- Joined
- Apr 10, 2019
Actually....*four* unrelated cuts of music (fast, slow, medium, fast). And, it was really T&D's 1982 Mack and Mabel that changed things. The overture, technically as one piece of music (though still had changes of rhythm). Then 1983's Barnum, then Bolero in 1984. People refer to them as the Big 3, even though the first year they won Euros and Worlds was 1981. No one ever ever talks about their 1981 programs, because they were the typical unrelated songs with no story. Truthfully, it was their 1980 routine (3 swing pieces plus one unrelated slow song) that put them on the map, and IMO, is why they won everything the next year. If that had been their 1981 routine they would have called them the Big 4.Yes, the one discipline that is provably, absolutely better now is ice dance.
But in my opinion that has little to do with IJS, and everything to do with T&D's Bolero. For younger posters, if you've never seen a 70's ice dance program, as gifted as some of those athletes were, it might be difficult to understand the impact of Bolero. Three cheesy cuts of unrelated music have (almost ) disappeared as a result.