Finally got the rest of the Gala watched yesterday, and just wanted to make a few comments.
Firstly, shame on Eurosport for having ad breaks instead of showing some of the routines. And then arriving back for the second half late. Rather than showing 2 routines during the interval (Papadakis / Cizeron’s FD and Fernandez’s FS), could they not have just shown one and had longer adverts then, instead of having breaks during the show?
Not really too much to say about the first half.
I’ve already complained about Eurosport putting on adverts during most of
Wang / Lui’s routine. And to add insult to injury, there are no copies of it on YouTube. But, from the small bit that Eurosport did catch, it looked like a beautiful routine.
As some people have been pointing out, there were lots of mistakes in the information about the Gala routines. For example,
Gracie did a totally different routine to what the info said she would be doing. And, I have to be honest, I think I would have preferred her doing the “Shake It Off” routine to the one she did actually do.
Chock / Bates. Beautiful performance of this routine as always. But, erm, was Nicky imagining things, or did anybody else see something they shouldn’t have at the beginning of the highlights. Because I didn’t.
Sui / Han’s plants vs. zombies routine wasn’t as good as it normally is. It is usually very slick, but this performance actually looked sloppy. There were a few times where they were just standing there waiting for the music to catch up, and the bit where they do the light show was very half-hearted. Which is a shame, as it has been one of the most enjoyable routines of the season.
The second half kicked off with
Ziquan Zhao. Absolutely loved it! OK, so I’m probably biased. I have always loved Lenka, and in particular the song used, “The Show”. And it does help that Ziquan is a very beautiful girl. Pity Eurosport missed most of it.
Same with
Ilinykh / Zhiganshin (nearly wrote Katsalapov! I suppose I can blame Meoima this time because of the April Fools thread about them getting back together!) It was a beautiful routine, but Eurosport missed most of it. Although, they did manage to get back in time for the big fall (or, should that be “falls”?) They bounced back well from it.
Next up was
Misha Ge. What a performance!!! I mightn’t be the biggest fan of the song, but boys does it produce brilliant routines. And Misha is the perfect showman to be using it. Without giving too much away, I loved the cameo appearance from one of the other skaters! Have to say I was a little bit jealous of Misha when she was on!
Scimeca and Knierim. How can I put this? It was a beautiful routine but, coming straight after Misha, it was a bit of a let down. Personally, I think that the Gala routine they were using earlier in the season would have been a better choice. Of course, when packing their costumes before going to China, they wouldn’t have known if they would even be in the Gala, never mind who they would be on after!
Which brings us to the elephant in the room.
Liza’s performance.
CaroLiza_Fan! I was getting worried that you might have expired from pure joy!!!
When I read this comment, I thought you were referring to Liza winning the title. Now that I’ve watched the Gala, I realise that you were referring to something completely different…!
BTW CaroLiza_fan did you tape Liza's ex in HD... if so, you might want to sit down and try not to have a heart attack.
Yes, I recorded the Gala in HD. However, on Thursday I needed to clear up some space on the Sky+ box quickly. And, in my haste, I accidentally deleted the original LIVE HD recording instead of the downloaded SD recording. So, I didn’t actually see any of the Gala in HD.
The first time I saw the routine, the only thing I noticed was Liza adjusting the position of the left strap of her dress. And I thought nothing more of it.
Then, after finishing the Gala, I came on here, and saw
sabinfire’s video link and
comment about getting an eye-full. And I thought “eh?!” So, purely for the purposes of settling an argument you understand(!), I went back and watched it again. And still saw nothing strange. Thinking it was probably because I was watching in SD, I went onto YouTube to watch an HD version. Nope, still nothing untoward. Then I clicked through to sabinfire’s HD video of the CBC coverage, in case they had a different camera angle. Still the same.
So, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about!
It was only this morning when I saw that somebody had posted a link on the fake Liza Facebook profile to an album of photos from the Gala, and clicked through to them that I saw a still photo of the moment, that I realised why I wasn’t seeing anything: I had been looking at the wrong breast the whole time! It was the other one that had popped out!!!
That poor girl! Maybe it is because I care so much about her, but my overwhelming emotion is feeling sorry for her. She didn’t deserve that to happen.
Fast forwarding again to
Javi. Now, I know a lot of you were getting fed up with the Aearobics Class routine being wheeled out again and again. But I really like it, and enjoy it every time. So, when I saw Javi come out wearing something else, I was a bit disappointed, but at the same time curious to see what he would do.
That was the most boring routine I have ever seen!

It wasn’t that it was boring compared to the Aerobics Class routine (let’s face it, anything would be!). It was just boring, full stop! I have to admit, I got so bored that I started looking at the TV schedule to see which of the Eurosport channels the next session of snooker was on.
Now, I don’t know, maybe Eurosport cut off their coverage a bit too sharpish. But, from what they did show, I thought the
Finale was a major anti-climax. There was nothing terribly exciting about it.
Overall, I thought the Worlds Gala could have been better. Not saying that there was anything wrong with the quality of the skating on display. Just that there was no buzz about it compared to other Galas we have had this season.
Perhaps the skaters were just exhausted after a long hard season. In which case, I suppose we should be concerned about whether the WTT is going to have the same fun atmosphere that it normally does.
Oh, and as my final word, can I just say that the Worlds Gala could have been improved massively in one stroke by letting
Anna Pogo in to do her “Rise Like A Phoenix” routine. (Best Gala routine of the year!)
CaroLiza_fan