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Thursday, the 25th: OD, Men SP

Thursday was not exactly my favorite day of Worlds, not to say that it was bad, I just liked all the other days better. One of the best thing on Thursday was that we slept long, since the dance practice was way too early and afterwards there was only men's practice, not that interesting. Of course we missed breakfast, because we slept too long.

At the rink there was a Fuji place where they sold films and camera's and stuff and there was a huge (more than life size) picture of Maria Butyrskaya doing her egyptian progam standing next to it, where people could have their picture taken with the pic (by some very good looking young photographer on top of that :D ) and then have it developped and get copies of the developped picture for free. Nice advertising. So four of us had one taken, even if I of course refused to make the supposed egyptian arm movements ;) (well ok not really, I couldn't do them, because I was carrying my purse with me and couldn't put it down anywhere). The only strange thing about the Fuji stand btw, was that they displayed on-ice photos they took during the even too and I swear some of them were truely dreadful, I mean my digital camera is a Fuji too and it's more than possible to take decent action pics with it, but they honestly displayed some photos that looked like the ones I instantly delete if I ever take them. Not so good advertising. Anyway, here's the Fuji pic:

I have only very random notes about the OD. It started with Piche & Denis, who skated a bit far apart, but had nice music choices and I liked the straightline step sequence. Herzog & Matsjuk were next, he has strange hair and wore it in a ponytail, but she reminds me of Galit Chait, looks and style-wise. I liked their Blues at the beginning, but they had chosen some really strange music for the Jive that they also weren't able to interpret well (I doubt anyone could have :-P). It is a pity they did not make the FD, since their Hair FD would certainly have been very entertaining. Zatzmann & Radisauskas didn't really do too much substantial during the Blues part of their OD and they were struggling with some of the elements. The most apparent thing about Golovina & Voiko was that they skated very powerfully and with good speed.

Huot & Valkama were a bit out of synch in the straightline, but their twizzles were well-executed and overall they skated well, with power and respectable speed. I wish we could have seen their FD, since they have such an unique classical style with beautiful lines. Janostakova & Prochazka's OD went by fast and they distinguished their rhythms well. Kauc & Zych skated a smooth Blues, but had a messy straightline step sequence. They could try to skate with a bit more oomph, especially in the fast part. And she could grow her hair back. Yang & Gao did an excellent job distinguishing their rhythms and skated smooth and with fire, they were my favorites so far. Buck & Nelson-Bond did not really have enough energy for their fast part. Their Blues looked and sounded pretty much like the Blues CD from Tuesday. Fraser & Lukanin really skate awfully fast apart, she really should work on improving her posture I think, she is always immensly breaking at the waist. They could become a much better looking team with some work on that. Watanabe & Kido had a good fast diagonal step sequence. I was really impressed with their fast parts, especially the footwork sequences, which were skated with speed and power. Their Blues was a bit boring though. The Kerrs skated their fabulous OD next. I still think it's a bit of a pity that they end the dance with the Blues part, it would be more exciting if there was a fast part at the end, because with the way it is now the highlight is always at the beginning. Their fast part has really great choreography, I think they could improve their speed and flow. Hoffman & Elek were dressed in neon colors. They were a bit messy and had several little rough spots.

Gudina & Beletski had a strange moment in a section where they were dancing on the spot, we both were not sure if it was supposed to look like that or if it was a stumble/mistake. Overall they were not bad. Domnina & Shabalin did not skate all that fast and seemed to lack flow a bit today. Also they seem to have chosen an extra-slow Blues music. Grebenkina & Azrojan skated smoothly with big movements and look really good together as a team. They had nice diagonal footwork to the fast part of their music. Yet they did not impress me as much as on TV, mostly because they need to vary their speed more, it was all on one level, but they were still very good. Gregory & Petukhov impressed with a good straightline step sequence. Kulikova & Novikov skated much better than I expected, they skated with power, had no mistake and I could just watch their straightline step sequence over and over and over again. They were most definitely the best thing about the whole OD for me :) This may be a bit anti-climatic for people, but I don't have any other notes about the OD.

