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Bofrost Cup 2004 - Saturday, November 27th

On Saturday morning we watched one group of the pairs practices, the other one had already been finished. The group we saw had all Germans. We had already been impressed by Handke & Wende during the elements competition, we were even more impressed during that practice, they were very solid and landed about everything they tried. The rest of their skating has improved tremendously since last year too.

The men's LP was opened by Stannick Jeannette. He wore a costume in red, black and yellow. The music was very mixed, I would describe it best as some techno drama with occasional stepdance influence. At the beginning it was mostly techno-style drums. He started with only a 2toeloop, followed by a 2axel with a very short run-out and a singled flip. After this point his performance got much better, he managed to land a 3axel, a 3axel in a sequence with a 3toeloop (at least I suppose so, otherwise the second axel wouldn't have counted), a shaky 3loop, a 3lutz and a 3salchow. Overall a better showing than the jumping contest the night before. His footwork was fast and nice. The slow part of his program had lots of "snake-ish" movements and generally the program had a choreography with lots of arm movements. His spins were generally rather fast. I don't have a particular strong opinion about his program, but I think I definitely like it better than the recent one where his costume looked like a pyjama.

Silvio Smalun seems to have the same color consultant as Jeanette, since his costume was also red, black and yellow. His music was Spanish, starting with Spanish guitar music, then changing to something dramatic (still Spanish style) and going back to something soft again. He fell on the opening 3axel (this jump doesn't look hopeful for him right now). The other jumps were 1flip, nice 3salchow, 1flip, 3toeloop, 2lutz, 3toeloop-2toeloop. So a rather typical performance for him. The program included a good combo spin (that was travelling at the end though) and a serpentine footwork sequence with many turns. He had good energy and command during the program and I liked it, but his jump problems really influence the overall impression of his programs.

Samuel Contesti had a lovely music choice. He skated to Jewish Folk music (including Hava Nagila at the end) and the well-known slow theme from "Schindlers List". Jumps wise he did: 3axel (with an extra turn), 3lutz, 3flip (hand down), 3a(saved)-2t, 2loop, 3loop, 3salchow, 3toeloop. He wasn't as fast as the first two skaters and his spins are probably the weakest part of his skating, because they are quite slow. It was a lovely and enjoyable program, apart from the above mentioned points (speed and spins), I think he also needs to add a bit more power (related to the speed issue of course) and expression to his skating, but he is talented and nice to watch and I like his general style of skating and programs (he's not very typically French :P ).

Matt Savoie's music was somewhat oriental in style (but it wasn't an "Egyptian arm movements" type of oriental program thankfully ;) ). Sometimes I found his music a bit strange. Sometimes it included a chanting voice. His jumps were 3z, 3a-3t, 3loop (badly fell out of it), hydroblade into 2axel, 3flip-2toeloop, 2salchow, backwards lunge into 3z-2t. There were a lot of soft movements in the program and his spins were good overall with nice positions. I think his footwork has some room for improvement in terms of difficulty and execution, especially the serpentine footwork wasn't very impressive. He also still needs to be more expressive and powerful IMO.

Ben Ferreira's jumps were: 3a-2t-2t, 3t-2t (but I'm not sure about that), 3loop, 3flip, 2axel, 3z-2t, 3salchow (nearly fell), 3z (with a turn out of it). I was most impressed with his footwork, he had a good straightline and also an energetic circular. His spins were mediocre overall. He of course has the usual issues with posture, but it was an enjoyable program that makes good use of the highlights in the music.

Stefan Lindemann had a program with detailed choreography. His jumps were 3toeloop, 3axel (step out), 3loop, 3flip (clearly intended to add a second jump, but then didn't), 3z, 2a-2t, 2s, 3s. Highlights of the program were a good combo spin and a very good diagonal footwork sequence, that was fast and flowing. I generally liked his footwork best in his program.

The Original Dance was very nice overall, mainly because there weren't any really weak teams, everybody skated without major mistakes and was on a rather good level.

Beier & Beier opened the competition. She wore a costume in dark and lighter blue, he wore a black suit. Actually I think all the men were dressed in black, so I won't comment on their costumes for the rest of the teams :P I noted down that one of the Beiers' spins was a bit slow. They had a solid performance, but overall I had expected them to look and skate better. They were kind of sloppy and slow today. So generally I think their speed needs improvement and they need to get more presence on the ice for this dance. The fast parts of their dance (Quickstep) are nicely ballroom-ish though, the Slow Foxtrott wasn't as convincing. Their straightline was solid.

