2026 Olympics: Rhythm Dance

[4everchan]

it is USA, Italy, Spain and Georgia who will join in the FD.

3 IAM judges. Great

 

[NoNameFace]

it is USA, Italy, Spain and Georgia who will join in the FD.

Apologies, someone had to send me screen from TE RD, my bad.

 

[Cindy1983]

Here are my thoughts.

While I will give you that a six point differential should be discussed with evenly matched teams. I did some subtraction, and the difference is less than 0.5 points (0.48, to be exact). That’s a statistical tie. There are two ways to interpret that. The first is that they want to give it to the French team and don’t want to make it look like they are doing just that. That’s cowardly. If you’re gonna do that, do it outright. The second, and more charitable, interpretation is that the judges (and experts) have a foregone conclusion that C/B will prevail and want to give the F/C a consolation prize by giving them the short program win. The commentary during the FD in the Team Competition was about how thy make the staccato beat of the paso doble music work and how hard that was to do. I get the impression that, if they skate that program the way they did in the TE, the gold is theirs.

I do wonder about the subjective part of th sport plays into scoring. You can quantify some of that. For example, how do you quantify things like liking the song, familiarity with the artist, etc. My point is that Lennie Kravitz is more of an American music star, whereas Madonna has been an international superstar for decades. How about a program just not being a particular judge’s cup of tea? I’m not knocking the subjective element. I personally like it because I think it makes the sport the sport.

Did anyone else notice that Vadym Koranic (spelling?) was mouthing the words to the song as he was skating? That’s hard to do and do the aerobic skating.

The best part of Piper and Paul’s program is when he grabs his own butt. Takes a sense of humor.

 

[elbkup]

I just want Chock and Bates to skate gracefully to the sunset after this season. I'm afraid a silver medal might give Madison the idea of staying in another 4 years. Enough.

Rather doubt that; my guess is they want to get on with “real life”. We shall see . I would love the younger teams to move up

 

[elbkup]

Here are my thoughts.

While I will give you that a six point differential should be discussed with evenly matched teams. I did some subtraction, and the difference is less than 0.5 points (0.48, to be exact). That’s a statistical tie. There are two ways to interpret that. The first is that they want to give it to the French team and don’t want to make it look like they are doing just that. That’s cowardly. If you’re gonna do that, do it outright. The second, and more charitable, interpretation is that the judges (and experts) have a foregone conclusion that C/B will prevail and want to give the F/C a consolation prize by giving them the short program win. The commentary during the FD in the Team Competition was about how thy make the staccato beat of the paso doble music work and how hard that was to do. I get the impression that, if they skate that program the way they did in the TE, the gold is theirs.

I do wonder about the subjective part of th sport plays into scoring. You can quantify some of that. For example, how do you quantify things like liking the song, familiarity with the artist, etc. My point is that Lennie Kravitz is more of an American music star, whereas Madonna has been an international superstar for decades. How about a program just not being a particular judge’s cup of tea? I’m not knocking the subjective element. I personally like it because I think it makes the sport the sport.

Did anyone else notice that Vadym Koranic (spelling?) was mouthing the words to the song as he was skating? That’s hard to do and do the aerobic skating.

The best part of Piper and Paul’s program is when he grabs his own butt. Takes a sense of humor.

Vadym has always done that I think.. his skating is to die for

 

[readernick]

Hi all! Hope everyone enjoyed the rhythm dance tonight. Here are some thoughts after seeing the competition in person. Sorry it’s long!

I’ve not read everyone’s comments yet so hopefully my take isn’t too controversial! So the judging was very FAIR tonight. Mistakes and untidyness/sloppiness were marked down accordingly.

Very sad for the Koreans, as was the audience. Everyone was into their performance and felt very bad when Ye was upset at his mistake resulting in them not qualifying for the Free. I wonder if he has had an injury since his twizzles have been off for most of the season and Hannah was very understanding and supportive.

The audience loved the baby Brits and their RD was so good. They should be so proud of how well they performed and placed. And so nice to see Penny with them at an event!

Baby Czechs also very good and have a lot of presence on ice. Taschlers also good but didn’t have the same speed or conviction of baby Czechs. It was very evident since they skated right before them. T/K skated really well considering the limited prep and competition time they’ve had.

The French (FB/C) were very good but they don’t have the presence on ice that I expected. I’ve seen them both skate in person with their former partners and they had so much presence in those former couplings. It’s not that they don’t have chemistry because they do, but it does feel like a new partnership in the way that they don’t convey that confidence and security yet because the partnership is so new. Saying all that though, they skated superbly.

