Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron | Page 173 | Golden Skate

Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron

I read on the V/M threat that they plan to do both the short dance and the free dance in the event.
The video about Europeans from The Skating Lesson: they suggested that it is possible, perhaps very possible, that V/M will get their desired gold medal from the team event and P/C from the individual. In case both teams are clean and judges could not make a decision. I thought this was quite interesting and reminded me of a tactic that is used at the Oscars, for example. (two film contenders: one award for the best film and one for the best director to the other) :biggrin:

That is less intended than the accidental result of two different ballot systems.

I feel that the momentum is with P/C this year, but since this is their first Olympics and they are competing against a strong team that has won this event before, there will be an element of uncertainty. If they skate like they did at Worlds last year, I wouldn't worry about results.
 
Europeans 2018 were a great moment I must say. The Megasport arena is a great place and the audience was great too.

They knew their challenge was to deliver great performances and get season bests, and they brilliantly managed to reach these goals. As some of you pointed out, Guillaume got a cold. During all practices, he used to blow his noise each time he had the opportunity, mainly when they were getting the feedback and advices from the coaches. Both Gabriella and Guillaume were quite tired given their intense preparation to the Europeans, their focus being the step sequences of both programs. Now, being back in Montréal, it's obvious they want to finalise their OG preparation by polishing both SD and FD to reach level 4 at all technical elements prior flying to South Korea.

As we could expect after the "silly games" at NHK 2016 SD, Ostrava and even worst, Helsinki, there was nothing to complain about, the scores, the protocols and the final results being in sync with the actual performances. There is a saying that out of bad comes good.

The Gadbois delegation members at Europeans were Marie-France, Romain, Steffany (Gaby & Guillaume's mental coach) and Scott (Gaby & Guillaume's fitness trainer). Well, Marie-France and Romain had to take care of 4 couples! Laurence & Nick were tremendous on the ice, especially their free dance tango! Marie-Jade & Romain Legac got their ticket for the OG. Patrice stayed in Montréal to work with V/M, H/D and S/D.

About the interview of Patrice Lauzon and Marie-France, the main information is that:
1. We get the confirmation V/M won't compete at Worlds in Milan
2. She seems to be tired about the rivalry between V/M and P/C. When I see some V/M fans screaming at the Canadian federation to have them "do something" (we know what it means...), I can understand she's fed up with such mess :biggrin:

Gaby and Guillaume are fully committed to take up all challenges this season. They have the best skating skills keeping in mind they have not yet achieved their potential. Once again we have to trust them for the Winter Games in Gangneung like we did in Beijing, Grenoble, Nagoya and last week in Moscow.
 
Europeans 2018 were a great moment I must say. The Megasport arena is a great place and the audience was great too.

They knew their challenge was to deliver great performances and get season bests, and they brilliantly managed to reach these goals. As some of you pointed out, Guillaume got a cold. During all practices, he used to blow his noise each time he had the opportunity, mainly when they were getting the feedback and advices from the coaches to. Both Gabriella and Guillaume were quite tired given their intense preparation to the Europeans, their focus being the step sequences of both programs. Now, being back in Montréal, it's obvious they want to finalise their OG preparation by polishing both SD and FD to reach level 4 at all technical elements prior flying to South Korea.

As we could expect after the "silly games" at NHK 2016 SD, Ostrava and even worst, Helsinki, there was nothing to complain about, the scores, the protocols and the final results being in sync with the actual performances. There is a saying that out of bad comes good.

The Gadbois delegation members at Europeans were Marie-France, Romain, Steffany (Gaby & Guillaume's mental coach) and Scott (Gaby & Guillaume's fitness trainer). Well, Marie-France and Romain had to take care of 4 couples! Laurence & Nick were tremendous on the ice, especially their free dance tango! Marie-Jade & Romain Legac got their ticket for the OG. Patrice stayed in Montréal to work with V/M, H/D and S/D.

About the interview of Patrice Lauzon and Marie-France, the main information is that:
1. We get the confirmation V/M won't compete at Worlds in Milan
2. She seems to be tired about the rivalry between V/M and P/C. When I see some V/M fans screaming at the Canadian federation to have them "do something" (we know what it means...), I can understand she's fed up with such mess :biggrin:

Gaby and Guillaume are fully committed to take up all challenges this season. They have the best skating skills keeping in mind they have not yet achieved their potential. Once again we have to trust them for the Winter Games in Gangneung like we did in Beijing, Grenoble, Nagoya and last week in Moscow.

Thank you Alain, as always ! How fortunate are you to have been among the very knowledgeable Russian fans.
Well aren't we all tired of this rivalry really ... ? for some, the skating is left aside... how sad. But really I can't wait for the Games to see them skate at their very best ! :laugh: As you pointed out, their element looked so polished and it did reflect massively on the scoring (the GOE were high... as they should be !).

