2021 Open d'Andorra

[ladyjane]

Original! Good for Lou and Noé! Great skating, and some truly original moves. Nice!

 

[La Rhumba]

Gaaahhh!!! We missed a chunk of the choreography because India and Eron were doing it right up against the boards, and somebody with a camcorder was blocking our view!!!

I have mixed feelings about the music. At the start, we had an instrumental version of "Music" by John Miles. Now, I love that song, but this version sounded awful! Then we had a crowd, sounding something like you get during the protests in "Les Misérables". I didn't like that either. I liked the next section of music. But, then it went back to the instrumental version of "Music" that we started with.

The skating was undoubtedly of a higher level than their team-mates.

From a lead of practically nothing after the SP, they extend it to about 7 points.

So, Australia won the Battle Of Alexandra Palace.

The question now is whether one or even both of them overtake the Germans.

CaroLiza_fan

I agree, I loved the John Miles original of Music from the 70s but this violin version is Muzak. However their skating has improved alot this season and 4CC beckons for the Aussie-Brit in Estonia of all places! Pandemic permitting.

It was going so well for the Latvian-Brit till the Combi Spin which lost alot of points. But Luke is definitely Aurelija's best ever partner, technically & artistically and hopefully they'll get to European & Worlds. I don't know if there's another Latvian icedance couple out there?

Final group coming up after the resurfacing. No blocking of the view please!

Good Luck LilahandLewis and fair judging please!

 

[ladyjane]

Nothing wrong with Lara and Maximillian's skate, just a tad boring. Not due to the music or anything. My bad probably.

 

[ladyjane]

Good to see Chantelle and Andrew doing pretty well. Nice dance.

 

[ladyjane]

H'm. Strange Bolero by Loicia and Théo...and in Ice Dance doing Bolero is a bit of a challenge. Still in the lead though.

 

[ladyjane]

At least Katerina and Tim didn't have a choreographic 'fall' this time round. Looked better than their RD to me.

 

[ladyjane]

Hurrah Lilah and Lewis! I never noticed before that they're actually doing a pairs side by side spin (not as many rotations or positions) in this Dance. Is that allowed? A bit like Madison and Zachary's lift. Cheeky, but could lead to problems...I think they should be the winners though.

 

[ladyjane]

A few small changes in the results from the RD, but not in the total I think. I'll wait for the scores for confirmation.

 

[La Rhumba]

Yay!

Lilah Fear & Lewis Gibson Free Dance Open d'Andorra

#LilahandLewis won their first International title of the season today with a super performance of their Lion King Free Dance! They skated beautifully and wo...

youtu.be

 

[thorag]

She just got the FS minimum for EC by the hair!! She made some costly mistakes in the last part. And now she got the silver!

The FS for WC will come later, now i´m incredible happy we have 2 girls qualified for EC and who got on the podium!

please clarify for me...I thought there needed to be 8 skaters in order for the points to count...am I wrong?

 

[thorag]

I can't remember seeing 2 Norwegian girls on an international podium before. Of course, you would automatically assume that my daughters, the Gjersem twins, would have shared international podia lots of times. But it was actually very rare that they would get sent to the same competition. (Which I always thought strange, as you normally find siblings getting sent to the same competitions whenever possible, to cut down the costs).

But, today we had a great result for the Northernmost part of Europe, with Emmi Peltonen joining your girls on the podium.

And I just noticed, the Top 2 in the FS, Emmi and Frida, were the only skaters that went clean. Everybody else had at least one fall.

Well done!!!

CaroLiza_fan

There were 2 Norwegian girls on the podium at Reykjavik International Games a few years back Marianne Stalen and Louisa Warwin

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

There were 2 Norwegian girls on the podium at Reykjavik International Games a few years back Marianne Stalen and Louisa Warwin

Thank you for the correction. I have to admit, I hadn't come across either of those skaters before. So, I looked them up.

Judging by the sheer length of her Rink Results page, Marianne Stålen has been around for a VERY long time. So, I am amazed that her name didn't ring a bell. There again, she didn't do any Junior GP's, and only does a few of the non-Challenger international competitions a year.

As for Louisa Warwin, I take it she is an American that has switched to representing her ancestral homeland. Good on her! I hope it brings her opportunities that she wouldn't get if she stayed in the American field.

When I was looking Louisa up, I found her YouTube channel, and she is a very good violinist. There are lots of videos of her playing, including some of her playing while skating. Unfortunately, she has a really bad habit of superimposing backing tracks onto the videos. However, here is one video I found that was just her playing:

Louisa Warwin - "Ja Vi Elsker Dette Landet"

And here is another where her sister is accompanying her on the piano:

Louisa and Savannah Warwin - "Can't Stop"

I love how they are both really getting into it!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

please clarify for me...I thought there needed to be 8 skaters in order for the points to count...am I wrong?

