You are here: Home / Skating / Reports / Euros 2005 / Friday, 28th

Friday, the 28th: Ladies SP and FD

On Friday morning we wanted to watch at least the 2 best groups of dancers, but when we got to the rink, we again couldn't enter the rink immediately, because of the strikers. This time we actually got to see them :P , because they were marching by the rink just when we arrived there. Luckily they weren't too many people (and I think there was about an equal amount of policemen and demonstrators) and once they had passed the rink, we were able to get in. We had not missed too much, only the Kerr's un-through, the rest of the second to last group was still to come luckily.

Ladies SP:

Galina Maniachenko skated first, she landed 3z, 3f-2t and 2a, a perfect skate for her, even if she wasn't terribly exciting.

Nina Bates's music was called „Children of Dune“. Unfortunately she had a terrible skate: 2a landed on thte wrong foot and she fell, a pretty hopeless looking 3salchow attempt that she fell on and she also severely underrotated and fell on the 3toeloop. Her spirals and spins were not bad and she had a very nice layback position, but the jumps in this program looked pretty hopeless.

Idora Hegel started with a 3z-2t combination, the lutz was just saved, but she managed to add a 2t. She landed a 3flip, even if it might have been a bit underrotated and she also landed the 2axel, a good skate for her. I hadn't liked her SP much on TV, but here I enjoyed both the music and the program and her spirals were quite nice.

Elena Glebova (if I have some first names wrong in my reports, it's because I only wrote the last names in my notes and I'm not sure I remember the first names of all the 37 ladies correctly and am too lazy to check all of them, feel free to correct any mistakes) wore a white costume and skated to „Liebestraum“. She tried a 3t-3t, but fell on the second jump, still a good attempt. She then wanted to do a salchow, but the entry went totally wrong and she didn't get off the ice at all. Her 2a was shaky with an extra turn afterwards. Too bad, because she had a very nice and balletic style and nice spins.

Theodora Postic was one of the many skaters at this competition to skate to „Once upon a Time in Mexico“. Her jumps: nice 2a, 2f-1t, 3s. She has rather good basics and is an expressive skater, I liked her.

Elena Sokolova did a 3z-2t and landed the 2axel, but singled the flip. She seemed a bit concentrated in her skating. She did a long spiral, but the edge was a bit shaky.

Irina Slutskaya was absolutely perfect in her Tango SP :) Somehow I always find it the hardest to think of something to say about the skaters who skate perfectly, LOL. Her jumps are totally impressive, so high! I think they are even higher than they used to be some years ago.

Andrea Kreuzer did 2z-2t (I think so, my notes look strange), 2a and fell on the 3flip. I was really happy she qualified for the LP, I really like it that she is fast and has good flow over the ice and she has cool music choices, in the SP she skated to the theme song from the „X-Files“. She also did a good fast layback spin.

Cindy Carquillat skated to „Schindlers List“. Her jumps were: 1a, 3s (saved) into 2t, 3f fall. I don't understand why some Swiss posters were so negative about her, because she has a balletic style and skated with good flow and speed, did a fast layback and her musical interpretation was very nice, so there were a lot of positive things about her skating, even if she can't jump well.

Tugba Karademir (aka the physical reincarnation of Jennifer Robinson) wore a pink dress and skated to upbeat music that included Dancing Fool :D She did an absolutely fantastic camel spin at the beginning (she generally has good spins), her jumps were: 3f, 3s (step out)-2t and a 2a. Her skating had overall good quality and she skated with a lot of body control. She ended her nice program with a good spiral sequence. I think she is a very enjoyable skater with a lot of qualities :)

Diana Poth wore one of her typical costumes in neon pink and black, a bit of a strange costume for her classical „Allegretto“ music choice IMO :P She just saved the landing of her 3t and added only a 1t. She landed 3flip and 2axel though. Her spirals were good, but her basics are mediocre.

