B/S 2001 LP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlb1wdxfq0k
I admit to having mixed feelings about the legacy of Irina Rodnina and her partners. Obviously her competitive record speaks for itself. But she took pairs skating in a different direction. Instead of "two skating as one" the discipline became "huge tricks." The "gorilla and flea" model was not far behind. It is interesting to me that the popularity of ice dance began to increase at about the same time that the allure of pairs skating diminished, at least in North America.
Here are Rodnina and Zaitzev at the 1976 Olympics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hezu89-XrY
Gorilla and flea?! I have never heard that before, and I love it. Would you describe Brasseur and Eisler as in this mold?!
I tear up every time I see that. Every time.
Just watched S/Z's program again. Am sniffling and hunting for a Kleenex. They are so sublime.
Someone once referred to Gordeeva and Grinkov as an example of gorilla and flea, which I absolutely disagreed with, because although she was only fourteen when they won their first Worlds, he was only eighteen and was never hugely tall.
I never cared for Rodnina, probably because I'd been a huge fan of the Protopopovs. Of the more modern pair teams I have to give the greatest title to Gordeeva & Grinkov. Special mention to Shen & Zhao, Babalonia & Gardner.
Still, I think they qualified for the "one-and-a-half" designation. She was 14 years old, 4 foot 10, weighed 77 pounds. He was 18, 6 feet tall, and more than double her weight at 161. Here they are winning their first world championship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGy7c-kXBx0
I tried without success to find out who was the first to come up with the term "gorilla and flea." I believe it was some Russian coach. According to Wikipedia, one of the first examples (before the term became current) was Manuela Gross (14) and Uwe Kegelmann (21) of East Germany, European bronze medalists in 1972.
Babilonia and Garner faced the "handicap" of being about the same size. Mr Nicks is given big props for designing programs for them that worked around this and maximized their strengths.
Here is an interesting blog entry that analyses the Chinese throw jump technique. This blogger notes that in general the Chinese do not have the gorilla/flea option because the men are too small (see, however, Zhang Hao), so they had to come up with a completely different throwing method (the author calls it a "joint jump").
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.sport.skating.ice.figure/lD2ni1jHE4c
Fascinating about the Chinese throw jump technique.
Another top American pair who did not have a height advantage was Kristi Yamaguchi and Rudy Galindo. They were also their country's best pair, and very high up in world rankings in their day. (I think they came in fifth in their best year.)
Katia and Sergei were such a unique case that I never know how to classify them.
The thing about G/G is this... even when they were young, they didn't skate like they were young. Of course, there weren't a lot of super romantic programs in the early years, but they certainly didn't have the gangly underdeveloped look most young skaters have. They were graceful from an early age. They were absolutely charming.
That's it, I think. They had a maturity even from the start, when she was all of fourteen. Another thing they had (well, really it was mainly her contribution to the team, I think) was an astonishing gift for connecting with the audience. A lot of very young skaters look as though they're just exceedingly well trained, and they run like clockwork. There's a kind of distance about them, as if they're just thinking about their next move. Katia looked as if she was alive and awake and thrilled to be there, and delighted to be skating with that particular partner above all others. How could the audience (and likely the judges) not also feel more awake and alive and thrilled to be there to see them?