Haunstätter & Höhnlein had a Charleston as their fast rhythm. She wore a white costume with a headband, it looked nice. The music was from Cabaret and in the middle they had "Razzledazzle it". One of their lifts was weak, but the choreography was very nice and the interpretation of the rhythms was good, especially the Charleston. It was a solid skate and a very enjoyable program. The lifts seem to be their weakest point and they were a bit slow, but they have rather good unison.

O'Connor & O'Dougherty win the "Best music choice" of the event award, because their first part was "Kick in the Head" from Robbie Williams! :D They should make a Robbie Williams FD one day, after all they already appeared in his video clip. Their second song was nice too, I don't know what it was, it was a female singer. She wore a blue dress that was similar in color and style to Christina Beiers' dress. They had a nice spin at the beginning, followed by a flowy diagonal footwork sequence and an impressive long rotational lift. They were close together on their SLSS. Their speed wasn't bad, but also not really impressive, somewhere in the middle. They had another beautiful rotational lift. Their dance had a very good ballroomish-feeling, actually it was by far the most ballroom-ish dance I've seen so far this season. They had good unison and were very harmonic. It was just a beautiful dance overall and by far my favorite in the competition. I liked that OD much better than the one they had last year. They must have been really terrible at that recent event to lose against Janostakova & Prochazka and Kauc & Zych at that recent event, maybe they had mistakes or one of them was ill or something.

Wing & Lowe were the fastest of that group and had the best flow and ice coverage. I don't know why people sometimes say they are a slow team (or maybe people don't say that and I'm misremembering :P ), I think their basic speed and ice coverage is really good, they just don't do too good of a job varying their speed. I thought their interpretation of the Slow Foxtrott wasn't that good, even though it should suit them well. They got scarily close at one point of their SLSS, but otherwise the sequence was good. Megan is simply very expressive and always lovely to watch.

Denkova & Stavisky skated clean as far as I could see and had good flow. Their SLSS was a bit slow in comparison to the rest of the program, but otherwise they performed it solidly. Their interpretation of those rhythms is really weak though.

Rubleva & Shefer skated to "I wanna be loved by you" by Marylin Monroe and to Sing, Sing, Sing. Steffi and I were really glad that we got to see them live here a second time this year, because they were much much better than at Nebelhorn Trophy. They are still not the fastest team around and need to work on their "presence" on the ice, but their speed and flow was considerably improved since Nebelhorn and therefor their whole skating appeared in another class than back then. They also seem to have properly adapted their programs to the CoP now. As all their programs that I've seen, their OD had very detailed choreography and interpretation and there is a nice softness about their skating. And she has the best haircut of all the female dancers :)

Delobel & Schönfelder had good speed at the beginning of their dance, but they were slowing down considerably during the second half of their dance and didn't really have enough energy left for the Charleston at the end. They have good choreography and a good SLSS, but she fell out of a twizzle at the end of the sequence and also generally they had performed this SLSS much better during the warm-up. There were some minor timing problems in the performance. If they had skated clean and performed with more speed and power, I think they would have been better than Denkova & Stavisky, but with the way the teams skated I think the marks of the two top teams were just about perfect. Del & Schön deservedly got better marks for Interpretation and Choreography though.

Slattery & Lee looked rather harmonic for a new team. They are coached by Irina Romanova. One of their music choices was "Too darn hot", performed by a male singer (I only knew the versions from Holly Cole and Ella Fitzgerald before). Their dance was rather ballroom-ish, they had a flowy diagonal footwork sequence and a good rotational lift. They did a twizzle during their SLSS were they kind of catch their free foot. It wasn't an overly exciting program, but they skated with good unison, ok speed and nice interpretation, I liked them. They seem to be a rather well-matched team.

Saturday evening started with the elements competition of the ladies. The ladies' field was of course a bit reduced :P , but I enjoyed it anyway, the German ladies they sent were quite interesting ones and I liked Jane Bugaeva a lot. In the break between the OD and the ladies we had lunch at the rink bistro and then a dessert at McDonalds, because nobody showed up for the pairs practice, probably the teams didn't want to practice so close to their competition.

The first element for the ladies was the step sequence. No comments, since I'm still not in TECHNIK :P The standings afterwards were 1. Jane, 2. Kristin Wieczorek, 3. Constanze Paulinus, 4. Denise Zimmermann, 5. Annie Bellemare.

