Is it not always obvious in close-ups if bare parts are in fact covered with skin-colour fabric? I have the feeling that you somehow always get some shot that is close enough to show either the fabric or the hems or the elastic bands. If I'm correct, it was custom before to skate in skin-colour tights, and you could see that even. Our skin colour changes easily, so it's not easy to have clothes that perfectly match the colour of our skin on different occasions.
On the same topic: the Shibs' short dance looks from a distance as if they wanted to pretend that Alex is bare-chested. I honestly don't know what they were going for, but for me it's obvious that with THAT colour, you either are colour blind or you wanted to match his skin colour... :sarcasm:
Speaking of bare chests: it immediately struck me that Guillaume shaved his chest before this season. It's growing back already though. Luckily.
And I have come to the conclusion that the reason why Gabriella does not need any elastic bands or skin colour fabric and still can have a super bare back without risking to show her breasts is because the dress she wears is super simple: it is a real gymnastics leotard made fully of blue stretch material with a simple voile skirt stitched onto it. The voile rips easily though, but that's for a different post.
I am still confused about the presto in Grenoble. When I watched it not-live on the YT stream (I didn't know there was such a thing: I can watch YT but something in my computer/flash is blocking me from seeing live streams on sports sites), I was struck by how well they hit the notes (boo-booms) as compared to the other video's (Villars, Finlandia and CoC). I was really impressed that it was all of a sudden together. But now, in the downloads that I have, it's back to how it was before: everything just AFTER the beat. The head-wobble, the throw, the arms, (the end of the third spin is anyway not really on the beat), the crash into Guillaume's arms... What is now going on???
Anyway, if I may be so bold as to propose something that seems to me screaming for fulfilment as it is sooooo obvious: can Gabriella PLEASE pull her arm down strongly at the end of the second spin, on the enormously accentuated beat? It seems like an easy movement to do and I may be much mistaken, but man, would that give a clear accent where now there's only a big auditive BOO-BOOM...
Much of the magic is created by the illusion that the movement
creates the music, that the music is the result of the movement. Even though we all know it isn't possible, nobody can resist being struck by that illusion. But that means that you have to anticipate and start the movement
before the music gives the beat. And so far, in the video's that I now have, it's always
just a bit too late. I wonder how that is possible and what is real. Of course, with an olympic sized rink you get acoustic issues so who hears what, and is the recorded sound what everybody else hears? Even the YT streaming video that someone posted has the same delay...