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Sunday, the 30th: Exhibition

On Sunday morning we got up for the exhibition practice, I really always enjoy that part of an event, even if I'm pretty sure all the skaters hate it passionately, since they always seem to be freezing, sleepy, unmotivated and at least some of them always hung-over too ;) But it's still fun to watch so many skaters on the ice at the same time. The one at this event wasn't as entertaining as the one at Worlds 04 (where we nearly fell under our seats laughing when we saw Plushenko's exhibition dress for the first time and where they had some fun ideas for the finale), but it was still nice. Maurizio Margaglio and some other guy (I think it's the one who always organises the Italian shows) were choreographing the finale, which I imagine to be quite a horrible job, since you have to spend 99% of the time keeping the skaters from doing something else/running away and trying to get their attention. Well at least Maurizio should know how it's like, since he was a skater himself :-P Considering how long it took to choreograph the beginning of the finale (where Faiella & Scali and C&S did some posing and a lift together), we were wondering how long they'd need for the whole finale, but except for one other part, it went pretty fast in the end (not that it was a very long finale anyway). Even though the way the finale always looks at the end of the exhibition practice, it is a bit of a wonder how good it usually tends to look during the actual exhibition, LOL. Well probably the sparkly costumes and the show lighting help to make it look better than it actually is :D During the individual run-through's of the skaters' exhibition, I mostly concentrated on taking photos and I had planned to take a lot of cool photos of Irina, Julia and Obertas & Slavnov for BlueRidge and Stefka especially, but unfortunately my (new and supposedly extra strong!) batteries gave up during the second half of the practice, even though I had only used them for something like an hour *huh* , so I hardly got anything from the second half.

Before the actual exhibition, we went to some Chinese restaurant nearby the rink (that somehow always had been closed when Stefka and I passed by earlier that week). The food was very nice, but it was freezingly cold inside the restaurant and I think there must have been something wrong with their regular heating, because there were a couple of mobile heating ovens standing around in the restaurant. We got one near us (until sk8swan had asked them to turn it on), but it didn't really help much (and I only got some of it's warmth when I leaned back as far as possible in my chair anyway :P ). I was freezing more than I had in the rink when we left the restaurant :-/

The exhibition was opened by Edvin Marton coming out onto the ice and playing a piece on his own. I was wondering if he actually gives any kind of regular concerts too or just makes a living by playing at all those skating competitions/exhibitions, LOL. However I do like him.

Paolo Bacchini skated to a very popular song from Aerosmith (the one from Armageddon I think) and he had a prop as a chair, I never quite got the point of it. He swirled it around once. He had lots of show elements, with gliding and a Candeloro spin on his knees. It was not bad, but I really didn't like the random prop usage.

Faiella & Scali skated to some Italian ballad. It was a lot of lifts and gliding and posing and some random hanging/rolling over the rink border.

Elena Sokolova skated to some Russian ballad and had a scarf as a prop. She only did a 2s, but two 2axels. It was not so bad (but I really don't like scarves :P ) , but I have to wonder why Russian skaters always seem to have fun and cool music in their exhibitions at domestic events (at the L&A show Elena did a Marylin Monroe program and a nice one to Besame Muche) and slow ballads everywhere else.

Voloshozar & Morozov skated to „Adagio“ and had a cloth as a prop. I was really starting to look forward to Andrei Griazev, who we knew would do his SP from last year. V&M did a typical ballad program, but for whatever reason they were painfully slow this time, they hardly seemed to move, they definitely hadn't been like that in the competition. And their prop usage was extra-random.

Andrei Griazev was the first real highlight in the exhibition, he did his SP from last year, that has such cool footwork sequences and he skated with tons of passion and expression.

Chait & Sakhnovsky did their Gypsy Kings exhibition, that I had wanted to see live for ages :) It was cool, even if it's a bit pity that it was not possible to see their facial expression. They got a big ovation for that program (like they always seem to, it makes me a bit worried that they'll never get anything else for the exhibition anymore :P ). Stefka managed to accidently throw her rattle away at this point, LOL , luckily it flew down the steps where nobody was sitting :D

Julia Sebestyen skated a very cute exhibition to „Singing in the Rain“, using an umbrella as a prop. She was the first skater who actually used her prop in a way that made sense and was cool and actually enhanced the program positively, big kudos for that :)

Sawchenko & Szolkowy did their „Belle“ exhibition, that I really like very much. Unfortunately Aljona screwed up both throws, but considering how Robin had looked in the practice in the morning (barely alive and if he was going to throw up or lie down and fall asleep on the ice any moment :P ), it was a good performance.