Here are some photos from the OD:
Faiella & Scali
Golovina & Voiko
Grebenkina & Azrojan
Grushina & Goncharov
This is by far my favorite photo of the ones I took today (I know I zoomed in a bit too far :-P):
Grushina & Goncharov
Gudina & Beletski
Huot & Valkama
Huot & Valkama
Kerr & Kerr
Kerr & Kerr
Kulikova & Novikov
Wheeeeeeeee:
Navka & Kostomarov
Navka & Kostomarov
Piche & Denis
Azuki Watanabe
Watanabe & Kido
Yang & Gao
Clover Zatzmann
Zatzmann & Radisauskas

Thursday definitely was the worst day in terms of food situation, since I ate absolutely nothing all day, except for not even all of a quarter piece of fatty pizza. Luckily the food situation at the weekend got much better.

The men's LP started with Neil Wilson, who landed his easier triples and was close on the 3axel, but made mistakes on the other jumps. He skated a classical program, in an a bit empty style. (I think I remember being quite ravy about his LP in the qualifying. I guess it would be interesting to compare my LP notes with my qualifying notes and see how often I say contradicting things about the same program, LOL). I don't really have any notes about Gregor Urbas. I think I've just seen him too often live this season and on tv too. Tomas Werner had some minor jump problems, but a good skate overall that ended with a great final serpentine footwork sequence. Yamato Tamura's program was a bit empty choreographically. Ivan Dinev had a very good skate in his powerful style. Kristoffer Berntsson did much much better than at Euros (to which one of us remarked that it would have been pretty much impossible to do worse anyway). He had lovely choreography and I think he did a real good job with the interpretation tonight.

Gheorghe Chiper had quite some troubles and I liked the SP better. Matt Savoie on the other hand skated well, his program is different and old-fashioned. Sergei Davydov skated well, I was especially impressed with his speed and good flow. Ben Ferreira again did not manage the quad and stepped out of it. Kevin van der Perren skated clean with a 3A and a 3-3-3 combination. He also had the most interesting program so far. Daisuke Takahashi was not flawless, but skated very good, managed one quad too. He skated to one of my favorite pieces of skating music and I just find him much more interesting and expressive than Takeshi Honda.Andrei Griazev unfortunately made some mistakes today, but I still loved his circular footwork. Min Zhang managed to quads, but also made mistakes. He could need some better choreography. Some of his spins are pretty bad, but he also had one very good camel today.

Frederic Dambier ended his program with a good straightline footwork sequence. He always tends to have iffy jump landings and rather empty programs, but skated with speed and flow. Chengjang Li screwed up his final flying sit spin. He started his program well, but then got worse as the program progressed. His program was a pretty generic bombastic SAW movie soundtrack program. I must have gotten into a spiritual low after his skate, since I melodramatically noted down that the best part of this Thursday was sleeping long, with a honorary mention to Kulikova & Novikov. Hrmmmm, LOL. Steffi and the others were also feeling a bit burned out at that point though :-P Emanuel Sandhu actually still had a good skate, apart from the mistakes, but he definitely looked faster and sharper in the qualifying.

The last group of the men most definitely put a great end to the night though! Johnny Weir was great and I put nothing down on my notes, except for a smiley face, LOL. We were also delighted that we would get to see him in the exhibition. Stephane Lambiel was also fantastic and I like this program much better than the one he used in the qualifying. Brian Joubert was very good, but his program still didn't manage to hold my attention all the way through. I just prefer skaters with a style like for example Johnny Weir or Emanuel Sandhu. With all lurve to Michael Weiss, his music choice was a pretty perfect way to kill the mood and atmosphere in the rink that had built up with the former 3 skaters. He skated rather well though as far as I remember.The music for Stefan Lindemann was really played extremely loud, probably because of the audience, so that he still could hear it or something. He skated very well, without mistakes and did a quad. Evgeny Plushenko was great, finally I got to see this LP in the way I had hoped for. He had a freaky fall on the final 3loop, but since it was so late in the program, it did not marr the overall impression. This is by far my favorite program he has ever made, I love the music and the choreography and the expression and he was really on fire on that night, it was magical to watch :) And I have to say even with the one fall, he looked classes better to me than Brian Joubert and the rest of the field. So that was a great way to end the evening...

We went directly back to our hotel today and chatted in the bar there for a while, but they didn't even have cocktails (tsss, what kind of a bar is that), just other alcoholic drinks, but then it's probably better that I didn't trink anything after a day of eating like nothing anyway :-P They didn't serve sandwiches anymore either, so late at night.

Here are a few pics from the Men's LP:
Kristoffer Berntsson
Sergei Davydov
Sergei Davydov
Sergei Davydov
Emanuel Sandhu
Andrei Griazev
Yamato Tamura
Johnny Weir