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Sunday, the 28th: Exhibition Practice and Exhibition

On Sunday we didn't manage to get up quite as early as planned :-P, so we missed the first half of the exhibition practice, but we made it there in time for the part in the middle, where they trained the finale. It was fun to watch and there was so much to see with all the skaters on the ice at the same time. It looked very chaotic and it seems a herding dog for running away skaters would come handy for the choreographers :D , but all the skaters were there (only Shen & Zhao were a bit late), which from what I've heard about past events is not necessarily always the norm :D We were especially impressed, LOL, with the choreography of the very end of the finale, see the following video:
Domino Skaters
Or if you can't download the video, see the photos:
Domino Skaters
Domino Skaters
(Roman Kostomarov obviously was a bit challenged finding the right direction to fall to :D)

Here are some more photos from the practice:
Perky Americans
Beautiful Backs
More of them
And even more
Clearly BlueRidge HAS started a fashion trend :D
Beier & Beier
Beier & Beier
Beier & Beier
Anette Dytrt Carolina Kostner
Carolina Kostner
Group picture
Group picture
I lurve Tatiana's Juicy pants :D
Grushina & Goncharov
Elena Grushina
Grushina & Goncharov
Ladies
Michelle (bit blurry, but I lurve the scarf
Miki
Miki
Miki (and B&A)
For Andrey:
Tatiana Navka and G&G
Tatiana Navka and G&G
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov and Plushenko
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
New team for next year: Navka & Stavisky
Group of pairs
Chinese pairs
Chinese pairs
Chinese pairs
PML
I was PML'ing too much to take good photos :D
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Sasha
Shizuka
Shizuka
Shizuka
Shizuka
Shizuka
Tatiana T. speaking with Edvin Marton
Totmianina & Marinin

And finally:
Steffi during the CD (dreaming of Olivier Schönfelder *EVILLE* )

The only bad thing about the morning practice was that Tatiana Totmianina looked in a bad physical condition right from the beginning, she was especially having trouble with the part from the photos/video above, it must have hurt her knee badly to kneel and she always had trouble getting back up from the lying position, holding and massaging her knee afterwards, they only took part in the first 2 run-throughs too. Then some time later we did not see what happened, but she was suddenly shown on the screen standing next to the ice, looking very pained while someone was massaging her shoulder and arm (we later learned she had managed to dislocate it somehow, urgh) :( So in the afternoon, it was not much of a surprise when we learned that they would not be able skate.

After the finale practice, there were some more practices for individual run-throughs. I got most perky when I saw that Navka & Kostomarov would do their Austin Powers exhibition version (yay!) and Michael Jackson (YAY!). When Plushenko arrived, Steffi immediately wondered why he is wearing such strange pants (looked like tights) and when he finally revealed the flexibility of his costume...we instantly were rofl'ing on our seats for the whole rest of the time he was out on the ice, watching his exhibition run-through :D (as if the costume wasn't enough, the "music" was more than enough to make you fall under your seat rofl'ing). At this point we realized that the exhibition in the afternoon would most definitely become a complete riot and it got even better when Plushenko practiced another program and it was to the lovely "Hafanana" song. And he would skate to Edvin Marton (who also was on the ice during the practice) too. We were just Wheeeeee! all over the place :)

Anyway, finally on to the actual exhibition. Before the beginning Daniel Weiss as usually had the audience do some test-clapping activities, which usually annoys me, but this time it was cool, he seperated the arena in two halfs and then first the one half was asked to clap and cheer as loud as possible and then the other half. Well when the half opposite of us did, I have to say from where we were sitting it was overwhelming, it was as if some wave or storm of noise came flying towards you, pressing you back into your seat. We immediately wondered how it must feel if you're standing in the middle of the ice after a program and the applause is coming from all sides... Then before the exhibition really started, they showed the official video of Worlds on the screen again, which was the one to the song "Dreams on Ice", it was actually quite nice, because the skaters on the video got scene applause all the time (even though the scenes were not from this years Worlds ;) ). I enjoyed all the videos on the screens that were shown throughout the week immensly anyway, they didn't get boring and were very nicely put together, including some hilarious scenes, like one of Plushenko being crazy delerious after a skate :D There was a short opening too I think, even though I don't really remember, I think it were the skaters with the flag again, like in the opening.

Zhang & Zhang skated to classical piano music, displaying their beautiful lines and wowing me with an amazingly soft catch on their high 3twist. Carolina Kostner had some starting problems, because her music got stuck when they tried to play it first, but then in the second attempt everything worked and she totally blew me away instantly, skating with such an amazing speed, wonderful softness and really displaying musicality. If she ever manages to present a program like that in competition...there were 3 clean jumps too. I had not been that impressed with Belbin & Agosto's programs in the competition, but funnily their Elvis exhibition totally blew me away this time (don't say anything, BlueRidge :-P), I was just PML'ing and it was tons of fun. I thought it was the best they looked all week. Johnny Weir skated beautifully (as if he is capable of not skating beautifully ;) ) and I think "Imagine" is a great music choice for him. I thought, however, that his costume in the exhibition was not the best for his line.

