After watching Khoklova & Novitski's FD at TEB, I found myself asking the same question I was asking at Worlds -- why do Domnina & Shabalin seem to be getting the big push for Vancouver when Khoklova & Novitski are so much better? I suppose one could argue that the basic technique of D/S is better -- but beyond that, I personally find the overall choreography and highlights of K/N to be far superior and almost always interesting; they certainly seem to have a much better understanding of the music they skate to than D/S. And IMHO K/N have that dramatic, expressive quality that we have come to expect from the Russian dance couples over the last few decades. I think they come much closer than D/S to continuing the tradition of Bestemianova/Bukin, Klimova/Ponomarenko, Usova/Zhulin, etc, in that regard.
Could it be that perhaps K/N would be the top Russian couple if CoP were not in place, would they perhaps fare better under the old system?
Thoughts??
Could it be that perhaps K/N would be the top Russian couple if CoP were not in place, would they perhaps fare better under the old system?
Thoughts??