Z/K, L/B, S/D and R/S were all fantastic and deserved their scores/placements. Im still warming to Z/K but I can’t deny their skill. They were very good and skate so deep in the knees. They were my husband’s favourite of the night. They skate with so much confidence.

Lala were wonderful. They skate with a lot of speed but their twizzles were a bit messy/out of synch. I feel like they are not skating with the same confidence as they did in 23/24 when they really made a name for themselves in making the top 5 at worlds. They need RD material that they really connect with (like their Thriller RD last year) as the skill is clearly there.

I felt like CPom skated with a lot of conviction and confidence in their material but they skated smaller and slower than Lala. Their costumes really flashed on the ice - it was nice to see Anthony in something that had bit of style and flare to it. The programme is perhaps a bit boring (those were my husband’s comments).

The Brits were good (they both skate with a great knee bend) but Lilah had a very visible bobble in the twizzle so deserved to be marked down. They were fun as always.

The Italians were also good (I always enjoy them more in person than on TV cause their presence comes across so much more) but I have to say they are a bit sloppy in terms of matching each other in their lines/timing and Marco’s twizzles were a bit messy.

Piper and Paul were so good. They were slower through the pattern step but everything else was quite fast, especially considering they were in hold a lot. They covered a lot of ice in their twizzles and they were very sharp. I think a lot of the audience didn’t know the RuPaul song so that maybe a lost a bit of connection because everyone loved the I’m Too Sexy bit.

Madi and Evan had a lot of presence on the ice (yes even Evan) and their movements were so sharp and they match each other’s lines so well. They aren’t as slow as they appear on TV but I also wouldn’t say they are super fast. They skated small (they did not cover the same amount of ice as a lot of other couples) and their twizzles, while clean and precise, did not cover much ice at all. They are more dynamic than the French but their placement is fair. I am biased but I don’t think they are 3 points better than Piper and Paul - 1 or 2 points would be more fair, but I’ve not looked at levels yet.

There is still a lot to play for in the Free. It will be interesting!

Thanks for your in person reviews and I don't think there is anything controversial about your comments. I think most of us felt the Italians and C/B were a bit off their best tonight. C/B looked a lot slower than the TE especially in the middle. P/P were great and what you say about the French is my exact issue with them. I always wanted to see Laurence skate with a partner who matched her incredible skills better and now she does but I find their partnership to lack all sparkle. Their material is also just so simple. I appreciate their skating but I'm really let down by the total package.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Perhaps they might also discuss the SIX POINT GAP the French judge gave his team over Chock and Bates.

6 point gap is nothing unusual at all.

Also, it was only 5 points, and that number was the result of going 1 single GOE mark higher on 3 of the elements and giving PCS of 9.75, 9.75, 9.75 compared to 9.5, 9.5, 9.25 for Chock/Bates. This is completely normal and not a big separation in the actual marks. The GOE's for Ice Dance elements are simply worth a ton, so going 1 single GOE mark higher on an element can already put a team ahead by more than a point.

Cizeron and Beaudry were much better than every other team in this performance. Absolutely commanding, skating bigger and more precisely than in the team event. A gap of several points is deserved. If it was Papadakis/Cizeron out there competing, almost nobody would say anything if the French team had indeed scored several points higher over the field, as has frequently been the case in the past. But since people have reasons to dislike this partnership, the incredible level of skill is being downplayed.

 

[chepe]

I'm slightly pulling for C/B to win it all (as I know that Piper & Paul ain't gonna), but IMO they were not as good as in team event. Felt slower and tighter. That said, I think grande French were bit overscored today (and petit French underscored...).

I want Italians to medal for sentimental reasons, but that was average performance from them. They would have needed more I think, judges sooo obviously want Brits to medal here.

I want to like Lithuanians, but found their program boring. I suppose their footwork must be excellent, otherwise I'm at loss to explain their high scores from RD. On the other hand, T/V were IMO lot better than in Euros, and I'm baffled to see them score less from RD here, in an event where most teams are getting inflated scores. Taschlers were...slightly off I think. Happy that Swedes made the free! I expect big things from them in coming years and this is an excellent opportunity to sharpen their blades.

I wasn't really feeling most of the North American programs. Maybe they're too refined to my crude, rural tastes, or then they're too conservative in approach, IDK. I do think Z/K were in some ways standout of the night, that was really neat and energetic skate. Maybe if the music had been familiar to me, I would have liked the program itself more.

 

[chepe]

If it was Papadakis/Cizeron out there competing, almost nobody would say anything if the French team had indeed scored several points higher over the field, as has frequently been the case in the past.