Don't worry, you're not the only one. @norwegianfairytale was wondering the same thing during the SP:

Actually there are only 2 in last group now, so now there are only 7 skaters all together, still enough to give World standing points and minimums?

And, as ever, @Andrea82 was able to explain the situation perfectly:

Minimums yes (it is 2 from 2 ISU members)
World standing no (it is 8 from 4 ISU members)

It is so confusing nowadays trying to keep track of what competitions count towards what.

So, thank goodness we have @Andrea82!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Thank you @CaroLiza_fan for clarifying it for us. Minimums are ok, but they won´t get ranking points because there was only 7 skaters left. It´s a bit sad because that could come in handy for EC and starting group, but it´s much more important that Norways spot will be filled and that they got the minimums. The Fed has confirmed they got the minimums, so everything should be ok

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Thank you for the correction. I have to admit, I hadn't come across either of those skaters before. So, I looked them up.

Judging by the sheer length of her Rink Results page, Marianne Stålen has been around for a VERY long time. So, I am amazed that her name didn't ring a bell. There again, she didn't do any Junior GP's, and only does a few of the non-Challenger international competitions a year.

As for Louisa Warwin, I take it she is an American that has switched to representing her ancestral homeland. Good on her! I hope it brings her opportunities that she wouldn't get if she stayed in the American field.

When I was looking Louisa up, I found her YouTube channel, and she is a very good violinist. There are lots of videos of her playing, including some of her playing while skating. Unfortunately, she has a really bad habit of superimposing backing tracks onto the videos. However, here is one video I found that was just her playing:

Louisa Warwin - "Ja Vi Elsker Dette Landet"

And here is another where her sister is accompanying her on the piano:

Louisa and Savannah Warwin - "Can't Stop"

I love how they are both really getting into it!

CaroLiza_fan

Yes, @thorag is right, there was 2 Norwegians girls om the podium in Reykjavik. In fact, it was one of the last competition for Norwegian before Covid restrictions and before they had to take a break internationally until this fall. You are saying something interesting @CaroLiza_fan about why the twins often did different competitions, but maybe because the Fed are often sending different skaters to different competitions and there wasn´t many senior skaters back then.

Marianne retired during summer 2020 after deciding she wanted to study. Her retirement seemed quit sudden because she did prepare for a new season and even got new skates before the summer, but maybe she realized there wasn´t going to be a season 2020/21 and she probably didn´t want to stick around another season. I also learned about Marianne pretty late, but she was skating for Nidaros club in Trondheim for a long time, before she moved to Oslo and started skating in the same club as Sondre, Linnea, Frida, Camilla etc., in Asker kunstløpklubb. I think it was then, pretty late in career, she started to have good results, the club seems to develop talents because they have mostly the best skaters in Norway now. Pernille With which got the silver in Advanced Novice in Open Andorra skates for this club as well.

Louisa Warwin is really something special with all her talents. As you say she plays violin. I do follow her on Instagram and during lockdown in 2020 she was in US for a while, before she finally came back to Norway this year. Apparently she had a very tough health situation in the US, which was solved when she came back to Norway and got the help she needed. Apparently it was very tough on her mentally as well. There was something with her back or hip or something, so she wasn´t on the ice for months. She isn´t competing this season and I don´t think she will either, but it seems she is finally able to skate again, at least she has no problem spinning and the last months she has really been concentring on roller skating. She is doing some advertising with roller skates and it seems she now is in Spain filming something related to skating (on regular ice), probably more commercial? So whatever she does now she is doing very well and it seems very interesting. Also, she has published a book on Amazon about how she successfully have managed having a skating career while taking a College degree, so she seems to be able to doing a lot of things.

She hasn´t said anything about competitive skating, but she hasn´t said she has retired either. I´m not sure she will be back with almost 2 years of competitive skating, it seems she is having a break now, but who knows, at least she is still skating frequently and her spins are looking great, i´m not sure though if she is maintaining her jumps.

So apparently i´m writing a novel about the Norwegian skaters, so I think i´m going to stop now. But I wanted to say something about Frida Berge because her development this season has been really good. I did not expect her to have this growth because I thought she had reached her potensial but look at those recent scores from this season: 104,58 in NRW Trophy in Dortmund, 123.05 in Cup of Austria and now 132,53 in Open Andorra. And that is even when she had a really unlucky mistake in her SP, she fell on her entry on the loop and got zero point for the solo jump and a deduction for her fall. She isn´t doing a triple triple (but she does it in training now), she doesn´t have a triple flip or lutz, so she can still improve her score.

