Pairs Short Program, Sunday 14th, 7:30PM EST | Page 25 | Golden Skate

Pairs Short Program, Sunday 14th, 7:30PM EST

antmanb

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Well i caught up the rest of the SPs that Eurosport showed - not the middle groups sadly so no view of the other Canadians.

I have to say my personal favourite programme outside of the top flight skaters were the Swiss pair! They were just fantastic - they hit the elements, got the double axels and I think Ingo Steuer is waving his mgic wand over them. I think the commentators said that she is only 16 so here's hoping the stick at it and are top flight skaters in the next quadrennial because I really liked their style.

After all the internet bitching I was expecting to see a complete crap-fest from Dube & Davison and actually i saw none of it and not sure quite why everyone went mad...are people just warming up so they can cry foul at Chan and Rochette's PCS? I love the music from Requiem for a Dream so personally that gave them bonus points from me, there were a number of skaters that fell on the SBS jumps so it was always going to be a messy affair trying to sort out the skaters that made mistakes. It could have been any order from 5-9 and i wouldn't have been terribly bothered so i can't say i think D&D were gifted as much as some say - they fought for the rest of the programme and the strong music helped them push through. Good on them for choosing good music that suits them.

My personal faves (and i sooooo love their SP) are Murkortova and Trankov but when he fell it sapped every ounce of energy and fight he had and he just went through the motions for the rest of the programme. He rarely falls and maybe this will be the lesson he needed - don't give up when you fall on your opening element otherwise the rest of the programme suffers and today (or yesterday rather!) he gave it up. But i just love the choreography of this programme so much.

Volosozhar & Morosov - he is so unrefined that they need to hit everything perfectly and when they don't it's too easy to drop them, they know that and that's what happened.

I think Maksim Trankov should team with with Volosozhar to skate for the next quadrennial. I know that it was him that fell in the SP but he doesn't do that often and she is rock solid with all the elements.

Wish i could have seen the other canadian team and the US team but sadly eurosport didn't bother.

For me it could have gone either way between S&S and S&Z - they both had strong programmes but for me the theme and Choreography of S&S was better but S&Z did the technical elements better - the split twist was much better (S&S have the shoulder landing that seemingly every pair in europe have!) and I think the SBS spins were better, I preferred S&Z lift as well - the unique entry and positions, and even though i hate all these fugly catch foot death spirals I really liked shen's different body position looking down towards the skate. So I think I would have the placements as they are with S&Z winning on the TES by enough of a margin to beat higher PCS from S&S (don't know how it actually worked out though).

I really enjoyed P&T, but don't feel particularly strongly about the SP placement between them and K&S. Kawaguti to me always looks too "loose" to me - she seems to lack tension in the elements. The landing on the throw, the shoulder landing on the split twist - her body line always breaks, at least Aliona manages to keep her body line straight when she lands on Robin's shoulder. K&S's press lift always look too much to me like he's hoiking up a barbell and she is tiny, he is huge, it just shouldn't look so much like a weight lifting contest, they should by rights have lifts as good as V&M. That said I think Pang's air positions in the lifts aren't great - the higher leg could do with being higher - it always look bad when the ladies legs can barely get to 90 degrees - just a bit more would give it a nicer look.

Ant
 
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