Original Dance - Notes & Results

Warm-up groups # 1 & 2 - I didn't take notes although I was partially watching them while I did some other stuff that needed doing.

My internet connection seems to be more sporatic today than yesterday, so if you don't hear from me after a warm-up group it's because I couldn't get connected and will have to wait for a zamboni break to go to the press center to post the notes.

Group # 3 is on the ice now and I'll try and report when they're done.

My dance notes are not very good, so I'm going to apologize right up front so I don't have to do it in each group

I am really excited about dance this year. Where are the cards going to fall?

Warm-up Group # 3

Kristin Fraser / Igor Lukanin AZE Start # 10
Oridinals 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Currently OD 1 Overall 1
Her in white skirt with black polka dots & yellow & pink underskirt, top is yellow Him in white t-shirt with black pants.
I was only partially watching them – their mid-line steps looked quite good, in sync and with a fair bit of detail & at least double twizzles.

Nozomi Watanabe / Akiyuki Kido JPN Start # 11
Ordinals 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 Currently OD 2 Overall 2
Both in black pants her with long ½ yellow skirt him with purple shirt & yellow jacket
Diag steps move well. Nice spin with him in sit and her upright pos. blues music and they have a fairly good feel for it. Nice rotational lift with her horizontal with one leg draped over his shoulder / tutti fruitti and he does a cartwheel which the crowd likes and into midline steps that are in good sync and with music and then into final lift. Crowd really seems to like them – good round of applause.

Sinead Kerr / John Kerr GBR Start # 12
Ordinals 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 Currently OD 1 Overall 1
Her in light blue at top of dress with dark around waist shading to purple to pink to yellow at hem, him in white shirt with black pants & suspenders with tie to match her dress
The crowd goes nuts as they are introduced (lots of Brits up to my right) swing & blues / crowd is clapping / there’s been lots of dancing and they’re into their first element at 45 second mark / midline steps are very well done if a bit slow moving across the ice, the difficulty seems to be decent / into the blue and the first dance spin both in upright pos / multiple positions by her on the way up into the rotational lift / The dance is over and I seemed to have not been looking up at the right times because I haven’t noted enough elements, sorry – I enjoyed their dance though

Nora Hoffmann / Attila Elek HUN Start # 13
Ordinals 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 Currently OD 3 Overall 3
Her in fluorescent yellow-green with loads of illusion hot pink on one side – on anyone else it would be indecent but looks great on her / him in black shirt & jacket with same coloured accents /
Great ball sof fire / diag steps have good changes of pos & difficult steps for both constantly changing holds / into blues / 2 nice dance spins, 1st one a little slow / midline steps to great balls of fire again – they used different levels including very low twizzles and some at different speeds – think he almost fell off of the very last one – they really look like they’re having fun out there – especially her, the smile never seems to leave her face .

Natalia Gudina / Alexei Beletski ISR Start # 14
Ordinals 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 Currently OD 2 Overall 1
Her in red with bit of fluorescent yellow at waist, him in black with red shirt
Their rot lift has her upside down with her legs hooked around his neck - midline steps were right at the beginning and see ok / diag steps fit well with rock around the clock and move very quickly – hand-holds don’t seem to be really difficult

Yeah! Just when I was shocked at the tasteful costumes of the CDs, they come roaring back with some of the ugliest attoscities in the OD. Viva la costume hideous!

Group # 4

Oksana Domnina / Maxim Shabalin RUS Start # 15
Ordinals 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 Currently OD 1 Overall 1
Lime green & black with bit of white – both in pants, hers with lime green inset in one leg
Blues starts them out with a dance spin and then midline steps – doing this to blues might have been a mistake as it seemed very slow and deliberate although they had good sync . diag steps were done to the boogie woogie rythmn and had much more life & moved better and seemed more difficult

Anastasia Grebenkina / Vazgen Azrojan ARM Start # 16
Ordinals 5 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 Currently OD 7 Overall 7
Fluorescent red-orange dress him in same shirt with black & white vest over black pants. What’s with all this day-glo fabric??
Blues & swing is the music / rot lift with her in horizontal pos /midline steps were in sync with 2 sets of double ?? twizzels into dance spin / now swing - & diag steps fully in closed dance hold with lots of turns and both were working – I thought the seq was very good