 

[thorag]

Don't worry, you're not the only one. @norwegianfairytale was wondering the same thing during the SP:



And, as ever, @Andrea82 was able to explain the situation perfectly:



It is so confusing nowadays trying to keep track of what competitions count towards what.

So, thank goodness we have @Andrea82!

CaroLiza_fan

Thank you @CaroLiza_fan . If I may ask @Andrea82 to supply written info from ISU if possible about the 2 from 2 being valid for Euros and Worlds. (I always thought it was 8 and 4). I get asked about that all the time and I would appreciate having written confirmation from ISU to support it. Thx

 

[Andrea82]

It is scattered between different parts of the regulations.

Rule 378, paragraph 3 says

To be entered into and participate in an ISU Championships a Skater/Pair/Couple must have reached in an ISU recognized International Competition (as per Article 39, paragraph 7 and Rule 107, paragraphs 1 to 10) during the ongoing or immediately preceding season the applicable Minimum Total Elements Scores (points). The applicable Minimum Total Elements Scores shall be decided for each season by the ISU Council based on a joint proposal from the respective Technical Committee and the Sports Technical Director(s), and shall be published in an ISU Communication

https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/rules/fsk-regulations-rules

Rule 107 defines International competitions as follow (paragraph 3)

An International Competition under paragraphs 4 to 12 is a competition for which:
a) The organizing ISU Member invites at least one foreign ISU Member to participate.
b) The entry of Competitors can be made only through the respective ISU Members.
c) Competitors from at least two ISU Members participate.
d) Conducted in accordance with the Rules of the ISU.

https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/rules-regulations/isu-statutes-constitution-regulations-technical/26065-isu-constitution-general-regulations-2021/file

Furthermore, the following conditions must also be met

Rule 420. Paragraph 5. Point C
For the results from any International Competition to count towards ISU Championship qualification, or for world standings or world rankings, the following conditions must be met:
i) the Technical Controller and the Technical Specialists must not be from the same ISU Member, and
ii) a panel of a minimum of five judges is required, and, no ISU Member can have the majority of the Judges on any panel.

https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/rules/fsk-regulations-rules

The tables with recognized technical scores are here (updated on Saturday after Rostelecom Cup. The updates with B events are not always so fast but usually in reasonable time):

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsmjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stswjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stspjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsdjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsmjustjun3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stswjustjun3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stspjustjun3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsdjustjun3.htm

 

[thorag]

It is scattered between different parts of the regulations.

Rule 378, paragraph 3 says

To be entered into and participate in an ISU Championships a Skater/Pair/Couple must have reached in an ISU recognized International Competition (as per Article 39, paragraph 7 and Rule 107, paragraphs 1 to 10) during the ongoing or immediately preceding season the applicable Minimum Total Elements Scores (points). The applicable Minimum Total Elements Scores shall be decided for each season by the ISU Council based on a joint proposal from the respective Technical Committee and the Sports Technical Director(s), and shall be published in an ISU Communication

https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/rules/fsk-regulations-rules

Rule 107 defines International competitions as follow (paragraph 3)

An International Competition under paragraphs 4 to 12 is a competition for which:
a) The organizing ISU Member invites at least one foreign ISU Member to participate.
b) The entry of Competitors can be made only through the respective ISU Members.
c) Competitors from at least two ISU Members participate.
d) Conducted in accordance with the Rules of the ISU.

https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/rules-regulations/isu-statutes-constitution-regulations-technical/26065-isu-constitution-general-regulations-2021/file

Furthermore, the following conditions must also be met

Rule 420. Paragraph 5. Point C
For the results from any International Competition to count towards ISU Championship qualification, or for world standings or world rankings, the following conditions must be met:
i) the Technical Controller and the Technical Specialists must not be from the same ISU Member, and
ii) a panel of a minimum of five judges is required, and, no ISU Member can have the majority of the Judges on any panel.

https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/rules/fsk-regulations-rules

The tables with recognized technical scores are here (updated on Saturday after Rostelecom Cup. The updates with B events are not always so fast but usually in reasonable time):

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsmjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stswjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stspjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsdjustsen3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsmjustjun3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stswjustjun3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stspjustjun3.htm

http://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsdjustjun3.htm

Thank you @Andrea82

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Yes, @thorag is right, there was 2 Norwegians girls om the podium in Reykjavik. In fact, it was one of the last competition for Norwegian before Covid restrictions and before they had to take a break internationally until this fall. You are saying something interesting @CaroLiza_fan about why the twins often did different competitions, but maybe because the Fed are often sending different skaters to different competitions and there wasn´t many senior skaters back then.

You're probably right. Back then, the national team was basically just the twins. So, separating them out was a good way to maximise the number of events the Norwegian Fed was represented at.

That said, the paradox is that the twins were competing at different levels for most of their careers. (Camilla Marie being a step behind Anne Line). So, it is not as if one would have been pushing the other down the results if they had got sent to the same event occasionally.