I was surprised that Candice Didier is such a tall girl, she didn't look like it on tv last year. Of course it's also possible that she simply has grown. She skated to „Illumination“ (Secret Garden should be banned from skating :P ). She is an elegant skater with a lyrical and light style, but she is lacking some power. Her jumps: 2a, 3z fall, 3t-2t.

Elina Kettunen did: 3z-2t, 2f, 2a. She did a good combination spin and I was impressed by her power and control, she skated with rather good speed and flow. She looked much better than at Nebelhorn earlier in the season.

Lina Johansson unfortunately fell on the 3flip, but landed a nice 3toeloop and the 2a.

Gintare Vostrecovaite did 3t-2, fell on the 3s and landed a shaky 2a. Her skating is not very exciting to watch, because she skates always on the same (slow) speed level, there is no variation at all. There also is nothing about her skating that really stands out, nothing is really bad, but also nothing really good.

Elena Liashenko did a good 3z-2t, stepped out of the 3flip and landed the 2axel. I like her version of the Bolero and think her SP is nice.

Karin (?) Brandstetter skated by something from Bond. She popped the loop after a very long telegraphing and she also stepped out of the 3s and put her hand down, but she managed her 2axel. Her spiral positions aren't very convincing and she tends to telegraph her jumps badly.

The schoolchildren were going crazy for Valentina Marchei of course, unfortunately she had a very bad skate, she fell on the 3z, fell on the 2axel and singled the salchow. It was really a pity, but her program was still beautiful.

Sonja Radeva is also a pretty tall skater, she only did a 1t that she stumbled out of, but then went on to do a very nice 3flip and a 2axel. She was skating to „Schindlers List“ and her program had a very nice choreography and interpretation, she also had good circular footwork and a good spiral sequence. From the choreography and interpretation in both her programs, she was one of my favorite skaters in the competition. When she lands her jumps they are very nice too, she has quite some talent, I already had liked her last year :)

Sarah Meier did a low 3z and nearly fell. Her 3flip was shaky but clean and she landed the 2axel. Her skate wasn't too bad, but nothing outstanding.

Laura Fernandez had a nice music choice, „Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini“. She did 3t-2t, fell on the 3loop and singled the axel. Her camel spin was wobbly, but she had flexible spiral positions. She was slow and a bit shaky overall, but she has a nice balletic soft style.

Susanna Pöykiö was very smooth and controlled in her skating. Her jumps: 3f, 3z-2t, 2a.

Kiira Korpi skated to „Nessum Dorma“. Her jumps 2f-2t, nice 3loop, nice 2axel. She had a good combination spin and general good quality on her non-jump elements. She was smooth with good flow, is very mature for her age and has good basics. I think she was my favorite of the Finnish ladies in this competition :)

Carolina Kostner landed her 3t-3t, but stepped out of the 3loop and fell on the 2axel. Well it wasn't good, but at least she got the 3-3 in and considering how difficult it must have been for he r to skate in front of this audience, it could have been worse.

Bianca Padar without doubt has the most attractive coaching team at this Euros, her choreographer is Nora Hoffman (who also was at the boards with her during the competition, at least in the LP, not sure about the SP) and Steffi and I already had noticed her coach during the warm-up, he looks young and verrrrrrry porny. Steffi suggested later that he should skate with Nora, since they'd make a very good looking couple and he should be tall enough for her. Not that we have any idea if he could actually skate as an ice dancer :P Anyway, Bianca Padar had a very good skate, especially considering that was her first big international competition, she did: 3z-2t, 3s, 2a. She was slow and her skating is sloppy and of rather low quality overall so far, but it is great that she was able to skate that well.

Isabelle (?) Piemann skated to a music called „Harem“. She is a very tall girl. Her jumps: 1a, 3t (just saved), added 2t after a pause, 2s. She had a good layback spin and her straightline flowed well, I also liked her spirals. She didn't have much difficulty in her program, but her basics and execution were not bad and her program was quite entertaining.

