Cup of Russia FD Preview and Virtual Program, Sat. Nov. 20; 12:40 PM EST

[Mirunna]

Well, I really thought the Shibutanis were undermarked in the last Jr worlds. And I believe that, while I do like I/K more, the Shibs are wonderful and the most prepared of all the junior teams coming to seniors this season. Still, to their defense, I/K are skating together since 2008-2009.(and P/I since 2009)
B/S are for now the best russian team, that's clear, but my fear is that evan if I/K will improve over time, they will never ever pass B/S(with Tatiana Tarasova favoring B/S) a It's probably to early to make any prediction, plus,with Monko/Khaliavin in the mix next season, you never know!

[colleen o'neill]

I've always liked B/S ,but haven't always liked their programs ( and I'm not referring to their Russian sailor dance of last year which I thought was really well done, and a playful departure ). Though I have a bit of a personal aversion to Delilah , I like the skating in their SD.. and I do like their FD ; the music is very lovely,and certainly fresh in the skating world , and there are some really nice bits in their choreography. But while I think it's pretty clear they'll be #1 for Russia this year, I think they'll have keep on their toes because all bets may be off next year.
We know the Russian Fed will want to see I/K moving up as soon as possible ( and I'm wondering if that may include a coaching change along the way between now and Sochi , since most of TAT 's critique of the team had to do with Zhulin's coaching ) And we know that K/A will enter the fray at Russian nationals. Where will they figure in the equation ? ( I'm so hoping that there will be some coverage from Golden Spin to help with our handicapping. Even though it's very close to Russian Nats., my curiosity wants the soonest possible satisfaction.)
I think the Shibs have one great advantage over the other new seniors, so far(beyond the ease that comes from skating together for years ) ; that being their excellent ( I might even say genius ) programs. Z/S have not fallen into the trap of equating " maturity " with passion expressed between partners. The Shibs maturity is evident in their confidence and poise and their ability to express the character of the music , instead of trying to embody characters from a story. Their costuming is simple , yet mature and won't suffer by comparison to anyone else.

P/I have the question of whether or not they're trying to emulate V/M ( or ride on their coat tails ) and although I/K's costumes are very nice ,I mentioned earlier that I felt a tutu might cause them to skate a little farther apart than they otherwise might..and of course, the negative side of that would be if some judges thought that it was a choice made to disguise the fact that they don't skate that close together..

I think we can put to rest the outrageous expectations that people voiced last summer of I/K leaping up to world medal stature..( or of P/I just walking into #2 for Canada behind V/M ).

And in the meantime, here come the Shibs , just ready , nothing to get in their way. I'm enjoying watching their ride.

I'm still very high on I/K and P/I , but they do have some things to work out to be at their best this season.

[herios]

I'm still very high on I/K and P/I , but they do have some things to work out to be at their best this season.

Rome was not built overnight....Give them some time.

The best debut in the seniors since the 80's was V/M's, even them they didn't become national champions right away, and ended up 6th in the world which was freaking unbelievable, but they were jelled together for a decade before, so you cannot compare these cases.
The majority of the former junior world champions come in their first world championship in seniors around 10-13 range, a top 10 finish is already exceptional. And Sochi is far away. So let's not get ahead of ourselves.

[colleen o'neill]

I agree completely herios..I really just mean their best for this season, which I don't expect to be the pinnacle of what they can potentially achieve.

I think there's been far too much comparison of P/I to V/M ( based on her appearance on the ice.) which is not very fair to P/I ,saddling them with unreasonable expectations, IMO. I don't compare them, but many do... At least I/K are not having to live up to similar comparisons to any particular Russian icons. But they do have fans that were predicting they'd come up to seniors and take everything in sight , after their success at Jr. Worlds.

I'm impressed with the progress of both, and with the retirement ( and injury ) of so many couples this year, they could actually wind up with a very good world placement ( an advantage I think V/M and D/W did not have in their Sr. debut year ?) I don't remember really clearly, someone else might.