Melissa Gregory / Denis Petukhov USA Start # 17
Ordinals 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 Currently OD 2 Overall 2
Her in white with black polka dots with red underskirt him in black with silver sequins down each leg
Rock / blues / rock Rock around the clock / they’re moving fast and it’s true rock /n roll steps / diag ftwrk has her doing most of the work but very typical of the genre / into blues and a dance spin with her in camel pos him upright holding her free leg / didn’t see lift – was right at near boards / Great balls of fire and we have midline steps sync was very good until near end when he seems to lose his balance a bit on a twizzle. First 2 sets of twizzles were very good /

Svetlana Kulikova / Vitali Novikov RUS Start # 18
Ordinals 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 Currently OD 3 Overall 3
Her in black with light yellow & purple over skirt silver bra / him in black with lots of silver sequins & bits hanging off / Jailhouse rock – they’re flying / blues for the midline 2foot turns set of low twizzles then upright set and a set at the end that I couldn’t really see. Except for the twizzles it seems easy to me & fairly slow / diag steps were on the awkward side on his part – not sure what it was but something didn’t look right to me.

Natalie Pechalat / Fabien Bourzat FRA Start # 19
Ordinals 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 10 10 Currently OD 9 Overall 9
Her in gold him in black with gold thread in his jacket / swing blues swing
Midlines 2 sets of twizzles right at end but up til then seemed very simple to me / rotational lift to blues was nice to watch / right from one dance spin to the other both in upright pos / diag steps were with music and pretty good but again quite simple / final lift was a bit sloppy

Sorry to be so long - couldn't get connected we're currently 1/2 way through the last group

Group # 5

Elena Grushina / Ruslan Goncharov UKR Start # 20
Ordinals 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Currently OD 1 Overall 1
Her in red with white separating it into panels red elbow gloves him in white satin shirt black pants & spats
Swing blues swing / diag steps aren’t really diag & holds are almost all hand in hand or even no hold & she seems to be doing almost all the work / summertime is music and a dance spin and some just general dancing / swing fo rmidline everything looked in sync and 2 sets of twizzles in a row were very nice

Federica Faiella / Massimo Scali ITA Start # 21
Ordinals 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 Currently OD 2 Overall 2
Her in turqoise halter with string skirt him in black with silver collar & belt Jive, blues, jive
Crowd is clapping right off the bat – lots of Italians here I think / diag steps all hand in ahdn til very end and she seems to be doing most of the work / into blue – they’ve slowed right down and are crawling / nice lift start with him in spread eagle then into rotation lift / mid line - he fell out of 2nd set of twizzles / rest was close together & in sync / lift where she goes over his head and back through his legs

Tatiana Navka / Roman Kostomarov RUS Start # 22
Ordinals 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Currently OD 1 Overall 1
Her in bright dark yellow that only covers one sleeve & side of front, silver on other side of front / him in black with sivler belt & collar/ blues rock ‘n roll start with very sexy blues / nice rot lift with the support being their arms/hands / midline steps all on one foot for ½ half & in perfect sync – he might have had a little problem on the last twizzle – something looked like it didn’t quite match / rock around the clock and a dance spin & down the side of the rink / diag steps were good with more hand holds than most teams still a lot just holding hands (but that’s the nature of a jive).

Isabelle Delobel / Olivier Schoenfelder FRA Start # 23
Ordinals 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Currently OD 3 Overall 3
Her in bright peach/orange & red fringe skirt him in blafck with white shirt & matching tie
Midline steps he fell out of turns right after last set of twizzles into blue and very nice looking slow (intentionally) dance spin with their legs extended out behind them / blues and they’ve softened their movement but are still moving fast / boogie for diag steps – IMO the most difficult so far – very close holds both doing lots of turns & changes of pos and very close together

Galit Chait / Sergei Sakhnovski ISR Start # 24
Ordinals 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 Currently OD 4 Overall 4
Black with loads of silver trim touch of red -- the ones they wore for practice at Skate Canada
Lots of dancing on toes for first bit of dance then into Midline steps she fell out of a twizzle and had to put her hand down – took a minute to get back in sync / nice dance spin just before diag steps that moved very fast & lots of steps but seemed fairly easy /

OUch for Wing and Lowe. I was hoping to see them in the top ten

The excitement is driving me crazy. Where will D&L end up.

I should be working instead of hitting refresh on the results page.