Flying spin:
Annie Bellemare did a long flying camel that was well-centered and had one change of position.
Denise Z. did a camel with a change of edge and position, as did Constanze Paulinus.
Kristin did a fast camel with a change of edge, it was not 100% centered.
Jane Bugaeva did a flying sit, with position changes, that ended as an upright spin, it was fast.
Standings: 1. Jane, 2. Kristin, 3. Annie, 4. Denise, 5. Constanze

Combination spin with change of position and change of foot:
Constanze's spin included a camel, sit and a Sasha spin, but it was not 100% centered.
Denise's combination spin travelled quite an enormous bit.
Annie's also travelled a lot, but it was faster.
Kristin had a good spin, even though there was a small wobble before she changed foot.
Jane's spin was well-centered and fast, but the very last position got slow.
Standings: 1. Jane, 2. Kristin, 3. Constanze, 4. Annie, 5. Denise

3-2 combination:
Denise did a 3t-2t and then upped the difficulty and did a 3s-2t in the second attempt.
Annie did 3z-2t cleanly, but fell on the second 3z attempt. We were quite amazed to see her land a 3z-2t, because all her practices we had seen so far had been quite dismal, she never really landed anything, except for 3salchows, which seemed to be her strongest jump.
Constanze saved a 3s-2t in the first attempt and did a 3salchow-2loop in the second attempt.
Kristin did a 3t-2t and then wanted to try a combination with the 3loop in the second attempt, but doubled the loop.
Jane did a 3t-2t and after she was safely in the next round, she upped her points for this round by doing a 3flip-2toeloop for the second attempt.
Standings: 1. Jane, 2. Annie, 3. Kristin, 4. Constanze, 5. Denise

3loop or 3lutz or 3flip:
Denise popped the loop first, but then did a nice 3loop.
Constanze first did a shaky 3flip, the second attempt was better.
Kristin first doubled the loop, then managed a nice triple.
Annie fell on the 3flip, but landed the second attempt.
Jane did a 3flip and then a saved 3lutz.
Standings: 1. Jane, 2. Annie, 3. Denise, 4. Kristin, 5. Constanze

3lutz-2toeloop or 3flip-2toeloop:
Constanze first fell on the 3flip, but managed 3flip-2toeloop the second time.
Kristin fell on both 3flip attempts, but she doesn't really have this jump yet or right now anyway and the attempts didn't look that bad.
Denise first fell on the flip, then managed a very shaky 3flip-2toeloop, but it was underrotated and didn't count as a triple, so she was out too, like Kristin Wieczorek.
Annie managed a 3f-2t, on the second attempt she put the hand down on the flip.
Jane managed 3f-2t in both attempts.

3-3 combination
Constanze attempted 3t-3t both times, but on the first attempt the second 3t was underrotated and landed on the wrong foot. On the second attempt, she stepped out of the first attempted and landed on the wrong foot on the second again.
Annie did a 2t-2t first, on the second she tried a 3z-2t and fell on the toeloop.
Jane did a 3t-2t and then in the second round she had an extra turn between 3t-3t and it did not count as a proper combination. It's too bad she didn't managed a 3t-3t, because she landed one or two good ones in one of the practices we had seen. (she also was practicing 3flip-3toeloop btw, but it was always 2footed badly).

The pairs LP was pretty cool overall. I managed to be nervous for Handke & Wende after being so impressed with them in the practices. It would have been such a pity if they couldn't have brought the practice standard of skating to the competition.

Hinzmann & Parchem have a Spanish type program. They saved their 2twist and she also saved the landing of the throw-3loop. They wanted to do a sequence of 3t and 2t, but she doubled her 3t and stepped out. Her second sbs-toeloop was a double too, I'm not sure whether he did a double or a triple. She nearly fell on the throw-3salchow. Their lifts looked a bit laboured. Overall it was a very mediocre performance, somehow they had looked better at Nebelhorn, even though they didn't skate clean there either.

Nönnig & Bleyer wore costumes in blue/silver. Their new LP was choreographed by Hendryk Schamberger. It is a very modern dramatic program. I used to know the music, but have forgotten about it :P Some science-fiction or action-type soundtrack IIRC. She popped her sbs-3toeloop attempt and he had a problem too. Their 3twist was ok, despite a crashy landing (but in comparison to the ones from the other pairs in the element competition it wasn't bad at all :P ). I noted down a "rather good lift" next, whatever that means. They then did a sbs-2t, followed by a throw-3toeloop, a nice spiral sequence and a high but a bit shaky throw-3salchow. Generally their lifts looked secure and they had a good BODS. They have rather good pairs elements overall. The program didn't have too many transitions and the music is a bit of a mood killer. I think they could have been a good pair if they ever could have got their jump/throw elements done in competition, since their pairs elements are on a rather good level. But they just never seem to have been able to get their act together in competition (I think this skate was actually one of their best ones, maybe the best one in their career, at least that I remember seeing, because they actually landed both their throws and only didn't manage the jumps) and never managed to bring their skating to a higher level. I said "could have been a good pair", because Daniel Weiss announced that they have officially decided to retire and that their skate in the exhibition was going to be their final performance.