[dorispulaski]

As to D&W's and V&M's first worlds, it was 2007:


1 Albena Denkova / Maxim Staviski Bulgaria 201.61 2 1 1
2 Marie-France Dubreuil / Patrice Lauzon Canada 200.46 1 3 2
3 Tanith Belbin / Benjamin Agosto United States 195.43 5 2 4
4 Isabelle Delobel / Olivier Schoenfelder France 195.19 4 5 3
5 Oksana Domnina / Maxim Shabalin Russia 193.44 3 4 5
6 Tessa Virtue / Scott Moir Canada 183.94 9 6 6
7 Meryl Davis / Charlie White United States 179.14 10 8 7
8 Jana Khokhlova / Sergei Novitski Russia 178.29 6 7 8
9 Federica Faiella / Massimo Scali Italy 170.75 7 9 11
10 Melissa Gregory / Denis Petukhov United States 170.08 11 10 9
11 Sinead Kerr / John Kerr United Kingdom 167.14 8 11 12
12 Nathalie Péchalat / Fabian Bourzat France 162.05 14 13 10
13 Anna Cappellini / Luca Lanotte Italy 158.83 12 16 13
14 Alexandra Zaretski / Roman Zaretski Israel 156.52 13 12 14
15 Nozomi Watanabe / Akiyuki Kido Japan 152.21 15 17 15
16 Kristin Fraser / Igor Lukanin Azerbaijan 152.10 16 14 16
17 Anna Zadorozhniuk / Sergei Verbillo Ukraine 148.13 17 15 17
18 Nelli Zhiganshina / Alexander Gazsi Germany 142.87 20 18 19
19 Grethe Gruenberg / Kristian Rand Estonia 141.55 23 19 18
20 Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje Canada 140.14 18 23 20
21 Huang Xintong / Zheng Xun China 138.44 19 22 21
22 Anastasia Grebenkina / Vazgen Azrojan Armenia 137.07 21 21 23
23 Katherine Copely / Deividas Stagniūnas Lithuania 136.63 24 20 22
24 Olga Akimova / Alexander Shakalov Uzbekistan 130.58 22 24 24

Here's the top 24 from Worlds 2006:
Rank Name Nation Total Points CD OD FD
1 Albena Denkova / Maxim Staviski Bulgaria 199.14 1 1 3
2 Marie-France Dubreuil / Patrice Lauzon Canada 198.69 2 3 1
3 Tanith Belbin / Benjamin Agosto United States 196.74 3 4 4
4 Margarita Drobiazko / Povilas Vanagas Lithuania 195.87 5 5 2
5 Isabelle Delobel / Olivier Schoenfelder France 195.44 4 2 5
6 Galit Chait / Sergei Sakhnovski Israel 181.29 6 7 6
7 Oksana Domnina / Maxim Shabalin Russia 178.39 7 6 7
8 Federica Faiella / Massimo Scali Italy 172.10 9 10 8
9 Melissa Gregory / Denis Petukhov United States 171.06 10 9 10
10 Megan Wing / Aaron Lowe Canada 170.51 8 8 11
11 Sinead Kerr / John Kerr United Kingdom 167.83 12 11 9
12 Jana Khokhlova / Sergei Novitski Russia 162.15 11 16 12
13 Christina Beier / William Beier Germany 154.94 13 14 13
14 Kristin Fraser / Igor Lukanin Azerbaijan 154.28 14 13 15
15 Nathalie Péchalat / Fabian Bourzat France 154.00 15 12 17
16 Morgan Matthews / Maxim Zavozin United States 152.97 16 18 14
17 Nozomi Watanabe / Akiyuki Kido Japan 152.96 17 15 16
18 Nóra Hoffmann / Attila Elek Hungary 150.78 18 17 18
19 Alexandra Kauc / Michał Zych Poland 144.21 19 20 19
20 Alexandra Zaretski / Roman Zaretski Israel 140.14 24 22 20
21 Anna Zadorozhniuk / Sergei Verbillo Ukraine 139.72 21 21 21
22 Yu Xiaoyang / Wang Chen China 136.14 23 23 22
23 Elena Romanovskaya / Alexander Grachev Russia 135.43 20 19 24
24 Alla Beknazarova / Vladimir Zuev Ukraine 132.00 22 24 23

The 3 teams that had retired from the top 12 were Chait & Sakhonovsky, Drobiazko & Vanagas, and Wing & Lowe.

This year the missing teams are:
Delobel & Schoenfelder
Belbin & Agosto
Domnina & Shabalin
Navarro & Bommentre
Khoklova & Novitski
Zaretski & Zarestski Thanks colleen!

The injured who may recover in time for worlds are
Kerr & Kerr
Faiella & Scali

and those who may miss worlds, but will be back.
Virtue and Moir
Samuelson and Bates

[colleen o'neill]

Thanks, doris, ..and the Zars are gone too, aren't they ?

