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Saturday, the 21st: Men LP

On Saturday we decided to sleep long and have a nice long breakfast. We all thought that Bruni Scotnicky is really nice, since she wished us a Good Morning or to enjoy ourselves every morning. After the breakfast we went back to our hotel room and decided to be lazy, so we watched the rest of the Averbukh 2005 show and the ARTE fluff piece about Kilius-Bäumler & the Protopopovs until suddenly we noticed that we only have about 20 minutes to get ready to take the bus to arrive in time for the Men LP.

Karel Zelenka had some really bad luck with the start order, since he skated first in both SP and LP. I really love his skating style and he's definitely one of my favorite male skaters: 3a fall, 3f-3t extra turn, 3z, 3s, 2a shaky, 3z, 3f extra step 2t, 2a.

The big Swiss group of fans with the gigantic cowbells was back for cheering on Jamal Othman (they only came for the Men SP and LP) and I have to admit I find them a bit scary. I mean great to support a skater, but there's a fine line between loud cheering and sounding like a herd of 5000 stampeding cows running towards you :eek: I think they used to be in Lausanne already too, but only with about a 1/4 of the people and also I think the bells were only about 1/4 of the size :P I wonder how it sounded to sit directly next to them. I think Jamal's speed could have been a bit better, but he had good flow and his usual big beautiful movements that really make him stand out between the other skaters: 3z-2t, 3l, 3f probably 2footed, 2a into 3t, 3f 2footed-2t, 3z fall, 3s, 1a.

Roman Serov needs more energy and he didn't skate his LP as good at last year as Euros (where it had been one of the best skates of the night), but it was no complete disaster either. 3z, 1A, 3a nice, 3f extra turn, 2f, 3something, 2s, 2a. The Italian team and the Zaretzkis were watching the first group together in one of the boxes and Roman Zaretzki got our attention before and during Roman Serov since he had a very interesting technique of waving his Israelian flag (looked like he was shaking out a bed sheet :P ) for him and then got definitely very emotionally involved in Roman's skate (more emotional than Serov was looking out there for sure :lol: ). He definitely seemed quite upset about Roman's mistakes.

I think Anton Kovalevski is definitely a very talented skater. His Spartacus is a well choreographed program and he had a good performance too: 3z-3t, 2a, 3f-3t, 3l, 3z, 3s, 2a, 1a.

Aidas Reklys was not bad, but I thought his program had lots of music cuts: 3s stumbly, 3z or f, 2l, 3z-2t (first 2footed), 3f, 3l 2footed, 3t, 2a. My jump notes about him are a complete mess, so I bet the ones I wrote down now are totally wrong anyway.

Ari-Pekka Nurmenkari stumbled out of a sit spin and generally had some really bad spins at the end of his program. He seemed to be struggling with stamina. In the first 2 thirds of the program he had good speed and flow though and when he lands his jumps, they are high (just doesn't happen too often): 2z, 2a, 2a shortly after a spin, 3l, 2t, 3s, 2f, 3z fall.

I'm generally not a fan of Sergei Davydov's very plain style, but I think this is one of his best LP's and he skated with lots of speed and power: 3a step out 2t, 3f-3t, 3l, 3f 2footed, 3z-2t, 3s, 2a, 2a.

I think Sergei Dobrin looks less long and skinny, but instead more powerful, live in comparison to on tv, which is a good thing. It was my favorite program so far even with the fall: 3a step out, 3f-2t, 3s-3t, 3?, 3f fall, 2a, 3z. I noted down only 7 jumping passes for him. My men LP notes are a total mess anyway, so it's probably better not to rely on my jump notes too much.

I stopped taking detailed jump notes for the moment at this time and only wrote that Gregor Urbas fell on a 3a, but landed another one later. He also had one step out, but I think the rest was clean. Apart from that he skated as he always does and it did not help me that he had the same music as Sergei Dobrin, who's interpretation I had preferred.

Kristoffer Berntsson seems to have a current habit of choosing music for his LP's that doesn't appeal to me. I liked the slow middle part of his program though, but not the other parts. 3a 2footed step out, 3f bad fall, 3z-3t bit shaky, 2a-2t, 3f hand down, 3z, 3s, 3t shaky.

Ivan Dinev had a really good dynamic performance to a Flamenco: 3f-2t, 3a-3t nice, 3f, 2a, 3a saved, 2l, 3t, 3s.

Adrian Schultheiss was the first guy in ages to actually wear an interesting costume. He was cautious and slow in this program though. I like his basic style, but he needs more energy. I liked parts of his music choices, but other parts sounded jarring. 3a, 2a-2t, 2z-2t, 3s, some scribble i can't read, 3f, 3t, 3z fall.

