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Friday, the 26th: Free Dance

The FD started off with Yang & Gao, who skated to Chicago. It was a cute program, but they were a bit slow tonight. Kauc & Zych skated their Latin program fast and smooth. She really has granny hair now. I like Piche & Denis' "Angel & Devil" program much better than the one from Abitbol & Bernadis. It is very dramatic and builds good tension through the choreography and music. They also had good lifts. Golovina & Voiko had a strange looking lift towards the end, I'm not sure if it was supposed to look like that or if it was a mistake. They started fast and powerful, but slowed down. One could spot her perky Carmina Burana face all the way up to our seats :D

Somewhen at the beginning of the FD, I suddenly got completely CONVINCED that C&S would fall on that second hateful backwards shoot the duck lift (a brilliant intuition I suppose :-P). I bet I got on Steffi's nerves quite a bit during the first half of that evening by the way, LOL. I fairly remember that I actually sent SHARPIE a text message with that dramatic prediction *blush* Geez. (She texted me back that I need a beer :D Probably a good advise, but I hate beer :-P) Anyway, watching Hoffman & Elek warm-up I decided that there are 2 things that they really need: a) better choreographies and b) a spot on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" for Attila, he needs a make-over!. Grebenkina & Azrojan had a cool program, but again I felt that they need to vary their speed better. Watanabe & Kido 's Nutcracker was the first big highlight of the night, I had already liked it on TV, but live it was even better, they really skate with a lot of speed and power and it's such a cute program (apart from the music being just lovely). They got a good reception too :) My notes say "coooooool" with a smiley face behind it :D

Fraser & Lukanin created a nice mood with their program, but did not manage to hold my interest throughout the whole dance. They had 2 rough moments. Pechalat & Bourzat had a bad mistake on a twizzle unfortunately, but they skated very fast and powerful. They have a rather strange combination of music pieces, I suppose there is some storytelling involved. I find the whole Che Guevara idea a bit strange, but it's not an unpleasant to watch dance. Poor Hoffman & Elek must have had the roughest skate of the night, they fell on a lift (and I think it was a shoot-the-duck lift, so there, I hate those) and I think screwed up another one.

Kerr & Kerr skated well and were as usually very entertaining, but I suspected it can't have been the same fantastic skate as at Euros, they didn't blow the audience away this time in the same way (including me). I asked Paola and Marianna from Italy about it later, because they had attended both Euros and Worlds and they confirmed that the skate at Euros had been much better. Still very good of course. I still haven't gotten completely over his hair voids :D Gregory & Petukhov were very beautiful too watch, but their straightline step sequence was very slow and didn't go together that well with the flowy mood of the rest of the program.

Gudina & Beletski were maybe the biggest surprise for me, I mean I had always liked the IDEA of their FD, but always thought that they skated to messy and the choreography looked too chaotic. Well here at Worlds, I thought neither was the case, they skated very well and the program did not look chaotic to me, I loved all the little details , the acting was so cute and fun, it was by far my fav so far and it seemed to go over well with the audience too. I think they really need better lifts though by the way. Their program is another one that got a "coooooool", plus smiley face to go along with it.

And yet another "cooooool" with a smiley face for Kulikova & Novikov (I'm so creative :-P). They skated very well again, except for one wobbly moment on a twizzle, even though I think they still need a bit more speed for this free dance. I was still a bit traumatized from the OD I guess, since I let out some (luckily not loud at all :-P) kind of "Aaaaah" scream, when Vitaly lost balance on their second twizzle series, but he saved it well. The funniest moment for Steffi and me was when K&N did that section of their FD where they run forward over the ice with those steps where they take the knees really high (I think it's the part from that photo: Photo ) and then do their first twizzle series directly afterwards. The audience was clapping quite enthusiastically for those technically demanding toesteps :D (that do look ultra-cool though), so when they did their really very well-executed first twizzles after that Steffi and I started to clap for those too, just to quickly realize that absolutely nobody else in the whole rink did...I suppose it was some kind of "well everybody does those turn thingies, can't be very difficult" thing :-P Wing & Lowe were a bit boring, even if they always are very soft and smooth. I really much would have preferred to see their voidy Beatles FD from last year, since I really loved that program. Hmmm, my notes end here again, somehow I could have sworn I got farther this time :-P Anyway, everybody in the second to last group skated well, except for maybe Domnina & Shabalin, who seemed a bit flat (and I really gotta say that their theoretically really beautiful music always is very ear-deafening live - even though it was not played as insanely loud as at Bofrost Cup here - due to all the shrill very high violin tones I guess). I was most happy Chait & Sakhnovsky skated as well as they did :) and I loved the program, I was especially impressed with their slow part of the music this time, seeing it live, because they had extremely good flow during it and it just looked lovely. I relaxed during it so much that I forgot to worry about the lift they were going to fall on and of course didn't fall on it anyway. My intuition is so terribly reliable :D (I still think it's an awkward looking lift and the only part of the FD that I don't like, generally there are 2 things that I would be too happy to never see again after this year: a) shoot-the-duck lifts in ice dancing - why is everyone doing them anyway, I don't see what in the CoP rule would encourage them so much, was everybody that impressed by Michael piking around the rink or what??? - and b) no more 6.0's :-P). ) Anyway they got a good reception from the audience and I'm glad they recovered like that after the OD and were back to their usual secure skating, also glad they at least moved up one spot. The only thing I wondered about was why they changed the ending of their FD, since it's the reversed starting pose (or moment) I suppose it was in order to round up the dance and I guess it kind of works, but while standing next to each other and then running into the first element looks pretty impressive, running forward just to stop and stand next to each other isn't quite as exciting :-P I liked the old ending better. I looked up the quotes on the official site when we were back in our hotel and was glad to find a mentioning of next season in their quotes :)