Then too, there's the further unfortunate disarray in the Italian team where new teams who are well prepared could steal a march on C/L if they don't get a good FD right quick , and A/V, who might have been expected to be part of the "new senior onslaught" , may be hampered by injury ( don't know how serious that is )...and K/A loom as a late entry ,if they can win a spot at their nationals , as direct competitors..

So however well I/K and P/I do at World's ( assuming they're there )..no one will be able to be confident that their places would be at all secure next year.

[ImaginaryPogue]

The advantage that the Canton quartet had was COP. They were used to it in a way that the senior teams weren't. D/W had the first all level four FD period. V/M were the only team at worlds to have an all level four FD (both had the OD of course). They knew how to earn the high GOEs and that boosted their scores while waiting for the PCS to catch up.

For comparison's sake, if you were to take all the teams on the senior circut and compare the best overall scores (aka, D/W's best score with F/S' best score, etc), the Shibs are 6th, P/I are 11th and I/K are 14th (and would be the third Russian team, which means they wouldn't be at worlds).

[colleen o'neill]

That's really interesting , Pogue, because I've been thinking that the Shibs are the ones who come closest to duplicating the sheer , I don't know what to call it..sparkle ?.. that we saw from V/M and D/W in their debut year. Perhaps they can have it because of the years together, as well as excellent training and natural talent..

Some young teams have the years together, but not equal training , some have fine training but not a lot of time together...

Edit :...Had to go away in mid-thought, but I wanted to say it makes for a fascinating puzzle, and has me glued to Ice Dance more than ever this year. It could easily work out that P/I and I/K wind up facing off at 4CC..depending on whether V/M come back for worlds , and how the whole Ice Dance log jam shakes out in Russia..

[dorispulaski]

I/K would be at Euros, I think? Or does Russia only have 2 spots to Euros, too?

P/I & the Shibs could definitely face off at 4CC's, though. P/I have the problem that W/P and C/P both made the GPF. This is not insurmountable.

Injury can affect things, for sure. In D/W's debut year, they had 2 4th's, and Gregory and Petukhov made the last berth on the GPF. One could easily picture them stalled behind G/P for a long time. However, G/P's first event in the 2007/2008 season was Skate Canada. Their Riverdance style OD did not score well, and they suffered a bad injury to both skaters in the FD warmup. By the time they were healed, D&W had become established in the 2nd US spot.

The Shibs-whether or not Maia grew was always the key to this team's future success, I think. And, of course, she did. It is very strange to think that they were only 4th at Jr. Worlds and 3rd at JGPF last year, and of last year's graduating class, they are the ones that so far have done the best.

The thing favoring (or not) this year's kids is that the new lift rules mean that all the established skaters have had to be practicing new lift entries and new lifts. I think this is partially responsible for all the bad backs and other injuries we've been seeing. And injuries can be a chance for younger skaters to shine. In this year, the Shibs with Evan and Emily out.

Another advantage that the kids have is that they did not know the Golden Waltz. The new guidelines have put a crimp in the scores of many of the older teams. P/B and D/W started the year with a real glitch in that area; however both teams recovered nicely and relearned the offending steps (with nobody really mastering the ISU version of the cascade/twizzle in the 2nd sequence yet). F/S were still having problems. However, a slow but precise team could rack up points over an older team. Certainly that was the case for Zhiganshina and Gaszi (GER)

In general, the kids have not been able to take advantage of this. The Golden is just too hard. P/I had a good Golden in their second outing though-and then had other mistakes at CoR. Sort of the same thing happened with I/K. the Shibs had mistakes in both outings in the Golden. If Shibs had mastered the GW and dress management, they would have beaten W/P at NHK, and they would be in the GPF.

I might (or not ) start a thread on the subject for people to speculate on the cause of all the injuries.

[Mirunna]

Russia has 3 spots for Euros, so I tink I/K will make it there(as long as they skate well at Russian nationals). I realized they don't skate well in Russia: at Russian jr nationals last year they made mistakes and were second, far behind Monko and her partner; here, at Cup of Russia, they had a mess of a SD. Hope this trend stops!
Everything will depend on Khokhlova/Andreev: will they become Russia nr. 1? Will they even come to Russian Nationals? Big question mark. I/K chances to make the world team depend on that.(only 2 spots there)
I really hope the Shibs make the world team, they are my favourtie american ice dace team! I lost interest in them last year because of their dreadful FD(honestly, a tango for them is the worst choice ever) but this season: wow! I can see them placing second at US nationals
I'm not a fan of P/I, I honestly don't see any excitement or personality in their skating. Hope they prove me wrong as the season goes by!