During the warmup of the next group I noticed that Viktor Pfeiffer obviously didn't get the memo, that everybody in his group was supposed to wear black and red ;)

Kevin van der Perren didn't always skate with 100% energy during his program, but it was a very good skate. I like this long program of his, cause it's not as gimicky and showy as some of the ones he had in the past few years. It's probably my favorite program from him ever since the 01/02 season. 4T touchdown, 3a step out, 3z-3t, 3f, 3z, 3s, 2a stumbly. I think I probably forgot some jump somewhere in there.

I was pleasantly surprised by Ilia Klimkin's Matrix music, since he didn't skate to any of the „typical“ selections, good! It is still not my favorite program from him, but it was an interesting one and it's really cool that he's in such good shape again. His jumps were good, but he was lacking combinations: 3a, 3t, 3f, 4t, 3s-3t saved, 2a, 3l, 3s.

We were afraid Silvio Smalun would totally fall apart in the LP, but his skate was certainly one of the better ones, I've definitely seen worse: 3a step out 2t, 3f-2t, 3f fall, 3z, 2l, 3f-3t, 3s, 2a fall out. I'm still kind of amazed he finished 8th overall.

Viktor Pfeiffer had landed all his jumps totally rock-solidly in the warm-up and therefor we expected a a :kickass: performance from him, but unfortunately it came different. I was really disappointed that he fell apart in his LP after starting well, because it was a totally beautiful program to selections from Nino Rota soundtracks, but of course the program suffered from all the mistakes. I would just love to see a well skated version of this program! Even with the jump problems I enjoyed the choreography and also the cool spin positions, the highlight of those being a really cool and unusual catchfoot spin that I had never seen anybody do before. Unfortunately he got very slow at the end of his program. Jumps: 3f-3t-2t, tano 3z saved deep in the knee, 3f fall, 3s fall, 3l, 3t-2t, 2a fall out, 2a fall out.

Stefan Lindemann really doesn't seem to be in shape this season: 3t, 1a, 3l, 2f, 3z, 3f-3t fall out, 3s stumble, 2a-2t. I think it's unfortunate that he was the only one to be already named to the Olympic team so early (while the Beiers won't get to go at all), considering he's clearly not in shape and was beaten by Smalun here. Not that Smalun would likely skate any better at the Olympics :lol:

Tomas Verner unfortunately also had a bad skate, which is a pity, since his program could be amazing. Still he' one of my favorite male skaters at the moment. He had great speed, power and presence at the beginning, but the program lost throughout it, probably due to all the problems: 3a, 4t fall, 2z, 3s, 3z maybe 2footed, 3a fall, 3l fall, 3f step out.

I have to say I found the atmosphere during the last group a bit too much, both in the warmup and throughout the group, since the French fans and the Swiss were just deafening and everything seemed just slightly hysterical, which made me all nervous (for nobody in particular, just anxious in general). Katja joked that she hopes there won't be a panic. Also the people made so much noise before and during the French skaters especially, that I found it hard to concentrate properly on the actual skates. I don't know how the skaters liked the atmosphere, but at least the French guys weren't able to perform well in the last group.

Dambier was the first one to take the ice, skating to Romeo & Juliet. I liked his costume with the pink heart, but he struggled with the jumps: 3?, 3f-3t, 3a fall, 3a step out – 2t, 3?, 3f shaky short run out, 3l touchdown, 3t.

Stephane Lambiel managed to perform well again, except for that he stumbled twice on the final footwork, which kind of ruined the performance up to this point a little bit. But otherwise it was very good. I find the costume and „story“ of his LP rather random, considering his LP is actually just a conservatively choreographed classical program to 4 Seasons. 3a, 4t-3t step out, 3l, 2a, 4t touchdown, 3f-3t, shaky 3z or 3f, 3s.

Alban Preaubert unfortunately had 2 rough falls. I think the pluses of his skating are his power and energy, but his posture is not very good. I think this program does not hide his flaws like the SP did. 3f-3t, 3a, 3z fall, 3l 2footed stumble, 3a-2t, 3f, 2a-2t fall, 3s.

Considering the atmosphere in the rink before Joubert's skate I said to Stefka that we could just as well have gone to a „Tokio Hotel“ concert :P

Brian Joubert unfortunately didn't manage to put out a good performance in front of the home crowd, I felt bad for him since he looked so sad and disappointed after his skate and during the medal ceremony. 4T fall after pretty much having landed it, 3f-3t, 3a step out 2t, 3f or z, 3l, 3a step out, 3s, 3z or f. Actually writing it down, his program doesn't sound all that bad, even though it looked very poor to us seeing it live, maybe cause there had been so many expectations on him. However I was disappointed with his program, I expected a Lord of the Dance program from him to be energetic and entertaining, but this program just looked empty and boring to me.