Fleur Maxwell had a very good skate: 3s-2t, 3t, 2a. She had a good combination spin with many position changes, she did a regular Biellman and a variation of the position and she also had great spirals. She is a lovely skater with a very soft style, great to watch. The audience booed her marks loudly, but of course her marks were and placement were very good, considering her difficulty level.

Daria Timoshenko has a Tango SP and managed a clean SP: 3z-2t, 3f, 2a. I think this was probably one of her best skates that I remember seeing. She did her usual spin with Biellman spins on both feet and she generally had good spins and spirals. It was a nice program that she interpretated well.

Jaqueline Belenyesiova skated to „El Condo Pasa“. Her jumps: 2a, 3s-2t, 3f fall. She had a fast layback spin, that was travelling though, but a slow camel. She was a bit shaky overall, but I liked her. Somehow looks wise and also a bit skating style wise, she reminds me of Elena Liashenko (even though she got a shorter and more fashionable hairstyle).

Anette Dytrt IMO was the lady in the competition with the best and most exciting choreographies, I think Tarasova's choreographies are just perfect for Anette's high energy style. But as usually she didn't manage to go clean: 3z-2t, 3f fall, nice 2a. She has good spirals and spins and I really love it how she uses her whole body to express the music. She was very energetic and expressive and had good circular footwork. I really wish she would start skating up to her potential! (of course her SP wasn't that bad, but the LP... )

Jenna McCorkell skated to „Meditation“. She did: 2f-2t, 3l, 2a. She had good speed and flow, but I wish she for once could use some more interesting music and not always this slow romantic stuff.

Roxana Luca doesn't look like I remember her to from the past, but maybe I just got her mixed up with someone else in my memory, LOL. She did a nice 3l-2t, a nice 2axel and finally also a good 3salchow. She had a nice spiral section and a good camel spin. She was quite slow, but everything else was very good and she was very happy with her skate, it was great to watch :) I was very happy that she was able to make such a good comeback after she was out with injury last season (and did she even skate the season before? I don't remember).

Evgenia Melnik wore a light blue dress with a rather long skirt, unfortunately she did not skate well: 3z fall, 3t step out, 1a. Apart from that, it was a lovely program with great music (even though I don't remember what it was :P ). She also had good speed and flow and I really liked her.

Melissandra Fuentes skated to Smalun/D&S' Händel music. She fell on the 3s, landed the 2axel and 2footed the 3toeloop. She has a nice style, but there was not much going on in her program choreographically.

Petra Lukacikova is another very tall girl (watching and also reading the biographies, we were surprised how many tall ladies there were at this competition, usually the girls are all so tiny). She did a very good layback spin in her program. She fell on the 3salchow, did a 2a and just saved the (underrotated) 3l. She had lovely non-jumping elements and choreography and she presented her program well.

Julia Sebestyen did 3f, 3z-2t, 2a, a great skate for her! :) Her new SP costume is very boring, generic blue dress, I'd rather have seen the funny one she had first.

Karen Venhuizen has become very tall and very slim, I don't think she looked like that before. She did 3t, 3s-extraturn-2t and 2a, a good performance for her. She skated to „Roger Rabbit“, a very cute and fun program, she skated with a lot of energy and interpretated the music well.

At the beginning of the FD there was a strange announcement being read in the rink, that I think had something to do with the strike of the FIAT workers, based on the little words I understood.

The actual competition was opened by the Keller’s, who have a FD to the “Bolero” from Moulin Rouge (not that this Bolero version sounds anything like the traditional Bolero). They had a problem during their diagonal footwork, where they lost each other for a moment, but apart from that they had a solid skate. I thought that considering their body types/build, they have pretty good lifts and I found the program quite interesting.

Aureli & Vaturi have a FD to music from “Fame”. I think there could be a bit more variation in the music they chose from the musical, but at least the fast parts of the music is very nice. They finished a little bit behind their music, but overall it was a very good performance for them, they skated with a lot of attack, especially at the beginning. I also thought they had good lifts and good flow and it was an enjoyable dancy program.