Ouch, 7th for D&L

Group # 6

Kati Winkler / René Lohse GER Start # 25
Ordinals 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 Currently OD 3 Overall 3
Her in blue with pale blue panels him in black & white check jacket & navy pants
Swing blues jive / crowd is clapping / midline lots of continuous one-foot and he cross over her path ¾ way down – effective looked in sync all the way to me / really neat lift with change of pos & him into spread eagle / dance spin with her in bent leg camel & him in sit / into jive now / diag steps lots of changes of hold & many behind their backs seemed like both were doing equal work / final spin really brought the crowd to their feet

Albena Denkova / Maxim Staviski BUL Start # 26
Ordinals 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 Currently OD 2 Overall 2
Her in Bright hot pink him in black / blues swing / man’s world /
Dance spin with him in sit & her in cam change to both in sit / lift with him in spread eagle her around his neck with no hands / diag ftwrk moves across ice super fast with big sweeping turns &: holds / swing for midline steps 2 sets of twizzles perfect into one-foot work / rot lift with her parallel to ice and him holding her with one hands

Tanith Belbin / Benjamin Agosto USA Start # 27
Ordinals 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 6 7 Currently OD 5 Overall 5
Her in hot fushia with yellow polka dots & yellow underskirt him in yellow shirt & plaid pants / moving very fast / diag steps opposite way to most teams mostly held with arms around each other’s waists both seemed to do pretty equal work / blues now some empty skating not doing much / lift is very good with him going into a shoot duck hold her / dance spin with changes of pos / midlines steps – he seemed to fall out of the 1st set of twizzles but rest of seq was very good & fast in sync /

Megan Wing / Aaron Lowe CAN Start # 28
Ordinals 9 9 11 11 11 11 12 12 14 Currently OD 11 Overall 10
Her in bright yellow with red insets in skirt him in white shirt with big yellow high waisted pants / swing blues swing / diag steps steps are fast & almost all in dance hold both doing work / blues – seems a bit empty at one point / lift her with one leg over his shoulder and he goes into spread eagle / dance spin has multiple changes of pos / swing again / into midline think they got it all right and in sync – I couldn’t see the last twizzles ‘cause they were too close to near boards

Marie-France Dubreuil / Patrice Lauzon CAN Start # 29
Ordinals 2 4 4 6 7 7 8 8 8 Currently OD 7 Overall 7
Her in red with white polka dots in triangle shape & crinolin him in beige military style
Didn’t see most of the 1st part helping Attila check the monitor for his placements / and then couldn’t write notes ofr the 2nd – sorry got the impression that they skated it quite well /

Not very happy for B&A. I really thought they'd be 4th, with a decent shot at the bronze.
Also, I like C&S this season, and disappointed to see them behind both D&L and D&S.

FPl. Name Nat. Points CB CA OD FD
1 Tatiana NAVKA / Roman KOSTOMAROV RUS 1.0 1 1
2 Albena DENKOVA / Maxim STAVISKI BUL 1.6 1 2
3 Elena GRUSHINA / Ruslan GONCHAROV UKR 2.6 2 3
4 Kati WINKLER / Rene LOHSE GER 3.2 2 4
5 Tanith BELBIN / Benjamin AGOSTO USA 4.6 4 5
6 Isabelle DELOBEL / Olivier SCHOENFELDER FRA 4.8 3 6
7 Marie-France DUBREUIL / Patrice LAUZON CAN 5.4 3 7
8 Galit CHAIT / Sergei SAKHNOVSKI ISR 6.4 4 8
9 Federica FAIELLA / Massimo SCALI ITA 7.4 5 9
10 Oksana DOMNINA / Maxim SHABALIN RUS 8.4 6 10
11 Megan WING / Aaron LOWE CAN 9.2 5 12
12 Melissa GREGORY / Denis PETUKHOV USA 9.4 7 11
13 Svetlana KULIKOVA / Vitali NOVIKOV RUS 11.4 9 13
14 Natalia GUDINA / Alexei BELETSKI ISR 11.4 6 15
15 Sinead KERR / John KERR GBR 11.6 8 14
16 Kristin FRASER / Igor LUKANIN AZE 12.8 8 16
17 Nora HOFFMANN / Attila ELEK HUN 13.0 7 17
18 Nozomi WATANABE / Akiyuki KIDO JPN 14.8 10 18
19 Nathalie PECHALAT / Fabian BOURZAT FRA 15.0 9 19
20 Anastasia GREBENKINA / Vazgen AZROJAN ARM 16.0 10 20
21 Fang YANG / Chongbo GAO CHN 17.4 12 21
22 Julia GOLOVINA / Oleg VOIKO UKR 17.6 11 22
23 Alexandra KAUC / Michal ZYCH POL 18.2 11 23
24 Josee PICHE / Pascal DENIS CAN 19.2 12 24
25 Diana JANOSTAKOVA / Jiri PROCHAZKA CZE 20.6 14 25
26 Natalie BUCK / Trent NELSON-BOND AUS 20.8 13 26
27 Barbara HERZOG / Dmitri MATSJUK AUT 21.4 13 27
28 Jessica HUOT / Juha VALKAMA FIN 22.4 14 28
29 Clover ZATZMAN / Aurimas RADISAUSKAS LTU 23.4 15 29

Kara Bear said:

Ouch, 7th for D&L

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That's where they deserve to be. They should be lucky Galit fell on their SlSt, otherwise they'd be 8th. D&L's OD is absolutely horrible IMO. The judges who gave them 3 4 4 should be ashamed of themselves.