Petrova & Tikhonov were simply FAB!!! (which is what my notes say). Their program was so incredibly charming and funny and they got applause for nearly every single thing they did. I felt very strange realizing that they might retire now and I might never see them again :( Miki Ando skated to very different musical selections from "Carmen" and very strange ones at that. We felt that the program did not suit her style very well, even thought the ending was cool. Grushina & Goncharov were another one of my highlights in the first part, they skated their "Adagio" program that I had seen on tv countless of times, but live it looked much more impressing and was really very beautiful, skated with lots of power and passion. I thought the way Daniel Weiss introduced them was utterly dumb, but I won't get into it :-P Stephane Lambiel tried a quad in the exhibition and fell on it and then he managed to fall on footwork too, but it was still a very nice number. Daniel Weiss made absolutely no sense whatsoever trying to introduce Pang & Tong and accidently managed to say that they won Worlds, well they skated with beautiful lines and great use of their graceful arms, they are always a joy to watch and personally they are my favorite pairs team at the moment. They had one wobbly moment on a gliding move though. Winkler & Lohse skated their Scat Mambo again and part of their FD as encore. This ended the first part of the exhibition, my highlights definitely were G&G, B&A, P&T and Carolina.

The second part was opened by a young German boy (I think it was said that he was about 10 years old), who's last name I forgot to note down and probably will never be able to retrieve now :-P, well his first name was Yuri and was really very cool, did not seem nervous at all, really sold his upbeat program with excellent musicality, especially for his age and already had very respectable speed, apart from also being very flexible. Anette Dytrt had unfortunately chosen some REALLY boring piano music, but skated with good speed and flow (I really should try to use the phrase "skated with good speed and flow" less, but it's unfortunately something that good skaters tend to do a lot and that always impresses me the most live :-P I should try to come up with some good synonyms for it though :D ). She fell on a jump. Fitze & Rex skated a cute program to "A little less conversation" and managed to clean throws. The way Daniel Weiss introduced Michelle Kwan was even dumber than his introduction for G&G, IMO, but I won't get into that either, LOL. She skated to "Fallin", which IMO is a very difficult song to skate for, but she finally did her loooooooong spiral and had very good power at the end. It's really incredible btw, how much she and Susanna Pöykiö skate alike :) Stefan Lindemann skated his number to the song from Seal, I thought it was cool how his jumps highlighted the music and he did a very high flying sit spin, skating smooth and fast overall. I was most upset by the idiotic audience reaction afterwards, because they obviously wanted to see an encore from Stefan (even though they did not even scream for one very loudly) and when Shen & Zhao stepped out onto the ice, people started boo'ing very badly, Of course they were not boo'ing Shen & Zhao, but it still was a more than uncomfortable moment and it can't possibly feel good when you step out on the ice just to be greeted with tons of boo'ing, no matter how it is meant. On top of that someone started yelling "Stefan! Stefan!" when they were taking their starting pose and their music started *rolleyes* They got a nice ovation afterwards, but I am still angry, especially because I'm 100% sure there must have been a good reason for Stefan not giving an encore, I guess either the show was behind the live schedule or Steffi suspected that Stefan might simply might not have been able to skate again, since she said she watched him on the screen after his skate and he seemed completely overwhelmed with emotions and crying. Anyway, Sasha Cohen skated her Romeo & Juliet program, which was absolutely great and I just have to mention that her glittery dress looked just FAB! Denkova & Stavisky's program looked like one of those programs for which a manual would come handy. Steffi had some *slight* problem getting over the pants again and was giggling next to me most of the time :D and suspected that the reason they can skate with the binds before their eyes must be that they are equally see-through as the pants.

Brian Joubert skated to some Chanson, I think something fast and powerful would have suited his style better. Totmianina & Marinin, as said before, unfortunately were not able to skate, so they came out on the ice with Edvin Marton anyway and he played the violin while their LP was shown on the screen, just like last year, LOL. Tatiana held a very cute and adorable "Sorry and Thank You" speech that was just as much fun as seeing them skate would have been :) and they got a great ovation despite not skating. LOL, my notes about Shizuka Arakawa say, just copying from the original notebook: does she know how to hold a movement!
3-3-2 toeloop
what a world champion!
that Ina Bauer (renamed ShizukaTM) is amazing
My notes about Navka & Kostomarov say "Rocked the house!!!" and my notes about Evgeny Plushenko say "un-friggin-believable" :D There's really not much to say, the whole first places were simply amazing and the best thing was that the applause and atmosphere just went up on a curve from loud to louder to louder to louder on the way from T&M over Arakawa over N&K over Plushenko, so overall it was simply amazing. Plushenko was so entertaining, in the end it probably would have been enough to wiggle his pinkie in order to get the whole audience to scream hysterically :D We were all drooling over his step sequence on one foot afterwards for a long time.

Sunday evening was again a very entertaining evening, we had a great meal again (this time even including lots of vitamins in form of salad, we all worried our stomach would revolt to the unknown experience :-P), got into some jealous moments about the general beauty and tiffed-ness of skaters (especially Navka) and we met Marianna and Paola from Italy and had a nice chat with them. In terms of bar voids, I was a bit miffed, because no matter how much we both drink, Steffi always manages to remain completely in control of herself and reasonable, while me...not quite :-P (not that I did anything embarassing or so and Katja wasn't any better ;-)). For Susanne and myself our evening concluded with the most strange experience of being driven to our hotel in a big taxi, that had seats in the open trunk which were facing backwards. Well we all drove in the taxi, just that me and Susanne were in the trunk backwards :-P

Steffi and my trip home the next day was not that bad actually (especially in comparison to other trips home). We made it to the breakfast in our hotel, HA! (for the first time ever) and as said before, this time there always was someone willing to carry my suitcase for me. And we watched all our digital photos on my laptop on the train, so the time went by fast this time :) So now I'm back from the best and loudest Worlds ever and even managed to finish my report in only 4 days, pheeeew...