I wonder if Caroline looks more mature because of the crazy perspective ratio on the youtube video? Makes her look almost womanly.
Ok, I'm kidding, she definitely does look more mature. The music, the choreography, and the costume are all gorgeous (though if she's really daring, she ought to add some red to her dress), plus more makeup than usual (it looks good, goes with the character). The choreography is great, gives her a more energetic, dramatic look. The beginning is especially nice, guess she practiced that a lot!
I hope she takes a few lessons from a flamenco dancers, though -- hand/arm movements are very important for flamenco dancing, and she's not quite getting it right yet.
When I first found out the SP music selection, I thought how on earth could she make the first section exciting? But she pulled it off! It's got great intensity with just one chord per 5 steps. Wonderful!
Her spirals are fabulous. I don't think I've ever seen the last position before, where she uses the left hand to grab her right leg behind her back, in almost a vertical split! It's another one of her innovative, mind-boggling flexible moves, but this one looks more elegant than the others, IMHO. Did anyone else notice how she got into her first spiral with a hand gesture that Michelle loved to use? I'm glad she's going to put the pearl -> biellman into her competitive program. Nice way to end the program, especially if she can get that spin faster. I like how the change-of-edge in the camel spin sync'ed with the music. Most skaters either make it look jarring, or too smooth so that you can't even appreciate the transition.
The footwork seq' needs work, but I like the inclusion of different small jumps in addition to all the usual turns and hops. Hopefully with more practice she'll have it ready for the real comps. I also liked the footwork into the flip, rather unusual, and more exciting than your typical watered-down-footwork-into-jump.
The 2A looks higher and stronger than in the past, nice exit pose. By eye, I thought the 3/3 was possibly fully rotated, but GoldMedalist is right, on slow-mo it looks under-rotated. But I wonder if it was ratified anyway, because if it was downgraded plus -2 to -3 GOE's, she would get almost no credit for that combo, and her score would be even lower. Note her TES is actually not that much lower than Mao's (though she omitted the second jump of the combo altogether). If it was downgraded, though, think how much higher her TES would be if it was actually landed! Plus the PCS boost, that ought to put it close to 65.
They showed her doing a fine 3/3 in the intro (practice footage). Too bad she couldn't repeat that in the actual program.
Go Caroline! :agree:
:yes:
About facial expression, it is difficult to tell, because of the small size of the video, but it is important in that kind of music as well as the movements (which were good IMO).