I apologize if I am being impolite to ask this, but do you plan on going to Korea in 2 weeks ? Or later, to see the dance event, perhaps ?
 
Europeans 2018 were a great moment I must say. The Megasport arena is a great place and the audience was great too.

They knew their challenge was to deliver great performances and get season bests, and they brilliantly managed to reach these goals. As some of you pointed out, Guillaume got a cold. During all practices, he used to blow his noise each time he had the opportunity, mainly when they were getting the feedback and advices from the coaches. Both Gabriella and Guillaume were quite tired given their intense preparation to the Europeans, their focus being the step sequences of both programs. Now, being back in Montréal, it's obvious they want to finalise their OG preparation by polishing both SD and FD to reach level 4 at all technical elements prior flying to South Korea.

As we could expect after the "silly games" at NHK 2016 SD, Ostrava and even worst, Helsinki, there was nothing to complain about, the scores, the protocols and the final results being in sync with the actual performances. There is a saying that out of bad comes good.

The Gadbois delegation members at Europeans were Marie-France, Romain, Steffany (Gaby & Guillaume's mental coach) and Scott (Gaby & Guillaume's fitness trainer). Well, Marie-France and Romain had to take care of 4 couples! Laurence & Nick were tremendous on the ice, especially their free dance tango! Marie-Jade & Romain Legac got their ticket for the OG. Patrice stayed in Montréal to work with V/M, H/D and S/D.

About the interview of Patrice Lauzon and Marie-France, the main information is that:
1. We get the confirmation V/M won't compete at Worlds in Milan
2. She seems to be tired about the rivalry between V/M and P/C. When I see some V/M fans screaming at the Canadian federation to have them "do something" (we know what it means...), I can understand she's fed up with such mess :biggrin:

Gaby and Guillaume are fully committed to take up all challenges this season. They have the best skating skills keeping in mind they have not yet achieved their potential. Once again we have to trust them for the Winter Games in Gangneung like we did in Beijing, Grenoble, Nagoya and last week in Moscow.

Thank you for your report. Russians seem to really appreciate Gabby and Guillame skating.
 
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Thank you as always for your report. Like Synian, I had the impression the Russian did appreciate their skating and even if their warmest applause and chants were for the Russian couples, very understandably so, Gaby and Guillaume were very much supported. Russian are known to enjoy and appreciate classical music so their seal of approval is certainly worthy. It's also a way to close the disastrous chapter of P/C in Russia as I believe their last competition resulted in the most disastrous performance ever with Guillaume on his behind at the end :laugh: So one more thing put right and strike of their bucket list: skating beautifully in the land of figure skating.
 
Thank you as always for your report. Like Synian, I had the impression the Russian did appreciate their skating and even if their warmest applause and chants were for the Russian couples, very understandably so, Gaby and Guillaume were very much supported. Russian are known to enjoy and appreciate classical music so their seal of approval is certainly worthy. It's also a way to close the disastrous chapter of P/C in Russia as I believe their last competition resulted in the most disastrous performance ever with Guillaume on his behind at the end :laugh: So one more thing put right and strike of their bucket list: skating beautifully in the land of figure skating.
True, they got a very warm applause from the Russian viewers inside the arena, similar to Javier in the Men category. The audience pushed the Russian athletes which is expected in Moscow and was very enthusiast with the other competitors. Figure skating is very popular in Russia and one could notice most of the crowd knew the jumps and technical/choreographic elements.

Hahaha you're talking about their last SD in Moscow in Nov 2013! The 2nd SD of Gaby and Guillaume in their senior career in an int'l event. Guillaume completely messed up the twizzles and fell on the buttocks :laugh: at the last second of the program. You can see how desperate he is! But this experience in their senior competitive debut tells already a lot about Gaby and Guillaume's relationship. When Guillaume falls, Gaby doesn't blame him for his poor performance (we see that from time to time). On the contrary, we can see on her face she's saying "oh, I hope everything is fine and you did not hurt yourself" and then she immediately comes to him and her attitude is clearly something like "don't worry, we're together". Then they move to the Kiss&Cry. Sounds unbelievable but they had to wait 5 long minutes to get their scores! There's a long discussion between Romain, Gaby and Guillaume in the K&C. Even though Guillaume was the one who made most of the mistakes that day, Gaby nicely explains she was not in a good day either, trying to share the responsibility of this bad performance. One can see how they support each other in painful moments and the strong and great relationship they built together.
 
On the twitter account of Gabriella, there is an annoncement about new interview to come about Gabriella on 06/02/2018 and Guillaume on 07/02/2018 on RTL french radio/television ?!!! provided by their familly about their youth ...
I am looking for it !!! :laugh2::rofl::clap:
https://twitter.com/gabriellapks
 
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True, they got a very warm applause from the Russian viewers inside the arena, similar to Javier in the Men category. The audience pushed the Russian athletes which is expected in Moscow and was very enthusiast with the other competitors. Figure skating is very popular in Russia and one could notice most of the crowd knew the jumps and technical/choreographic elements.

