight of that segment.
And yeah, the displays of team spirit were fun, from the French conga lines to the Italians in striped kimonos(where did they get those?) to Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy showing up to support all six pairs(makes you wish Germany had a shot to make it at some point. If Zhiganshina & Gaszi can just take it up a little more and some young man could break out…maybe it’s just possible. China qualified in 2009, after all). If we can have that at Worlds and Olympics, I think fans will take the team event much better than they currently imply they will.