Fitze & Rex planned to start with a sequence of 3toeloop into 2salchow, but she doubled the toeloop. They did a 2twist with the usual weak landing. They did a clean throw-2axel. She doubled the next sbs-3toeloop too, I didn't see what he did. Their sbs spin was out of synch. At the beginning of the program their speed was a bit improved since last year and also their first lift was solid and improved since last year (generally all the lifts they did in warm-up and practice were better than last year, but they only could perform the first one in the LP as well as in the warm-up). They also managed a clean throw-3salchow (this throw is also improved). Afterwards their program started falling apart though, I think they simply ran out of steam. Their next lift was already a bit laboured and then they had to abort the next one early. They were slowing down during the last third of the program. This program has much more transitions and choreography than the one from last year and it is a program that suits them well (a dramatical "classical rock-music" song from the Finnish metal band "Apocalyptica") and has good tension. Overall as said before the first half of the program looked rather good, despite the jump problems, but the second half was much weaker. Their pairs elements still need much work.

Handke & Wende started with their 3t-2t combination, it was out of synch. I wouldn't bet my life on them both being 100% clean on it, but if they had any mistake on it, it was definitely minor. Their 2twist was ok. They did another set of sbs-3toeloop. She landed it for sure, not 100% sure about him. I wasn't under the impression that he wasn't clean, I simply did not manage to watch him properly (watching both partners of a pairs team during a sbs-jump is definitely the one thing I have the most difficulty with when watching skating, I wouldn't want to ever judge that :P ). They did a clean throw-3loop. They had nice transitional movements in their program. Their sbs spin was solid. She generally hits lovely positions on everything (spirals, spins, lifts, jump/throw exits), because she is very flexible. With some refinement and maturity she could become the next Katerina Berankova maybe ;) Their FIDS was nice. They landed a throw-3toeloop. Their next lift was good, even if I was a bit scared, because he was skating so close to the rink border during the exit. Their last lift was a bit short. They had a good powerful flowy side by side SLSS. To say that they impressed me at this competition would be quite an understatement :) , I was verrrrry impressed. They have improved so much since last year (when they were lacking flow, speed and power and their elements were mostly shaky), they have good pairs skills and unison and they are still very young, so they have enough time to get better. I think their coach is obviously doing a very good job with them. In this LP they weren't as rock solid as in the practices, some elements were just a tad less secure/smooth, but it was still a clean skate (unless I overlooked something in his sbs jumps as said before :P ). The program has a harmonic choreography to dramatic powerful classical music. Their speed is still not that fast, but definitely much better than last year.

Marcoux & Buntin were definitely the fastest team in this competition. They did not have a good skate though. They wanted to do sbs-3toeloops into 2toeloops, but she fell. Their 3twist had a bit of a shaky landing. Their throw-3loop was nice and the next lift was also very good. Then he stepped out of their sbs-3toeloop. They did a good BIDS, their sbs spin was good for the most part, but out of synch at one part in the middle. Their lifts generally cover a lot of ice. Their throw-3salchow was nice and they also had some fast footwork. They had an aborted lift at the very end. Their program is fast and fluent, but I think it could have some more transitions and details to the choreography. I think it can be a very exciting program if skated well, but this performance just had too many interruptions due to the jump problems and the aborted lifts, so that the overall impression was ruined a bit. They only barely beat Handke & Wende in the LP.

Borzenkova & Chuvilaev had a very strong skate on the other hand. They skated a classical soft very "classical Russian" LP that suits their style very well. They started with sbs-3toeloops (I think he 2footed) into 2's (don't remember if it were loops or toeloops, my notes seem to say loop, but maybe it's just my handwriting :P). Their throw-3loop was very nice. They then did only sbs-3toeloop, but it looked like it was intentional, I guess they figured they don't have to risk it after M&B's didn't land their jumps. Their basic unison is impressive. Their 3twist was ok. They did a good lift with 2 position changes. They did a lovely sbs spin that had good unison and included some nice illusion spins. I think that was the point in the program where they really caught me and started to wow me. They then did their pairs back spiral into the throw-3salchow, which had already impressed me a lot during the element competition. Their other 2 lifts were also very impressive with difficult position changes and Wow-factor. They ended with powerful footwork and a beautiful FIDS with position changes and a cool final combo spin. This program was really cool to watch, because they had very difficult elements and the aforementioned impressive lifts. They still need to improve their speed (even though I suspect that they are "suffering" from the same disadvantage as Jamal Othman, their height and long limbs make their movements appear slower than they are), but they skated with good power.