Hahaha you're talking about their last SD in Moscow in Nov 2013! The 2nd SD of Gaby and Guillaume in their senior career in an int'l event. Guillaume completely messed up the twizzles and fell on the buttocks :laugh: at the last second of the program. You can see how desperate he is! But this experience in their senior competitive debut tells already a lot about Gaby and Guillaume's relationship. When Guillaume falls, Gaby doesn't blame him for his poor performance (we see that from time to time). On the contrary, we can see on her face she's saying "oh, I hope everything is fine and you did not hurt yourself" and then she immediately comes to him and her attitude is clearly something like "don't worry, we're together". Then they move to the Kiss&Cry. Sounds unbelievable but they had to wait 5 long minutes to get their scores! There's a long discussion between Romain, Gaby and Guillaume in the K&C. Even though Guillaume was the one who made most of the mistakes that day, Gaby nicely explains she was not in a good day either, trying to share the responsibility of this bad performance. One can see how they support each other in painful moments and the strong and great relationship they built together.

Despite technical mistakes, I do thinking that this event was a mess because Gaby lost her skates and they don't have any practice. Such last minute pressure on a very young team in its first senior circuit didn't help that much :/.
But, they definitely performed an incredible perf last weekend, so we can say now that the situation is well balanced ^^
 
Thanks for your report Alain!

As previously discussed- that SD 2013 is a real guilty pleasure! And that SD was VERY revealing about them as a team- in a completely positive way.

Plus the FS the next day was a knockout.

I wonder if we will something really fiery like that from them next year.

I really liked Mao's ritual fire dance programme from last year, and am hoping they might stray in to that territory.

I particularly the ritual fire scene music she used (here it is used on a ballet scene for the film Luna de Miel by the director Michael Powell)

https://youtu.be/EZ2BKy53F3w?t=6m51s

And also the love scene music she used

https://youtu.be/i8Da5bGpHdE?t=1m51s

Here again from the same film
 
Speaking of music we'd like to see them use... I hope they skate to The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. They're the team that could pull it off.
 
Speaking of music we'd like to see them use... I hope they skate to The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. They're the team that could pull it off.

I agree absolutely on this one! I think in the next four years there will definitely be something of that Rite of Spring feel or from that era. Has there been a rite of spring free dance before? I enjoy greatly that excerpt that Nathan Chen is using this year in his free skate.

Because the sd is the tango (the tango with it's noticeably crooked rhythm already has a convention breaking quality to it) I think we are more likely to see some Romantic music for the free skate.
 
I agree absolutely on this one! I think in the next four years there will definitely be something of that Rite of Spring feel or from that era. Has there been a rite of spring free dance before? I enjoy greatly that excerpt that Nathan Chen is using this year in his free skate,

Not that I know of! I think Nathan's FP is the only instance of it being used in skating.
 
Thank you Alain, as always ! How fortunate are you to have been among the very knowledgeable Russian fans.
Well aren't we all tired of this rivalry really ... ? for some, the skating is left aside... how sad. But really I can't wait for the Games to see them skate at their very best ! :laugh: As you pointed out, their element looked so polished and it did reflect massively on the scoring (the GOE were high... as they should be !).

I apologize if I am being impolite to ask this, but do you plan on going to Korea in 2 weeks ? Or later, to see the dance event, perhaps ?

How impolite ;) (just kidding of course! :laugh:)
I am not planning so far to go to Korea but I will be for sure in Milan.
 
Speaking of music we'd like to see them use... I hope they skate to The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. They're the team that could pull it off.
I think that would fit them like a glove.
As a source of inspiration, I would absolutely recommend Eric Ewazen's Concerto for Marimba (marimba being a percussion instrument and not one of his Latin girlfriends). I cannot find a version on YT that doesn't make my ears bleed unfortunately. I have the CD version of She-e Wu which is incomparably better than any version on YT. (I cannot understand why people put videos up in which the string section goes all off key, the balance between the marimba and the strings is often totally gone and the marimba player hits the wrong note from time to time. I suppose it's simply thàt hard a concerto...)
To discover some new music in a bad version is killing it in the crib, so I don't know what to do to let you taste this marvel. I just hope that Gaby and Guigui get a chance to listen to it at one point. In the CD version.
 
I always found their non touch to be slightly lacking in content but watching this cam and seeing it from another angle, I realize they really increased the content since the GP. I also understand why I thought it wasn't full enough, they cross the rink from one board to the other so fast yet having so many steps, it gives this "what the heck happened, it's already finished" type of impression. Plus they don't have that little stop to throw some quick latin moves. Anyway, rewatching their Euro performances, if I initially thought the energy was a bit lacking, I don't think so anymore. Both were skating very clean with lots of intent but it is wise for them to keep the special extra performance for the Olympics. Who wants to peak before really ????
 
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