Galcheniuk & Krupen skated to “West Side Story”. I usually hate that music, but they had pretty nice selections. They didn’t have any big mistakes, but they were fighting with their program too much to be enjoyable. The OD had been better I think.

Janostakova & Prochazka skated to “Notre Dame de Paris”. I had not liked this program earlier in the season, since I found it very generic dramatic, well it’s still generic dramatic, but they had a very good skate here, they really looked in charge of their program all throughout and created nice drama with their interpretation. I also enjoyed their lifts. It was definitely their best part of the competition.

O’Connor & O’Dougherty finished a bit behind their music and one of their twizzle sections was a bit wobbly, as well as the spin directly afterwards. They also were slowing down in the second half of the program. So I can’t say I found them as impressive as at Bofrost, but it is still a beautiful understated program (I DO like understatement in dance, if it’s done well :P ) and they are very smooth with good lifts.

We had been positively surprised after the OD that Kauc & Zych had not lost several places in comparison to the CD, like they seemed to do a lot usually, but unfortunately for them it did not continue throughout the whole competition and in the FD they were back to being the “crash kids” of ice dancing, they had a very bad fall on a lift, that was really scary to watch. However they got back into the program very fast, which was very impressive. Most of the twizzles in their FD were wobbly though.

I liked how the Beier’s entered one of their dance spins out of very fast skating, it looked impressive. I have seen their FD like a million times this season and I think the slow parts are kind of boring, but I really like the fast part to the funny music. They had a solid skate, but I liked the OD performance better. But they had a very good competition overall, much better than Bofrost and I liked them much better than I had there. I hope they don’t get to Winkler/Lohse-rized in the upcoming years, especially not with the style of their FD’s :P

Golovina & Voiko had entertaining music from the “Gypsy Kings” for their FD. Generally their lack of speed is a problem for them (an Ukrainian tradition? ;) ) and they especially tend to lose too much speed during their lifts, so that they come out of them with not enough flow, but I think their FD is a very nice program and they skated well overall. They had never really left too much of an impression on me in the past (and I think they had some really bad FD’s during the last 2 years, first this weird thing from 2 years ago and then the Carmina Burana were she smiled all the time, LOL), but I really really liked them at this event, I already had been impressed during practices and also now during the competition. They definitely were my favorite of the lower ranked dance teams at this event and I think with the way they skated, they could have finished a few places higher too.

Gudina & Beletski luckily skated much better than in the OD, even if they seemed a bit cautious maybe. It is really too bad about their OD :( I hope they are not too discouraged by their result here. I really like their “Cats” FD, it is so cute!

For some variation in musical style :P , we got to see Pechalat & Bourzat’s “Cats” FD next. They had a good skate, even if the first 2/3 were better than the last 1/3 of their program, but I don’t care for their FD and I sure wish she’d stop “cleaning herself” and “licking” her hand at the beginning of the program, one can definitely exaggerate the “cat impersonation” :P They had one strange moment when they exited one of their twizzles, they were very close to the rink border and it didn’t look quite right.

Hoffman & Elek had a very good skate and a nice program. LOL, I did not note down anything else about them, but I really enjoyed it.

I was a bit frustrated watching Grebenkina & Azrojan at this competition, because I like her so much, but their programs were soooooo boring. I could have fallen asleep during their FD (and why do their costumes have such a boring color too?) and she totally should be a tiffin dance diva!! Well she certainly is super-tiffed off-ice though and she has the most gorgeous hair I’ve ever seen, it’s so beautiful :)

The Kerr’s started off their program well, but then it got worse and worse throughout. They had some messy twizzles and seemed to run out of steam, at least they were getting slower and slower until the end of the program. Their last diagonal step sequence was very very slow and the way it is constructed at the end of the program with the high energy music, it really demands tons of energy and speed, otherwise it loses any impact. Even though even if it was performed better I don’t think this step sequence at the end works, because it is so completely disconnected from the rest of the program (and the steps at the very beginning of it look more like their performing an Irish step-dancing program).