[ImaginaryPogue]

1. Russia has three spots at Euros, and four teams to think about: B/S, I/K, R/T and K/A. K/A are obviously darkhorses. I/K is affected politically if things are "politics as usual," in my mind. K/A are new, but she's obviously a European and World medalist

2. While the new rules have the harder entries/lifts being practiced, I don't think this favours the newcomers as readily as others. For one thing, the rules have consistently been redefined to make things like step sequences harder, haven't they? 6.0 to COP was a change in mode of skating. Changing the rules within COP is refining so the advantage itself is minimized, imo.

3. As for the Golden Waltz? Again, where the newcomers lose out is not merely the presence of the GW (which all the newcomers have struggled with getting levels and skating well) but the fact that there's only two dances not three. With the CDs, we could count on the juniors being slotted low on the CDs, but having two dances to make up for that. VM at first worlds were 9th in the CD, 6th in the OD (7th overall now) and 6th in the FD (6th overall by the end) - D/W saw a similar rise. The question here is are we gonna see the newcomers decimating the old guys in TES like D/W and V/M did?

4. Top ten for Shibs or I/K? Plausible. Even assuming that everything gets righted with the Italian teams, that's still only 8 teams (C/P, C/L, D/W, P/B, K/K, F/S, B/S... and we can throw in V/M).

5. I/K can't make it to 4CC, colleen. European team and all that goes with it :D

6. I have to admit that I'm rather meh about ice dance without V/M - and on top of that, C/L and F/S are amongst my favourite teams, I was so looking forward to S/B's FD (could've been a masterpiece - Evan so has a Gene Kelly sparkle) and P/B (my bete noire) emerging as the top European candidate and plausibly challenging D/W for the Worlds crown has me depressed. And V/M missing out on worlds which could mean Canada loses three spots.... even more depressing.

7. Mirunna, I echo your opinion of P/I. They have precision and some elegance, but they really lack their own identity and personality on the ice. I'm hoping for them to develop it.

[KKonas]

Re K/A speculation. They do plan on competing at Russian Nationals, but I doubt they will be No. 1, at least this season. When I saw them 3 months ago, they were still very much in the "getting to know each other" mode. He still was learning the GW. As Doris mentioned in another post, this may or may not be a help under the new rules if not burdened by previous outings of this dance. The height difference could present the biggest problem, but by this time they may have learned to deal with that. Jana is known for her flexibility and since he is a big guy, they will likely have great lifts. Not so sure about their technical aspect. Will be interesting to see where they place at Rus Nationals and if they make the European or World Team. If they are strong enough, the Rus Fed may split the teams - sending one team to Euros and one team to Worlds.

[dorispulaski]

I'd like to see the Russian fed send a different 3rd place person to Worlds & Euros! I'd like to see another performance by the 4 top Russian teams this season and can't bear to think of any of them have their season end at Russian Nationals.

With P/I in the mix, you should not feel the loss of V/M so much-they so deliberately have that V/M vibe including Tessa's wide eyed young teen lady's style naive adoration face and nice extensions. OTOH I'm not crazy about any team being a reissued version of a previous team, even when they do it deliberately. Maybe especially when...

In fact, if V&M come back to competition, I'm looking forward to seeing them do their Latin dance, which is not in their usual "April Love is For the Very Young" style. Change is good, even if painful-I expect D&W, for example, to come through their plunge into the sexuality of tango to be good for them in the long run, even if these first 2 performances of it have been a bit rough.

One of the interesting things this year in dance has been the reemergence of the Shibutanis & Chock & Zuerlein. It's like their understudies were skating for them last year, and now they are back themselves. Chock's biggest pluses are they arrived at Skate Canada with 2 pretty good programs and a really good Golden Waltz, for their overall level of skill.

[ImaginaryPogue]

doris, I agree. But P/I makes me miss V/M all the more. I want the real thing, not some junior version (insert disclaimer assuring people I'm aware that they have potential, that my view is unfair, etc).

[colleen o'neill]

Of course I/K can't make it to 4Cc..That's what comes from thinking out loud while distracted..too bad Distraction is one of my middles names ... right after Obsession...reconfiguring my puzzle pieces.