2026 Olympics: Free Dance
- Thread starter dorispulaski
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- Feb 24, 2012
I don't think Boyang would ever come into the equation as an artist or technician.
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- Feb 24, 2012
Yes, those errors were noticeable even o the relatlivelyuntrained eye but I am not sure Chock and Bates would or should win. They were more clumsy or heavy in their skating han the Canadians. I know the Canadians arguably shoudl be thrilled with the bronze and they are but really the gold probably should have gone to them as in both skates they seem underscored. Oh well it's over. i feel for Chock and Bates and how wonderful for the French who formed a new team not even a year ago and climbed to the top - okay to be fair the French federation did eerything they could to get them to gold including dumping their previous no. 1 team and investing in them despite both skaters being deemed scandalous by man. Chock and Bates should be thrilled they won silver and nothing to be ashamed about. But those glaring errors of the Fench and real this events reminds me ironically of another cheated situation when Katarina Witt won in 1988 in what really should have gone to liz Manley ironically another Canadian.
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- Feb 18, 2014
Watching Charlene/Marco again...about midway through the program, Charlene does a kind of layback move that I swear was lovely enough to please even Uncle Dick Button.
Most of the comments are complaining about the result and judging. We’re not comparing C/B Paso Do le to past Pasos, but to a completely different style. That’s the challenge. If ice dance is moving away from traditional ballroom and toward the avant garde, then the more traditional Paso C/B went for may not score. That’s where the subjective element comes in. There are subjective things you can’t quantify. Some of those are opinion-based. Again, this event had some wonky judging overall it seems, judging by the comments. Read my last comment about the RD. They were essentially tied. While I’m sure the preferential judging of one judge played a role, the Olympics hates ties. The IOC basically says that you need to use a tie break when there’s a tie. The RD score was as close as they could separate the teams without an outright tie. It just strikes me as odd that they come from nowhere and succeed in any team usually does. That, to me, suggests, maybe not outright corruption, but being propped up. Most of the other teams (P/P, the Italians) already experienced being displaced. What doesn’t sit right with me is a new team displacing teams that have been together for years and paid their dues. These two paired in 24/25. They’ve been together for a year tops. That has to be unheard-of in a discipline that’s notorious for making couples pay their dues. You can’t comment on the rise of Z/K as anomalous and not say this is at best anomalous / a fluke. Maddie and Evan have a right to be upset because they were together for years paying their dues. Everybody’s focusing on Maddie and Evan, but there were several couples I felt should’ve scored higher. The judging was wonky all around. It should be given a closer look.
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- Dec 5, 2015
Their FD is my favorite. Full of beautiful moments and feeling imho.
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- Jun 9, 2025
I predicted the first one!! Unfortunately my mystical powers ended there
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- Dec 4, 2004
or seat perhaps?
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- Dec 4, 2004
I had the venue feed going on in the living room and the J and T NBC feed going on in the dining room. IIRC, J and T showed the stumble in slo mo.,...will watch it again tonight.
Yup. But Piper and Paul looked so incredibly thrilled that I can't help but be thrilled for them. Their delight really made my day.
I thought it was made very clear in the Olympic run-up that no matter what happened Gilles/Poirier were not being considered for the gold. After the team RD I expected far worse, so I'm just so happy for them right now.
The Italians were my mom's favourite FD too in the team competition. She's a fairly casual viewer and loved Charlene and Marco the most, and thought Chock/Bates's program was awful, lol.
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- Dec 4, 2004
They actually have given away empty seats in the past....when Maddie Chock and Greg Z were skating novice in Spokane nats 2007, they had novice in a convention center type building. They promoters just gave seats away and the place was rockin'! You should have seen the expressions on the novice faces!
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- Mar 7, 2015
not quite.
they were still cheating.
Bourne and Kraatz were placed 5th in the compulsory first dance to make sure that even if they won 3rd place in the free dance, they would still not win a medal. So no. Ordinals were terrible.
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- Jan 29, 2026
The Canadians have always been underscored! Despite the Bronze, it's still weird to witness how the judges suddenly switched to thinking they were not Gold contenders, and left them behind when the scores inflated further. Today's score was not P squared's all-time best – it was two points off that. This narrative has infected various judges, whether they were prejudiced or not, and it's a shame despite the Bronze medal result.
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- Jan 29, 2026
Yes!!! I guess we're supposed to be relieved that ISU judging progress is happening sluggishly slowly?! Impossible to believe Bourne and Kratz didn't medal in 2002, and that even the documentary "Meddling" was not interested in Anissina/Peizerat's bought Gold – only in the injustice done to the pair skating Canadians. The Ice Dance medals should have been reawarded. How much evidence does one need when there is an FBI recording of the Gold medalist discussing her purchase of the medal through a mafioso?
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- Feb 18, 2014
OK, I finally got to see Piper and Paul. In this Yank's opinion, they wuz robbed. I could give a slight edge to C/B just for the drama and complexity of their choreography but would have been perfectly happy if P/P had won the gold. It reminded me of Davis/White and Virtue/Moir in 2014 -- IMO, that could have gone either way, too.
Watching FB/C again, I also have to concede that there was more to the performance than I saw the first time around. Still...
Watching FB/C again, I also have to concede that there was more to the performance than I saw the first time around. Still...
I don't think so. Since the next Olympics will be in France, he might stick around or take a couple of years off and come back in 2029.
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- Nov 14, 2012
I get that but that is marketing. So much money to be made by winners. Which is fine as there needs to be financial gain somewhere in this sport.
What I dislike about the Olympics is the pain and sometimes humiliation felt by those not getting the gold medal, even though they have been world champions. My heart still hurts for Patrick Chan. He did get his team gold but lots of listers here said he still wasn’t an Olympic champion. Whether he was or wasn’t, he was still an amazing and in his day a dominant skater. He brought high level artistry and athleticism to the sport. His music interpretation was breathtaking. So why should the “failure” to win gold at Sochi be more career defining than winning three world championships? But I recognize mine is a minority opinion.
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- Dec 4, 2004
This has been eating at me all day.....the fact of skating judges in ice dance getting together and pre determining results is many decades old. I dont know enough about ice dancing to know if J and T were the only ones that picked up on the judging idyosynchrosies or if every ice dance person on the planet is wondering why reviews werent called. Or KNOW why they werent called. But I do believe that if an entirely different disinterested tech pannel/ judge team would look at the last group, there would be way different numbers. And that is sad. And its very hard to fix. In the singles, we have the bugaboo of URs which is easily fixable with technology, but the ISU choses NOT to. Why?
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