Faiella & Scali had a very good skate, even though there were some moments where I was not 100% sure if they went like planned, but I really couldn’t ever tell for sure, LOL. They had good lifts, especially their reverse lift looked very good and smooth. Their FD skate was very entertaining to watch, but I think it was to a large extent also because the audience was so behind them and into it, I think the program itself is only partially interesting, I like the last fast “Think” part for example, but the “Natural Woman” part is pretty boring and after this competition I definitely think that they had way more interesting programs when their choreographies were done by Bestemianova & Bukin.

I had really looked forward to seeing Kulikova & Novikov’s FD live, after I had really enjoyed it in the practice, unfortunately they did not skate THAT well tonight, most of their performance was good, but for whatever reason many of their usually very impressive lifts looked a bit shaky today. Our (otherwise very good) seats also kind of sucked for watching their FD, because they did their straightline step sequence into the other direction, so we saw it from behind and of their fun posing they do before they start the SLSS, we only saw the back of their heads (they have nice hair, but still :P )

I’m usually not a big fan of Fraser & Lukanin, but I have to say I really like their Tango FD this year, choreographically it definitely was one of my favorites in the competition and they have cool lifts too. They also had a good skate, especially at the beginning it was very smooth, the last 1/3 was weaker.

Domnina & Shabalin had a good skate, but unlike their OD, their FD did not do anything for me at all, it is way too cold and abstract IMO. This time I definitely thought that Faiella & Scali were better than them.

I have no notes about the last group, we had watched the FD practice this morning and even though Den & Sta had not looked bad on the earlier days, this morning Albena looked in really terrible condition, so we were not surprised at all when we heard at the beginning of the FD that they had withdrawn, actually we had been wondering in the morning, why they were even continueing to practice, it seemed pointless (and unhealthy) to go on.

C&S were another couple for which our seats really sucked, they did all my favorite parts of their FD in the other direction, like their first shoot the duck lift. After last season I would never have thought that a shoot-the-duck lift could ever be my favorite lift in any program, but somehow this year C&S’ execution of them – the same is also true for most other teams – has gotten a lot better and I think the position C&S have in this lift looks really cool. However it does not look cool or like much of anything at all when you see it from behind :P That funny “marching” they do in the middle of the program was also from behind :-/ Anyway, I was glad they skated without mistakes, but I think it was still a very weak performance for them, they were uncharacteristically slow (I don’t think they were any faster than Grushina & Goncharov that night) and all their usual strengths, like their great energy and exuberance in their skating seemed to be missing from their FD skate :( I knew after they were finished that they had not managed to do enough for the medal, but it was still sad to see their marks come up (and I can’t keep myself from pointing out that Grushgons were always that slow and it never seemed to bother the judges when they handed out their component scores :P ). Anyway, C&S had a lovely OD performance and according to some people a good CD too (not that I’d notice, LOL) and I hope at Worlds they will be in 100% top shape, so that they can have great skates in all competition portions.

As said before I had sworn myself to really watch and take in N&K’s skate this time, because I love their FD, but I was still too sad for C&S, so I was pretty zoned out (again! why always during N&K? :-/ ). However from what I saw I guess it wasn’t that brilliant a skate anyway, I wish Roman would get his twizzles under control, because even though N&K ARE better than anybody else even with mistakes (they just have so much better speed and flow and their movements are so “big”), it would be nice if they didn’t make more mistakes than all the others half of the time :P

After the FD Stefka and I just wanted to get to bed, but our trip to the hotel ended up being a *bit* frustrating :P There was a nice shuttle service for fans at Europeans, so that a lot of buses were always leaving for the main station after the event was over and on the other days that worked very well, but this time for whatever reason our bus stopped somewhere in some strange road between the rink and the main station (we never figured out why) and everybody had to get out and walk to the next regular bus station to take a regular bus. And then I couldn’t sleep for hours, because it was so loud in our hotel, I constantly kept hearing running water, running tv’s and people talking from the other rooms. Luckily we did not have to get up early the next morning.