But maybe that's part of the problem? I don't think this partnership works anywhere as well as P/C did, and it cannot even be expected given it's their first season together.

 

[Dreamer57]

12. Hannah LIM & Ye QUAN KOR
RD: "Men in Black" by Will Smith, choreo by Marie-France Dubreuil, Samuel Chouinard

SyTwW4+SyTwM* (Ye falls out on start of second set)
PSt2
MiStW2+MiStM2
RoLi4
ChRS1

RD: 64.69 (11th)

This is another rhythm dance that I really love, it's very fun and Hannah and Ye do so well at performing quirky choreo. There are a lot of really cool transitional moments designed to match perfectly with the music. However, Ye needs someone to use the MIB memory thing on him so he forgets all of his twizzle woes, he's had problems with them in the past few competitions now and I fear it's becoming a mental block.

So gutted for Hannah and Ye!
I know they had the team event, but they have not been able to perform the free dance which they worked so hard on telling their story! Hugs to them

Happy for Piper and Paul, not so happy for Charlene and Marco in 5th...

& dismayed at the GBR judge for scoring with such blatant favouritism!! Ranking P&P 7th and L&L 2nd!

 

[lariko]

I am finally home from work, watching from the beginning, and I still can't get over that step out on the twizzle for Mrazkova and how good they are. I know there are levels, but when I watch them, I just feel that's this is awesome. I am happy for Zingas and Kolesnyk who seemed to be the only younger team that moved up significantly this quad, but can this kind of move happen for Mrazkova/Mrazek next quad?

 

[lariko]

Your recollection of replacement procedures may be correct, but France and Finland were on this RD panel.

Does this mean Georgia will 100% step in? Boy, that will be fun.

 

[Cindy1983]

6 point gap is nothing unusual at all.

Also, it was only 5 points, and that number was the result of going 1 single GOE mark higher on 3 of the elements and giving PCS of 9.75, 9.75, 9.75 compared to 9.5, 9.5, 9.25 for Chock/Bates. This is completely normal and not a big separation in the actual marks. The GOE's for Ice Dance elements are simply worth a ton, so going 1 single GOE mark higher on an element can already put a team ahead by more than a point.

Cizeron and Beaudry were much better than every other team in this performance. Absolutely commanding, skating bigger and more precisely than in the team event. A gap of several points is deserved. If it was Papadakis/Cizeron out there competing, almost nobody would say anything if the French team had indeed scored several points higher over the field, as has frequently been the case in the past. But since people have reasons to dislike this partnership, the incredible level of skill is being downplayed.

I think that the point that was trying to be made was judge’s nationality affecting scoring bias. The only way to look at that is to see if the other judges have the same differential or if it’s an anomaly. Now if the scoring differential is inconsistent in general (I.e. scores are all over the place), then you can’t tell, either

 

[lariko]

Did anyone else notice that Vadym Koranic (spelling?) was mouthing the words to the song as he was skating? That’s hard to do and do the aerobic skating.

I believe you mean Kolesnik. Check out Mrazkova/Mrazek too if you like singing while dancing. These two are a concert.

 

[chepe]

I am happy for Zingas and Kolesnyk who seemed to be the only younger team that moved up significantly this quad, but can this kind of move happen for Mrazkova/Mrazek next quad?

I don't see why not - might be awkward in the Czech team, as Taschlers seem to have plateaued...

 

[lariko]

I don't see why not - might be awkward in the Czech team, as Taschlers seem to have plateaued...

Well, this year it's the skirt that put the breaks on. And here they are not going to even have the big boost they recieved all season for their SP, so unless Mrazkova finally took off a foot from the hem, they are going to finish last. Which won't propel them into next quad.

 

[Cindy1983]

I believe you mean Kolesnik. Check out Mrazkova/Mrazek too if you like singing while dancing. These two are a concert.

Thanks, I can’t spell Eastern European surnames.

 

[lariko]

Thanks, I can’t spell Eastern European surnames.

Well, apparently the commentator on the CBC can't pronounce it. She went for something like Cole, S, Nik.

 

[Arriba627]

Wasn't able.to watch live so just finished watching now. My favorites were Juulia and Mathias from Finland and Emilea and Vadym. Wishing all a great free. Hopefully the twizzles will go a little better in the free.

 

[Blades of Passion]

I don't think this partnership works anywhere as well as P/C did

And yet they skated with more expression and stronger edges than any other team in this Short Dance. Maybe P/C were even better but that's irrelevant to this competition.