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Europeans 2002 - Ladies Short Program
Friday! Definitely the day I was looking forward to the most, since it's of course the day of the free dance! The ice dancing competition was by far the most interesting part for me and also the free dance was the only sold out event. We started off with watching some dance practices (today practices were free again!) and Steffi and I made the mistake of sitting down directly behind the "Club de Supporteurs de L'Equipe du France". I found out that my French isn't all that bad, because I could understand quite some of the things they were saying. The dance practices were great to watch, but I had no idea where to look during the last group, with all the top teams being out on the ice together. Before we could get to the interesting part of the day, it was time for the ladies short program. Nothing against ladies, but I really don't know why ladies always used to be my favorite discipline when I was younger.
Abbreviations:t=toeloop, l=loop, s=salchow, f=flip, z=lutz, a=axel, sbs=side by side
Ladies short program
Tugba Karademir from Turkey was the first skater. As far as I know the first Turkish skater I ever saw. Still Turkey obviously has better ladies than Germany, at least she qualified for the short program ;-). My notes say that she has a good expression, but weak technics and there's a strange scribbling that looks as if it says "slst 3". And I just only had started writing notes :D
Again I was very very tired at the beginning of this competition and probably for that reason didn't take any notes about Sabina Wojtala (who seems to be completely out of shape compared to former years) and Darya Zuravicki.
Swetlana Pilipenko must have rewakened my attention, because I even noted down all her jumps. 3z-stumbled out of it-2t, 3l, 2a. Nice presentation and a lyrical style.
Sara Falotico from Belgium was a skater I had never heard of before. I didn't find her presentation all that good, but the choreography itself was nice, she had problems with her 3-2 combination, but otherwise skated quite well.
Georgina Papavasilou from Greece skated bad and had a bad presentation and a bad choreography. I wonder what Andrea Diewald did during the qualification.
Roxana Luca from Romania is one of the lower ranked skaters that for some reason I had in good memory. She did a 3z-2t, but with stumbling out of the 3z and I wasn't crazy about her presentation.
Vanessa Giunchi from Italy. Now that's an interesting skater. She has a very individual skating style that sets her apart from all of the other skaters. Her costumes always are different too, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad. The one from the long program made her look kind of heavy, so that was one of the second kind. I already admire her for always coming up with something special and she always has some interesting details in her choreography. She fell on her 3f though.
Marta Andrade from Spain. No, she's not 15. Therefor she also should think about stopping to wear costumes with puffed sleeves. She was slow, but nearly clean, only a 2-footed landing. Presentation just ok. For some reason I always think she looks like a pair skater who's partner is missing.
Tamara Dorofejev from Hungary. She looked weak and had a very bad skate. Also the program was nothing special, rather boring.
Asa Persson from Sweden was next, she has a nice lyrical style, but the program was a little boring and unfortunately she fell on every jump effort.
After Sweden came the Netherlands with Karen Venhuizen. A similar bad skate unfortunately. She skated to some tango and has very nice presentation, but her spins were very slow and she made mistakes on several jumps.
Julia Lebedeva from Armenia fell on the 3z and had problems with her axel, also she was slow and her program was boring.
The Croatian Idora Hegel fell on the 3z, had problem with the landing of the 3f, but she had a rather powerful program and skated quite fast (at least in comparison to Julia Lebedeva).
Lucie Krausova from the Czech Republic, a name I've never heard before. She did a 2a and a 3f, popped the lutz. Her presentation looked juniorish.
Julia Lautowa from Austria surprised me with being quite interesting, since I had never noticed anything special about her during the last years. But she seems in good form and had a good clean dynamic skate to some jazzy music.
Laetitia Hubert from France did a 3t-3t combination, stumbled out of the second jump. 3f and 2a followed. She had a good skate, but a little boring.
Mojca Kopac from Slovenia is one of my sentimental favorites. I just like her presentation, she has a very nice elegant style, very mature. She skated to some jungle themed music and had nice spins, but problems with her jumps.
Julia Sebestyen from Hungary doesn't look as good anymore as she used to. Maybe Diana Poth should have stayed in Hungary, since both the Hungarian ladies look a lot weaker than Julia Lautowa from Austria. Julia's presentation was ok, but for some reason I didn't find her jumps so impressive anymore. She fell on the lutz.
Zuzana Babiakova from Slovakia did a 3z-2t, the z might have been 2-footed, 3f and a 2a with knee-wrapping. She had a beautiful lyrical program, quite nice!
Elina Kettunen from Finland was next. The Fins can be happy, because they have 2 very good ladies right now. I personally like Elina Kettunen better than Pöykiö, because she has such a nice style. Her choreography and presentation was good. Did a 3z-2t, 3l and 2a.
Elena Liashenko from the Ukraine skated to some Spanish guitar music. A good skate for her and quite nice presentation. 3z-2t, 3f and 2a.
The Swiss "Lokalmatador" (I don't know whether there's an English word for that and I don't feel like looking it up right now. Hope you don't have sleepless nights over it :D) Sarah Meier isn't in very good shape this year, probably due to her former injury. Still this short program went relatively well for her: 3z-2t, 2f with stumbling out and a 2a. Nice layback spin and a nice lyrical program. (Probably it would have been easier to mark the ladies who didn't skate a lyrical program :D)
Vanessa Gusmeroli from France is another sentimental favorite, although there was a time long ago when I didn't like her at all. 3z-2t, but singles the flip, 2a. I really liked her presentation and she had a quite zestful skate.
Galina Maniachenko from the Ukraine is such a beautiful skater. Her style reminds me of Angela Nikodinov a lot. Of course another lyrical program, but I don't mind if it's done so nice! 3z-2t, 3f and a 2a with a problem on the landing.
Susanna Pöykiö, the second Finnish lady had a clean skate: 2a, 3z-2t, 3f (she did the elements in another order if my notes are right, how exciting ;-)). I found the program rather boring, her presentation is ok, but nothing special.
Silvia Fontana, wheeeeee, gets a special award for using upbeat music, quite revolutionary in a ladies event!!!!! Now what can I say besides that it's a pure joy to watch her, such an expressive young lady. That latin short program suits her perfectly, I'm sure her smile alone wins her some 0.1's on the marks, great! Her jump technique is of course not all that great, but hopefully her smile distracts enough ;-). But she was clean, 3z-2t, 3f and 2a and I only saw an obvious knee wrap on the flip this time.
Viktoria Volchkova from Russia, back to the good ole lyrical ladies programs. Did the usual elements clean with beautiful height on her jumps. Had good presence on the ice and a very nice presentation this year. She definitely looks much more elegant than in the recent years and has one of the best bodys of the ladies now that she's lost some weight (I really don't think she's too thin).
Maria Butyrskaya from Russia, the ice queen, the diva, the "old" lady, la grande dame, "or how her friends call her: Masha" to name just a few of the favorite expressions from our friends the German commentators. She was great! Clean, I love her presentation and her jump landings (if clean) look a lot better than during the last year. In practice they look absolutely fantastic by the way.
Irina Slutskaya, of course also from Russia. Her dress looked very similar to Maria's dress. I really like this short program, she looked very powerful, her spins are great, but she fell on the flip and that was it: third place.
Final Standings Men
