Novice Free Dance

(Some of these notes are derived from Eda Tseinyev's notes.) Apologies to mispelt names, there were no programs available. Frenow/Villeneauva had a somewhat simple but enjoyable swing dance. They looked like the youngest team there. Kirkland/Sutherland did not fall as they had repeatedly in practice but seemed very unsteady all the time. Perhaps an injury? I was very impressed with Allard/Consenza from Canada. The dance was to some Middle Eastern inspired music by Cirque du Soleil (I believe Eclipse). Although they skated it better in practice, it was still very interesting to watch and included various Besti squats and the Duchenays move where they both squat and lean back over each other's legs. It was cool and they also didn't fall on it. However, he seemed nervous most of the time and one lift completely collapsed on them. That was enough to drop them from tied with first place and give the win to Destremps/Tanguay. They had a Carmen dance with great expression, esp. from him. It was a bit slow but complex and skated confidently. The remaining two teams were Goodsell/Austin; a medley of Adams Family and Dragent skated slowly, and Napier/Kinsea; a juggling program that had some unison problems.

Novice Ladies Long

Evelyn Kong won with a triple toe. She also had double loop - double loop - double loop. Nice presentation but hardly seemed to merit some generous marks. Second place went to Amber Czisny. with a clean triple sal, a toe and another sal stepped out and loop two foot and step out. She definetely looked like a young novice and with long enough legs to do a Beillman. Third was a suprised Meghan McGibbon of Canada, who landed a clean triple loop. I was looking forward to seeing Midori Williams but she was having an off day. Lots of power but some wild axel pops and hard falls. I did like her split jump and she pulled the program together toward the end. Amongst the rest of the field Marie-Luc Jodoin pulled off a triple loop and Christa Wilson a triple sal. I thought Amanda Fritz, although she didn't have as much difficulty, had nice stroking and a touch more polish.

Novice Pairs Long

The air positions on lifts leave much to be desired for the novices. Getting into position is just part of it, many of the girls had that dangling look that never makes you feel very secure. There were some very mistimed sbs spins and a few knock each other over pair spins. Avard/Chaquet won, I noted they had a good death spiral (BI). Both throws were doubles. They had good speed and control. Montgomery/Dean did a double twist with no pick. They tried sbs double axels but they were mistimed. Helin/Lesser had a flip out dismount on a lift. Harvey/Babin fell on their final pair spin. The gap bewteen Novice and Junior Pairs looked very wide here.

Novice Mens Long

The men had a rough time of it. The suprise was Marc-André Craig, who won the long to finish second overall. He stepped out of a triple flip but landed a triple loop, toe, sal and another toe. The winner was Joe Cabral, who had Mike Weiss-inspired Santana program. I liked the quality of his skating and the choreography of the program. He started out pretty strong with triple toe and double axel but began to double at the end and then fell hard on a planned double lutz that was due for the end note of the program. Ouch. Brad Griffies came in third, two footing a triple lutz and landing two triple sals and a triple toe. Shawn Sawyer is a young student of Toller Cranston and it showed in some wonderful extension in spirals. I came to see Alexnadré Hamel, who had your basic nightmare program. He had been falling on a very under-rotated 3 flip in practice alot and all the jumps abandoned him in the program. In practice he was even falling on arabians, which makes me think something was up (getting sick, injured???). He was in the top group after the short but finished last in the long and last overall.

Junior Pairs Long

The junior pairs was well skated with some top notch teams. The Ganabas were due to skate but were replaced by another brother/sister team; the Rogeneness, also coached by Irina Rodnina. They were much in the style of of the Steiglers. In my brief pairs career, I grew to loath the assisted ballet leap (called the #@!%#@ armpit lift in my world) and the Rogeneness did about 10. I finally got to see Waldstein and Lucash. They were coached by Vadim Naumov and had a roll up lift, not unlike Shishkova and Naumov. The were side by side going backwards and he grabs her waist and she rolls up over his shoulders in a platter style lift but she was in a swan dive type position in the air. It looked quite hard and they did a nice job with it. They also practiced a throw triple sal but popped it in competition. One of Paul Wirtz's teams won the event; Meeram Trombley and Ian Mooram. Jumping was not the strong suit but the pairs elements were really nice. She has good extension and I like the air positions on lifts. Powers and Campbell won the long with a powerful program, although I thought they lacked a bit of grace that made Trombley and Moorman more fun to watch. In third were Morgan and Cogley. The throws were not spectacular, he was not giving her enough lift and the triple sal in practice was right into the boards so she was always leaning like crazy. They finally did a double in competition.

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