Marianne retired during summer 2020 after deciding she wanted to study. Her retirement seemed quit sudden because she did prepare for a new season and even got new skates before the summer, but maybe she realized there wasn´t going to be a season 2020/21 and she probably didn´t want to stick around another season. I also learned about Marianne pretty late, but she was skating for Nidaros club in Trondheim for a long time, before she moved to Oslo and started skating in the same club as Sondre, Linnea, Frida, Camilla etc., in Asker kunstløpklubb. I think it was then, pretty late in career, she started to have good results, the club seems to develop talents because they have mostly the best skaters in Norway now. Pernille With which got the silver in Advanced Novice in Open Andorra skates for this club as well.

Sorry to hear that Marianne Stålen has retired. But, I totally understand her decision. I know I couldn't have maintained a sporting career when I was at Uni. As you say, it does sound like she was making preparations to compete last season. But, with the way the pandemic happened, it turned out to be a logical time to call it a day.

You know, it's amazing how certain training set-ups are able to bring out the best in skaters time and time again. Whether it is skaters that have come up through their own ranks, or experienced skaters that have have come from elsewhere.

For an experienced skater, changing your set-up is a big risk. Because, you don't know if the new set-up will suit you. If it does work, it can be hugely beneficial. But if it doesn't, it could hasten the end. In Marianne's case, it sounds like it was just what she needed.

And I am glad it did, because winning a Gold Medal in your last overseas competition and then a Gold Medal in your last domestic competition is the perfect way to go out.

Louisa Warwin is really something special with all her talents. As you say she plays violin. I do follow her on Instagram and during lockdown in 2020 she was in US for a while, before she finally came back to Norway this year. Apparently she had a very tough health situation in the US, which was solved when she came back to Norway and got the help she needed. Apparently it was very tough on her mentally as well. There was something with her back or hip or something

Wow! Thank you for telling us about Louisa's health problems. I know I was very strongly in favour of closing borders and not allowing any travel during the pandemic. To the extent that I wouldn't have been allowed people that were overseas when the lockdowns arrived to come home. But, when you hear stories like that, it makes you realise that there does need to be some exceptions. And this sounds like a prime example, somebody needing medical treatment. So, it makes you wonder why on Earth she wasn't allowed to return to Norway. I can imagine how stressful that must have been for her.

The main thing is that she did eventually get back and get sorted, and is now well on the way back on track. But, I hope she gave herself plenty of time to recover properly after her treatment, and didn't go straight onto the roller skates!

she wasn´t on the ice for months. She isn´t competing this season and I don´t think she will either, but it seems she is finally able to skate again, at least she has no problem spinning and the last months she has really been concentring on roller skating. She is doing some advertising with roller skates and it seems she now is in Spain filming something related to skating (on regular ice), probably more commercial? So whatever she does now she is doing very well and it seems very interesting. Also, she has published a book on Amazon about how she successfully have managed having a skating career while taking a College degree, so she seems to be able to doing a lot of things.

She hasn´t said anything about competitive skating, but she hasn´t said she has retired either. I´m not sure she will be back with almost 2 years of competitive skating, it seems she is having a break now, but who knows, at least she is still skating frequently and her spins are looking great, i´m not sure though if she is maintaining her jumps.

I saw some of her videos on roller skates and, whilst you are right that it's not the same as being on the ice, she was looking great! So, hopefully she will come back to competition.

But, you've got a point about the jumps. It was nearly all spins she was doing. So, if she does plan on coming back to competition, I hope she is spending plenty of time practicing them when she is on the ice.

One thing I couldn't get over, though, was the reaction of the people while she was skating around them. Or, rather, the lack of! Nobody even batted an eyelid! Is this normal in Norway, having people zooming around the streets on roller skates, doing figure skating elements?

I wanted to say something about Frida Berge because her development this season has been really good. I did not expect her to have this growth because I thought she had reached her potensial but look at those recent scores from this season: 104,58 in NRW Trophy in Dortmund, 123.05 in Cup of Austria and now 132,53 in Open Andorra. And that is even when she had a really unlucky mistake in her SP, she fell on her entry on the loop and got zero point for the solo jump and a deduction for her fall. She isn´t doing a triple triple (but she does it in training now), she doesn´t have a triple flip or lutz, so she can still improve her score.

That sounds very promising for the future! Looking forward to seeing what she can do as the season progresses.

So apparently i´m writing a novel about the Norwegian skaters, so I think i´m going to stop now.

You should not be apologising for the length of your "novel" about Norwegian skaters. (If you think that post was long, you should see some of mine! ) It was extremely interesting, and very informative. It is always fascinating to find out more about skaters that you are not familiar with.

CaroLiza_fan