Shoma and his favorite people in the skating worlddinner with Marin and Stephane after their respective practice sessions! (Stephane is in Japan for Fantasy on Ice).
Hi x001! Although I love ice dance and have been watching it for 5 years, I'm afraid I'm not an expert about levels and other technical matters. All I can say about the twizzles is that Shoma and Marin have excellent synchrony, are well spaced, seem fast, and are very well centered. Unlike spins, what judges want in twizzles are lots of ice coverage while rotating smoothly without any breaks. Even a tiny break in rotation can drop a level. The other things I mentioned are bullet points for good GOE. I'm not the best judge of ice coverage without something to use as reference, but they appear to be flying across the ice. I'm sure there are experienced teams that can twizzle closer to each other than what they did, but new ice dancers are often reluctant to be so close to each other and Shoma and Marin just don't look like new ice dancers to me when they do this element. They were also able to keep an even distance between them instead of drifting apart. Besides the aesthetics of position and synchrony, the thing that impressed me the most was how steady they were on their axis, even in the second set. As you may know, most skaters have a preferred rotational direction. Many ice dancers start with a set in their preferred direction, then a set in the other direction. So the second set is often the hardest, and I see more stumbles and bobbles on that set. Of course reversing a spin has got to be disorienting for anyone and that's another reason. I thought Shoma and Marin's second set looked just as steady as the first and third.