Stephane Lambiel skated to „Tosca“ (it took Stefka and me ridiculous long to recognize the music :o ), it was great, but it seemed very very short.

Delobel & Schönfelder did that thing with the rope again.

Elena Liashenko did „El Tango de Roxanne“. It is a nice and expressive program for her, to one of my favorite pieces of music and she even did a 3z.

The ended the first half of the exhibition, the beginning wasn't that impressive, but it's really a pity that some of the later programs weren't televised on Eurosport (I suppose).

Carolina Kostner has a terrible music choice (Celine Dion), but she is so fast and fluent over the ice, that I lurved it anyway. She did a gorgeous spiral. Her program also seemed very short though.

Petrova & Tikhonov did their „Bensonhurst Blues“, in new neon orange costumes. This is one of my favorite pairs exhibitions ever, it is such a cool fun number! I really hope it was televised on Eurosport, so that I finally get it on tape.

Stefan Lindemann skated his „Good Life“ program.

Grushina & Goncharov did their OD from last year, I was really glad they did that and not the „Adagio“.

Susanna Pöykiö did an extra-generic GFB, that I totally could have done without. Well I guess I can be thankful that she didn't have a scarf with it or something :D

Obertas & Slavnov did their wedding number, which is great fun :D I'm not quite sure I get the story, but Stefka thinks it has something to do with „getting panic before the wedding“, which I also would suspect. The last part of the program is a bit random and at the morning practice the people who played the music (actually I think it was Fabrizio Pedrazzini, who we saw a lot of during Euros btw :) , it was – one of his – jobs to measure the time/length of the ice dancers lifts for example, so that deductions can be applied if necessary) turned their music off when the wedding march started for the second time at the end, because they thought the music for their program was already over, LOL.

Brian Joubert came out wearing a cape with a hood, which made me very worried about what the program might be like, but then he just skated around with it shortly, took it off and did a fun exhibition to Lord of the Dance. Apart from the random prop usage (did I mention I really don't like that, LOL ), it was a really enjoyable number that was perfect for his style.

N&K did their Adagio exhibition. For a slow number (with a prop) it was quite nice, but I would have rather seen the Hip Hop number.

Plushenko did a number to Edvin Marton playing live, it was cool as ever and finally also an exhibition that was really long!

Irina Slutskaya wore a beautiful bodysuit again and skated to an Italian ballad. She did a nice Biellman spin again.

Totmianina & Marinin skated nicely to „Have you ever really loved a woman“.

Plushenko skated to Sex Bomb to end the finale. I have absolutely no problem with seeing that live every 2 or 3 years :D

After the finale, that ended with YMCA being played and Faiella & Scali having to do show the moves in front of the other skaters, some of the volunteers came on the ice and sang some kind of song *huh* This was pretty bizarre (and I admit we didn't stay till the end of it :P ) , but apparently it was supposed to motivate people to volunteer for the Olympics. Well based on what some friends of us (who were volunteering during Euros) told us about their experience, I predict that they'll have a shortage of volunteers for the Olympics, regardless of song and advertisements on screen and print :P

When we walked out, we managed to take some left-over competition programs for free (on the last day they were not selling them anymore, but giving them out for free, must have been a bit crappy for the people who actually bought them earlier :P ), they are very nice, with some nice biographies and photos.

In the evening we had dinner with sk8swan and some other Italians, it was a nice way to end the event.

Our trip home the next morning went very smooth, we took a fast train (Eurostar) to Milano, it was a very relaxing trip and the waiting time at the airport also went by fast (and our flight wasn't even cancelled :P ). We also ate at McDonalds there, what would a skating trip be without a stop at McD :P The flight back was cool, we had a pretty small airplane, definitely the smallest I have flown with so far and it didn't fly very high at all, so that we got a beautiful close look at the Alps from not very far away :)