I went to all of the junior mens and junior dance practices today. I didn't take any detailed notes, so these are just some general comments.
Junior Mens
No "winner" in the junior mens practices today. They had their choice of skating their short or free programs, but I don't think that anyone skated to their free music. The exciting news is that there was no "groan" music - you know, the ones that play in your head endlessly because too many skaters use the same thing. And for some music humor, you'll even hear a phrase of the theme music to the Batman TV show in one short program. No triple axels seen even in when they weren't skating their run throughs. Triples were few and far between.
There were a couple of junior men that stood out to me. Dominic Rondeau - Quebec had very nice rotations on his triples, but he was having problems on the checkout of his jumps. Jeremy Ten - BC has really soft jumps and very dance like presentation and arms. His spins were also very nice. I did see an almost 3axel from him with a sit down on the landing.
Junior Pairs
Another case of no practice "winner". In fact, the practices were really rough - I'm hoping that everyone is getting their issues out on the practice ice, and we can see some clean programs. The pairs also had their choice of short or free music and it was about 50-50 between them. There were only a couple of pairs with a noticeably younger girl, but no "yuck" factor with the appearance of a huge age difference. Several collapsed lifts, 2 "spin outs" on death spirals, one very scary off-balance lift, and one "balk" on a throw. However, I did see one very inventive hydroblade move into a death spiral.
Junior Mens
No "winner" in the junior mens practices today. They had their choice of skating their short or free programs, but I don't think that anyone skated to their free music. The exciting news is that there was no "groan" music - you know, the ones that play in your head endlessly because too many skaters use the same thing. And for some music humor, you'll even hear a phrase of the theme music to the Batman TV show in one short program. No triple axels seen even in when they weren't skating their run throughs. Triples were few and far between.
There were a couple of junior men that stood out to me. Dominic Rondeau - Quebec had very nice rotations on his triples, but he was having problems on the checkout of his jumps. Jeremy Ten - BC has really soft jumps and very dance like presentation and arms. His spins were also very nice. I did see an almost 3axel from him with a sit down on the landing.
Junior Pairs
Another case of no practice "winner". In fact, the practices were really rough - I'm hoping that everyone is getting their issues out on the practice ice, and we can see some clean programs. The pairs also had their choice of short or free music and it was about 50-50 between them. There were only a couple of pairs with a noticeably younger girl, but no "yuck" factor with the appearance of a huge age difference. Several collapsed lifts, 2 "spin outs" on death spirals, one very scary off-balance lift, and one "balk" on a throw. However, I did see one very inventive hydroblade move into a death spiral.