TV

Anyone else think Denkova & Staviski. should be in first? I love that OD. - gorgeous.

Chait & Sakhnovsky (sp??)....I am so divided about this team! He is just so wonderful, and she is just so....not. Most of the time he's just pulling her around, or she's scrabbling to keep up, finishing no moves properly...and now with the fall....bleh.
I just think he could do so much better, but then, she's the one with the rich daddy, so..... Maybe I'm too hard on her, but I just get annoyed, watching them!

oh well.....go John & Sinead anyway!

kat.

Really glad to see the Kerrs up there. I can't see them making it into the top ten unfortunately barring a disaster from those above them but their free dance is really good and f they skate it as well as at europeans then I can see them pull up a place or two

thvudragon said:

That's where they deserve to be. They should be lucky Galit fell on their SlSt, otherwise they'd be 8th. D&L's OD is absolutely horrible IMO. The judges who gave them 3 4 4 should be ashamed of themselves.

TV

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I don't want to question your expertise - as I also believe the OD D&L used all season was their weakest portion in each event they entered this season - but have you seen their performance today? It seems that they really worked hard on it during past weeks and comments on FSU from people who were actually seeing it live were quite positive. Therefore, it might have been better then what we expected...

Kateri said:

Chait & Sakhnovsky (sp??)....I am so divided about this team! He is just so wonderful, and she is just so....not. Most of the time he's just pulling her around, or she's scrabbling to keep up, finishing no moves properly...and now with the fall....bleh.
I just think he could do so much better, but then, she's the one with the rich daddy, so..... Maybe I'm too hard on her, but I just get annoyed, watching them!

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Kat, I agree that he is a much better skater. Kind of like Fussar-Poli/ Margaglio in reverse. Though I wouldn't read too much into the fall -- remember Victor's fall in SLC, and he is an excellent ice dancer.

From what I've read, Galit is an extremely hard worker. She really put in the long hours at the rink, and pushes herself very hard. Also, I think their programs (especially FD) this year is excellent in hiding their shortcomings and showing them in the best light. Hey, that's what TT is famous for after all.

northguy said:

I don't want to question your expertise - as I also believe the OD D&L used all season was their weakest portion in each event they entered this season - but have you seen their performance today? It seems that they really worked hard on it during past weeks and comments on FSU from people who were actually seeing it live were quite positive. Therefore, it might have been better then what we expected...

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From reports though, all the other couples skated well (except C&S). D&L's OD is just bad IMO. They have worked hard on it, but not enough to justify 3rd or 4th. Their difficulty can't be compared to Delobel and Schoenfelder or Belbin and Agosto.

lol, you can question my expertise all you want! This is what forums are for! Anyway, I would hardly call myself an expert, I'm far from it. .

TV

Ptichka said:

Kat, I agree that he is a much better skater. Kind of like Fussar-Poli/ Margaglio in reverse. Though I wouldn't read too much into the fall -- remember Victor's fall in SLC, and he is an excellent ice dancer.

From what I've read, Galit is an extremely hard worker. She really put in the long hours at the rink, and pushes herself very hard. Also, I think their programs (especially FD) this year is excellent in hiding their shortcomings and showing them in the best light. Hey, that's what TT is famous for after all.

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Yeah, I feel bad for being mean about her, she does seem to really try. She's certainly improved over time, at least.
I was just annoyed by the fall, but you're right - it can happen to anyone.

Hope things go better in the FD.

k

Why are Wing&Lowe so low? Rosaleen's report doesn't indicate any mistakes. I wish B&A could have been higher too. This season, I think their OD is their strongest program. Unfortunately, Ben has had lots of twizzle problems this season. I just don't get G&G. I feel they're almost always overmarked.

Can't wait to see this on TV! I'm so glad the Germans are doing well, I want them to win the bronze but then I want the Ukranians to win the bronze too! Wonder if there will be any movement after the FD?