Shibutanis defend Skate America title | Golden Skate

Shibutanis defend Skate America title

gsk8

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Country
United-States
USA’s Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani defended their Skate America title in Lake Placid, New York, today, pocketing their second grand prix gold of the season. Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy won the silver, while Russia’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov earned the bronze.
“We’re really proud of what we did this entire weekend,” said Maia Shibutani. “We’ve been working so hard since Cup of Russia and both programs really felt like they built and they’re so much stronger now heading into the Grand Prix Final. These were the performances that we were looking to have.”
“We had the impression that we need to be perfect today and it always adds pressure to the whole process,” Cappellini said. “We were nervous. We missed the exit of the lift and we knew we already lost some points.”
“We are very happy with how we skated here at Skate America, we skated clean,” Katsalapov told the post-event press conference. “Now we know what we need to work on. Our next competition is our national championship and we’ll try to fix everything that wasn’t perfect yet. It was a great pleasure to compete in this historical place and we felt really energized.”

See article for more quotes from both the short and long.


What are your thoughts on the Ice Dance event? What did you enjoy the most?
 
Last edited:

VIETgrlTerifa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Not much to say other than congratulations to the Shibutanis for scoring a personal best in the SD and a very high FD score showing that their GOEs are on par or very close to the top two. This should be a real boost in confidence going into the rest of the season. I was worried when they decided not to do a Challenger competition, but it seems that they know exactly what they're doing. They've conquered Rostelecom Cup after that being the only GP event in which they did not medal back in 2012, have now won their 6th GP title, and most tellingly, received high levels in front of a very tough tech panel, with a caller who has not hesitated in giving them lower levels in the past. They clearly are ready for the season and I still think they have room to improve, which says a lot about their abilities.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Maia and Alex are so smooth. I could watch them all day. No offense to Chock and Bates or Hubbell and Donohue, but the Shibs seem on track for another national championship and an Olympic medal. Who knows, they could even aspire higher.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Maia and Alex are so smooth. I could watch them all day. No offense to Chock and Bates or Hubbell and Donohue, but the Shibs seem on track for another national championship and an Olympic medal. Who knows, they could even aspire higher.

Woah Mathman! What happened to your crush on Madison Chock?! ;)
 

Bcash

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 18, 2017
The Shibutanis always skate like they are doing a Waltz. I guess the judges do love to reward consistency, because otherwise I don't see how they should score that much more than several teams that placed below them here.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
I Saw shibutani SD and they just make smiling a scary aggressive hostile act
 

meem

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 24, 2006
I sure hope this past weekend's "tough tech panel" will be at the Olympics. There are too many excellent ID teams so any errors need to be caught and points deducted fairly across the board. No more forgiving slip-ups just because a team is otherwise outstanding.
 

VIETgrlTerifa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I sure hope this past weekend's "tough tech panel" will be at the Olympics. There are too many excellent ID teams so any errors need to be caught and points deducted fairly across the board. No more forgiving slip-ups just because a team is otherwise outstanding.

I'd normally would agree with that completely, but I wonder if there's such a thing as a panel being needlessly harsh to the point where the skaters and coaches and maybe others are confused by the calls because they see the elements being done at that performance actually meeting the requirements for levels. I wonder how much level calling in ice dance goes beyond level calling and is actually going into GOE territory myself. That said the judges aren't really winning anybody who is paying attention's confidence in the past two seasons so some may feel the tech panel should step in to reign in the craziness. Sinead Kerr on Ice Network said that the SA panel consisted of people who have been callers for a very long time (Dostatni has been a caller since the inception of IJS) and are very experienced thus probably more demanding aka old school. I wonder if the ISU wants tough panels for all the disciplines at the Olympics because the last thing they probably want is a competition where the results confuse the general television audience.
 

Barb

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
What are your thoughts on the Ice Dance event? What did you enjoy the most?

The Shibs, of course. At Rostelecom I enjoyed more their SD than FD, but in Skate America their FD was the best for me, the improvement is impressive and I finally can see what they are trying tell us, it seems that the pressure of the olympic season is influencing them in a very positive way, highlight of the event: their rotational lifthttps://youtu.be/zMrkbFpOPUU?t=215.

M/R were great too, especially SD, one of the best SD and very well danced. I hope they continue skating the next 4 years.

S/K were very decent, Nikita seemed more controled, incredible that now is she who is having problems with twizzles. Bravo to Zhulin for control Nikita´s twizzles, Sara Hurtado (who is coached by Zhulin) known for having problems with her twizzles too, showed a really nice twizzles in Andorra this last weekend https://youtu.be/KZYszi8Pu_c?t=22

C/L looked a little sloppy but I love their FD, I hope that Anna get a new dress.

P/P :(
 

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
My favorites @ Skate America - The Shibs, Cappelini & LaNotte (I :love: Anna's dress), Piper & Paul, Kana & Chris!
 

asp11

Just a dedicated fan - not a skater
On the Ice
Joined
Oct 31, 2014
They are constantly improving. So happy for them!
 

apgold

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Country
United-States
Sadly, I missed seeing their short dance but saw their FD and the EX live. Really enjoyed seeing them skate as they were head and shoulders above the competition here.

I also saw their mom looking proud in the stands during the medal ceremony!
 
Top