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Nations Cup 2001 - Exhibition

General comments: Daniel Weiss was the host for the exhibition, first thing Steffi and I noticed was the huge amount of make-up he wore! None of the skaters we saw during the competitions wore that much make-up and that includes the women. Hopefully it will come out just perfect on television. This exhibition is going to air on German television on "ARD" on December 29th from 3pm - 4:30pm. The exhibition started with the synchronized skating team "Fire on Ice" from Dortmund, who being honest, seemed pretty weak. And I don't like watching synchronized skating anyway.

Andrea Diewald (Germany)
Showed us her short program to the music of "Xotica" again. The exhibition lightning didn't make it any less boring than in the competition. I don't know why she tried the lutz in an exhibition, I'd rather have seen an easier, but clean triple.

Rauer & Rauer (Germany)
Daniel Weiss told us that Winkler & Lohse are going to try to skate at Europeans. I hope it works out for them. The Rauer's showed us their Free Dance to Grease again. Again, it's a program that suits them and they skated it very well. I got the impression they really enjoy doing this dance.

Marceaux & Marcotte (Canada)
They skated to "To love you more" from Celine Dion. We had watched the exhibition practices in the morning, so we knew that they wouldn't be the only skaters to use this program in the exhibition, Angela Nikodinov chose the same song. Well it's not a song I'm crazy about and including the practices I heard it 4 times this day... Again nice, simple costumes for them. They skated a beautiful soft program, I love their style of skating. Also they had some really cool elements, very nice lifts and spins. Very enjoyable despite the sappy music choice.

Kristina Oblasova (Russia)
And a even worse choice of sappy music: Mariah Carey's Without you. But I at least was glad that she hadn't also chosen the song from Celine Dion. Pink dress. Typical program to a female ballad. But she's very graceful and I like her presentation. She had problems with all the jumps she tried, maybe she wasn't used to the lightning. Nice spin positions.

Stefan Lindemann (Germany)
Daniel says that Stefan is going to try the quad-toe at Cup of Russia. Well I know he has exhibition programs. But he showed us his short program again. Nothing anybody of us wanted to see twice in 3 days.

Anselmi & Pedrazzini (Italy)
I heard they were very happy with their 5th place in Gelsenkirchen and they were also very surprised to hear that they had to skate in the exhibition. They didn't have an exhibition prepared and showed their OD again. They seemed to be extremely nervous and she fell once, also they had some little wobbles. They skated this much better in competition.

Takeshi Honda (Japan)
Did some rather boring classic program to Jose Carreras. Afterwards Daniel talked to some Japanese fans in the audience, asks them whats written on their banner and thanks them for coming all the way from Japan to Germany.

Saurette & Fecteau (Canada)
Rock n' Roll number to "Johnny B Good". It had been funny to watch them rehearse this in practice, because Valerie Saurette laughed about her partner when he was making his dance moves in his practice outfit. A very entertaining nice playful program with some funny moments.

Jennifer Kirk (USA)
60's medley including "Tonight's the night" and "It's my party". Nice program with nice choreography. She still looked very juniorish, I'm not sure whether she has natural musicality, maybe she just needs a couple of more years to really develop her presentation, at the moment it looks rather rehearsed.

Quabdelsselam & Delmas (France)
I usually like dark dramatic programs to dark dramatic music, but this was a really weird choice, especially for an exhibition. Monotonous, dark, depressing music with some really weird chanting. He came out carrying a burning torch. He did a round over the ice while his partner was standing at the rinkside doing nothing. The torch looked as if it would go out any second. He then gave the torch to somebody and they started their dance. Oh well, after all they are French...

Alexander Abt (Russia)
Did Zorro again, for the 3rd year in a row in Gelsenkirchen! Same as always, maybe he could think about getting something new? Did wear those really tight pants again.

Petrova & Tikhonov (Russia)
Nice black costumes with a little orange. I THINK the music was from the "Black Cat/White Cat" soundtrack, but I'm not sure. Lovely humorous program with a very funny choreography. We already enjoyed watching them rehearse parts of it in the morning and put together it was really cool. Alexei did some great funny dancing, plus lots of innovative, creative elements, most standing out a lift that I'm really not able to describe unfortunately. I really think something humoric would be a great choice for them in competition too, because they got a talent for it and it really brings out their personalities a whole lot better than the programs they tend to do in competitions. This program was the highlight of the whole exhibition for me.

Angela Nikodinov (USA)
As said before, the Celine Dion song again. Typical female ballad program, but she's of course great at doing this kind of program. I just love watching her, she's such a graceful skater with such beautiful positions. Afterwards 20 minutes break. Daniel Weiss says they have to stay in the time schedule exactly because Spanish TV is broadcasting this exhibition live !?!? Afterwards lots of confused murmuring in the audience about why Spanish tv would show this live and if he really said "Spanish" (I think he did)!

Romaniuta & Barantsev (Russia)
They did their free skate from last year to the music of "Carousel". Nice program with some really creative elements, very expressive.

Chengjang Li (China)
Electronic music. Nice costume in blue and silver. I really enjoy his skating style and this was another good program.

Ina & Zimmermann (USA)
Their music was "American Trilogy" by Elvis Presley. I found this music rather lulling, but the program was nice and very harmonic and fluent.

Yoshie Onda (Japan)
Well after her competitive programs I was impressed by her, after her exhibition I loved her! The music was some Irish sounding piece with beautiful chanting, very nice. Skated powerful and fast and in this exhibition her expression was also much better than in the competition, an exquisite program with very nice choreography. She's also a very elegant skater. I loved it!

Dubreuil & Lauzon (Canada)
Music from the "Ninth Gate" soundtrack. Similar style program as their free skate, again with a lot of nice spins and lifts.

Tim Goebel (USA)
Very nice program to "American Pie", enjoyed it a lot!

Shen & Zhao (China)
Interesting costumes in pink and blue, I liked them. Music: "Pink Panther". Lovely, cute program with playful choreography, very entertaining. Again they had problems with their spins.

Maria Butyrskaya (Russia)
Fosse. Lovely program with really cool choreography, very expressive. Unfortunately it really suffered from her having problems with every jump she tried. Afterwards she was very uncontented with herself and put her face into her hands. But the audience loved her anyway. It's really sad we won't see her again next year. If she signs with American SOI, I really hope she'll find some time to skate in Germany from time to time!

Fusar-Poli & Margaglio (Italy)
Did their "Tango" exhibition. I hadn't been that crazy about this program on tv, but it was great live! Very expressive and in character of the music, another highlight! They also did a short part of their new free dance as encore.

Evgeny Plushenko (Russia)
Sexbomb. What can you say, I think everybody has seen this ;-). Before the encore one of the flower girls was still on the ice when he returned and he grabbed her and skated with her over the ice. She looked rather shocked ;-)!