Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron

liapacco said:

This is probably true, heh! As a Korean myself, I must admit that Koreans just don't pick up with sports interest that easily unless someone does something iconic like win World Championships (and is a likeable personality, like Yuna is) or take the recent win in women's curling for example - it was an extremely under the radar sport and nobody cared about it up till even weeks ago but just because the women's team suddenly made strides at the Olympics and became overnight memes, suddenly every other Korean was talking about curling and what was a good shot at the stones, like they knew the sport forever lol. Even for figure-skating, it was a sport that did not receive very much funding or attention in Korea in the past, which also explains why many Koreans view Yuna as more than an excellent skater, but as an inspiration to young skaters and the public for what she has done to lift the reputation of her sport among her people.

It's improving though, because the future of Korean figure skating looks bright with the younger ones like Cha Jun Hwan, Im Eun Soo, You Young and the like. Ice dance though, I think Koreans tend to revert more to foreign skaters, so it's definitely true that V/M and the Shibs have a huge fanbase in Korea. I've been keeping a lookout on Korean news sites for any news on Gaby and Guillaume, but apart from the sudden influx of articles after Gaby's wardrobe malfunction that basically just talked about the malfunction, the nipslip and how she said it was her worst nightmare coming true, there really wasn't that much more and that was pretty disappointing. There is however the occasional article about the beauty of their FD, which would describe the program as elegant. I also saw an article that called Gaby 'A positive and beautiful girl who doesn't falter', but yeah, every article brought up the whole wardrobe thing and didn't add that much value. I do believe that their FD was a good exposure for the audience as to how ice dance can truly be that ethereal and magical, though, just that the reactions were definitely muted what with V/M being the team with a stronger fanbase there.

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maya1985 said:

it seems to me that the North American athletes had come a lot in the rink ... It is an audience that sometimes does not even applaud (we see at one time the mother of Gabriella with a flag after the program , around her some people do not even applaud)
I am convinced that in Milan it will be another story

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alain06fr said:

Honestly speaking, the Olympics are dying slowly but surely...

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Bcash said:

That they were stunned by the sheer beauty? TBH I thought the crowd in Korea was a little "basic" and didn't really get P/C's poetry. Anyway it seems that serious dance people all love them. I recently had a convo with the editor of a reputable dance magazine and he said he would've given the Gold to P/C.

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icetigger said:

Do you mean the just the Winter or also the Summer Olympics Alain.

I feel there's a big difference between the two.

i think the Winter Olympics suffer because the number of countries that can have access in terms of mountains, facilities, snow and finance for Winter sports is very few. There are only two countries south of the tropic of cancer that medalled (and those are Australia and New Zealand, which are really Northern Hemisphere transplants). By contrast, 78 countries medalled at Rio, whereas there were 28 at Pyeongchang.
Even the cultural aspects of ice dance come in to play with the figure skating team medal, where Japan and China are ruled out of medalling, and the medals therefore become a carve up between three countries, and the event appears an orchestration to give those countries and its individual athletes medals. (The team event is a nonsense that should be dumped- a very obvious celebration of country size and finance that actually makes the olympics look bad by giving athletes from some countries medals with a false equivalency between them and those won individually. The behaviours of those countries towards those athletes and the impact it has on their selecting of athletes and how those athletes behave with regard to selection was one of the many ugly aspects of the run up to this Olympics)
The summer Olympics isn't perfect; and finance and country size will always play a role in medalling. But the access to the sports involved is much more egalitarian (o.k. not dressage) and possible throughout much more of the world; and it just feels so much more international and joyous.

Figure skating's saving grace for me however is its internationalism when done well. Yes there was a lot of flag waving from some countries; and one country in particular whose nationals resembled a fascist rally. But there are also moments when skaters go out there and give us something that communicates internationally, and it's those skaters who provide those moments who really exemplify the Olympic spirit at an event that now feels very detached and different from the Summer games and its spirit (and this is exacerbated by the fact that the Summer and the Winter games are no longer in the same year)

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icetigger said:

Even the cultural aspects of ice dance come in to play with the figure skating team medal, where Japan and China are ruled out of medaling, and the medals therefore become a carve up between three countries, and the event appears an orchestration to give those countries and its individual athletes medals. (The team event is a nonsense that should be dumped - a very obvious celebration of country size and finance that actually makes the Olympics look bad by giving athletes from some countries medals with a false equivalence between them and those won individually. The behaviours of those countries towards those athletes and the impact it has on their selecting of athletes and how those athletes behave with regard to selection was one of the many ugly aspects of the run up to this Olympics.)

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icetigger said:

Yes there was a lot of flag waving from some countries; and one country in particular whose nationals resembled a fascist rally.

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Gotlev said:

Yes, sure. But there was no 30 second silence at the end of their FD. The crowd started cheering during the final notes. Not as much as for V/M, but interpreting that noise as silence is a bit too much for me.

My dear skating friend interpreted Misha's words as being for him personally: being so absorbed in the performance that for 30 seconds afterwards, he didn't hear the arena at all, he was still spellbound by what he had witnessed.

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Anyasnake said:

I hope your are not offended by what I said, I don't want to single out Korean fans as Yuna fans only, just perhaps the admiration for Yuna was so huge that the rest might have been overlooked. And I understand about the curling team, they went viral in a matter of a few days only

But yes the Costume malfunction took over the skating unfortunately. Redemption is ahead anyway ! :agree:

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alain06fr said:

Jane Torvill & Chris Dean decided to honour Gaby & Gullaume by inviting them to participate to Dancing on Ice in London on March 4th.

The show will be live broadcast by ITV.

The Ambassador of France in Great-Britain, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, and his wife, Brigitte Taittinger, are invited to attend the show and meet Gaby & Guillaume.

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alain06fr said:

Jane Torvill & Chris Dean decided to honour Gaby & Gullaume by inviting them to participate to Dancing on Ice in London on March 4th.

The show will be live broadcast by ITV.

The Ambassador of France in Great-Britain, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, and his wife, Brigitte Taittinger, are invited to attend the show and meet Gaby & Guillaume.

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cocotaffy said:

Happy for them but how are they gonna manage this crazy schedule with Milano starting on the 19th ????? Are they not gonna go back to Montreal ?

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cocotaffy said:

Happy for them but how are they gonna manage this crazy schedule with Milano starting on the 19th ????? Are they not gonna go back to Montreal ?

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Anyasnake said:

Either going back to Montreal directly after (the 4th is next sunday only) and train for more than 2 full weeks, or training in France, but maybe the 1st option, after all that's what they've been doing all season and they managed to do it pretty well

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alain06fr said:

Jane Torvill & Chris Dean decided to honour Gaby & Gullaume by inviting them to participate to Dancing on Ice in London on March 4th.

The show will be live broadcast by ITV.

The Ambassador of France in Great-Britain, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, and his wife, Brigitte Taittinger, are invited to attend the show and meet Gaby & Guillaume.

Click to expand...

alain06fr said:

Jane Torvill & Chris Dean decided to honour Gaby & Gullaume by inviting them to participate to Dancing on Ice in London on March 4th.

The show will be live broadcast by ITV.

The Ambassador of France in Great-Britain, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, and his wife, Brigitte Taittinger, are invited to attend the show and meet Gaby & Guillaume.

Click to expand...