I hadn't exactly been excited about this last group so far and I was still feeling utterly unexcited when Plushenko took the ice, but once he started his program, it soon was clear that he was going to save the afternoon of skating and I got more and more excited during his skate. He clearly must have nerves of steel and he showed here again today why he still clearly is in another class than anybody else if he skates well. I don't think there's any other male skater who has such a presence and confidence out there on the ice and even if others have went out and done very very good (like Lambiel here), he's still able to go out and outdo anything without there being any doubt that he's just delivered the winning performance. Some time in the middle of the program he skated by in front of us near the rink border and just when he was on our height, he nodded at the audience in a totally „I'm doing it!“ way, which totally cracked us up. I think it was one of the best skates I've seen him do live (even if he doubled one jump) and Stefka observed afterwards that he must be the skater who she has given the most standing ovations to. 4t, 3a-3t-2l, 3l, 3a, 3f, 3z-2t, 2s, 3z.

After the medal ceremony we were kind of shocked looking at our watches, seeing that it was already nearly 7pm and we had reserved the restaurant table for 8pm. Somehow we had completely failed to put any thought into when the men LP would finish. So we rushed to the bus shuttle in order to be able to get back to our hotel in time to at least change quickly and then take a taxi to the restaurant. There was of course already a big crowd waiting for the bus, so we went near the road to make sure to get into a bus quickly. Luckily there was one soon and people started getting in through the front door. Suddenly the driver stopped letting people in and got all aggravated and it turned out the back door of the bus had been opened and people had started to go in there too, which obviously made the driver explode (even though obviously he must have opened the door, so I'd say it's his fault :P ). Some people had already went in through the back door and the last person who had made the offense of taking some steps into the direction of the back door was Evgeny Platov, which got the bus driver to yell at him very angrily in French. Platov looked like a big child (or as Susanne suggested, like a beaten dog :P ), nodding at the driver and moving back from the door :lol:

Stefka also had a scary moment when we all were already in the bus, except her and it looked as if she might not make it. But it worked and we made it to the restaurant at the official hotel in time. We had dinner with our friends and Belsornia, RedSonja and Jenya and their friend, I have to say the service at the restaurant was crap (we had reserved a table for 10 people and RedSonja and Jenya arrived only about 45 minutes later and they refused to let us order something until we were complete, not even an Aperitif or something, actually they weren't even willing to bring us the menu already and that aside the service was generally terribly slow too, even though the restaurant wasn't exactly packed). But then I suppose bad service is one of the fancy quality signs of expensive restaurants in general :P Plus again considering the price, we thought the quality of our meat was crap. I was amused btw, that all the Germans at the table went for a meat dish, while all the Americans (and Brit ;) ) had a pasta dish, which I think is somewhat terribly stereotypical :lol: (well at least we Germans didn't eat sausages :P ), after several hours of trying to get the waiters' attention we were able to pay and moved on to the bar :P I also noticed Patoche in the hotel, so Stefka and I finally got opportunity to say Hello to her (nearly at the end of the event!) :)

Patoche said she wasn't able to recognize me in the rink, cause I look different than she expected, somehow people always say that when they have only seen me on pics. I'm not sure how exactly I look so different from my photos though :lol:

It was very nice to finally talk to her :) and we used the opportunity to thank her for helping us with organizing our trip to Lyon, even if she claimed she didn't do anything ;)

I managed to depress myself a bit by walking by the board with annoucements one and noticing that only the Top 4 would be in the exhibition, which meant no C&S :( (and no Klimkin and Gedevanishvili who I was also really looking forward to).

The rest of the night was really really fun and ended up being just as fun and unpredictable as our Saturday Night at Worlds in Dortmund, undoubtedly due to Jenya's outgoing personality :D

At 4:30 am or so, when we were on our way back to the hotel, I was feeling a tad wasted though :shuffle: , which got Stefka again to wonder what Katja and I were always doing, since as always, Susanne and Stefka were feeling perfectly fine while Katja and I were a tad out of order again :shuffle: For the record, I don't do anything different than Stefka, she's obviously just more tough :drama: :P

Due to being tired, it being late and me not feeling all that brilliant, I said that I won't make it to the 10am exhibition practice on the same morning (even though exhibition, so we decided to sleep in and I woke up perfectly fit at 11:30am :HA!: We were really amazed on Sunday evening when Belsornia told us that she had actually made it to the exhibition practice :respec: (especially since I think she got back to the hotel even a bit later than we did). I was a bit miffed that I didn't make it to the exhibition practice when I heard that C&S were in it after all (shine_like_stars told me on Sunday shortly before the exhibition that they were replacing NavKos ), while Katja was quite a bit miffed she didn't make it there, when she heard that Hendryk Schamberger had been there choreographing the finale ;) However it was definitely the only right thing to do to sleep in on Sunday, otherwise I would have been dead (and from what Belsornia told us Galit was about in the same condition in which I would have been in if I had actually dragged myself there during the exhibition practice, so there probably wouldn't have been too much to see :P ). Robin Szolkowy apparently was in a good condition this time (I actually asked shine_like_stars about it, cause I was curious after Euros 05 :lol: ).