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Tuesday, the 23rd: Ladies Practice, CD, Men SP

On Tuesday we slept rather long, after the getting up voids from the day before (but we didn't make it to the breakfast in the hotel anyway, because you could only have breakfast until 10:30am and we didn't really get ready in time :-P ), so we only made it to the second to last group of ladies practices, but then that was probably the most interesting group anyway, since it had all the Japanese and Julia Sebestyen and Susanna Pöykiö. This was also the first time that we saw Shizuka Arakawa skate and she immediately made a very good expression. She landed a 3t-3t-3t, plus just about everything else she tried (I don't think think I saw her miss anything), plus she was flying over the ice with that speed, power and flow...yet I would never have been able to imagine what we would see from her in the upcoming days at this point. Therefor I'll keep myself from raving all over her ad-nauseaum before the ladies have even started, since I'm aware I'll have 3 more competition portions and an exhibition to get carried away as much as I could possibly want :D
Miki Ando looked also very good in this practice, never missing a 3z-3t as far as I could see, landing lots of them and having like no problems with her jumps at all. Fumie was the only one of the Japanese who didn't look so good, since she seemed to struggle with her 3z and 3f a lot. We saw her land one 3loop though ;) The others neigher looked particularily good nor particularily bad.

Here are some pictures from the practice:

Anette Dytrt
Fumie Suguri
Fumie Suguri
Fumie Suguri
Miki Ando
Miki Ando
Miki Ando
Miki Ando
Miki Ando
In terms of my Miki photo series, I guess it would have been nice to have like ONE pic where she is facing the camera, LOL, but I think they still are pretty watchable ;)
Shizuka Arakawa
Susanna Pöykiö
Susanna Pöykiö
Susanna Pöykiö

After the ladies training, we went to the inner city and nearly immediately found a McDonalds. Wheeeee, haute cuisine in comparison to the rink food :-P

For the CD we took some seats closer to the ice than our own ones and managed to keep seated there throughout the whole thing :) I did not take any notes on the CD, but it was not as boring as Steffi had feared (she didn't even fall asleep ;) ). I thought it was nice to watch actually and then there always were the costumes and Tanith' 80's perm to talk about :D
I took photos with my normal camera, hopefully I'll get some nice ones. I was so nervous about C&S that I can't even remember how their costumes looked like, eek.

The men's SP was next and we went back to our seats...next to us there was some German woman seated, who had showed up for the first day with a huge bell (that she had been given as a gift), which made a very high shrill sound...so when we came back to our seats we found our friends, who had already come earlier, PML'ing and we found out that when that fan had seen Winkler & Lohse's CD marks she got so excited that she shaked the bell so rapidly that the clapper inside broke and flew away :D (and it looked like quite a massive bell :-P). Apparently it didn't hit anyone though and she even managed to retrieve it and for the men's SP she kept using it to hit on the bell from the outside (which I guess was too much work and not as effective though, so she gave up soon). The Canadian lady next to us later leaned over to say "Is the bell broke???" and didn't sound too devastated about the idea :D Of course the next day the German fan had already found a new gadget...

Neil Wilson skated first. My notes next to his name say "I love you Babe!" and since I'm 100% sure that's not what I was thinking, PML, I just thought for some second that must have been the title of his music, but I just remember that it is what someone screamed when he took the ice, LOL :D . Anyway, he managed a clean program with a 3axel, fast spins, energy, set to fast classical music. A nice start to the competition. Tomas Werner also skated clean, yay! With a 3a-3t. His footwork was fast and cool, but generally he could be a bit faster overall. His sit spin was fast and very nice, but the camel was slow. Trifun Zivanovic had problems with all his jumps (steps out and fall on 3axel). He skated to fast gypsy music. Juraj Sviatko fell on both jumps and stepped out of the 2axel, but it still was an entertaining program to a mixture of Latin style music. Very dance, with good footwork. He wore a VERY colorful costume, I really should have gotten my camera out for it :(

Ari-Pekka Nurmenkari fell on the 3lutz, landed the 2 other jumps, but had problems with his final spin. It was a very nice energetic program with good choreo and Tango feeling. Vakthang Murvanidze unfortunately managed a disaster, he doubled the flip, stepped out of the 3axel and also stepped out of the 3z in the combo, plus he managed to fall on his final circular footwork. It would have been a fun program, but he also semed slow today. Kristoffer Berntsson fell on the 3axel, but fought for the rest. His SP is a very different program (in a good way). Ivan Dinev skated to "The Feeling Begins" and fell on the 3f, but landed the 3axel and 3z-3t (or alternatively he fell on the 3z, but had 3f-3t, I really don't remember for sure). Vitaly Danilchenko fell on the 3axel and had 2 more step-outs, but he had cool footwork, very "to the music" and dancy, plus part of the straightline was on one foot.

Zoltan Toth had nice classical music as a choice (I'm always thankful for all the men who don't skate to bombastic movie soundtracks ;) ). He landed the 3flip, fought with his 3z-3t combination, he landed it leaning forward, on the toepick, had no run out and added the 3t very late. At least that's the most likely interpretation of my notes :D ). He was close to landing the 3axel, but also screwed the landing (my impressive notes say that he leaned forward and maybe 2footed and/or stepped out...). The style and program was a bit generic.
Yamato Tamura had fast sit spins, he fell on the 4t attempt, but landed the rest. He skated with good speed and flow and it was a nice performance.

Matt Savoie had nice spin positions. I quite liked his bluesy program. He managed 3a and 3z-3t, but stepped out of the flip. Kevin van der Perren fell on the 3axel, but added a 3t to it anyway. His spins tended to travel. Gregor Urbas doubled the flip, but did 3a-3t and a 3z. The choreography of his program is quite interesting. He's a total Timchenko clone IMO, he has a similar style, similar costumes and even looks similar...He was a bit slow tonight.
Ben Ferreira if I noted down correctly, only landed 3t-2t, a 3a and a 3flip. He had good edgy footwork with lots of turns though, interesting spin positions and skated a dynamic program.

Daisuke Takahashi totally kicked butt in the SP! Ok, not jump-wise, but with the rest...he did a 4t-3t (but stepped out of the 3t), saved the 3axel and did a clean 3z. He had a Spanish program with totally cool (underlined in my notes ;) ) choreography and he really managed to convey the Spanish feeling with his expression, plus the footwork was pukka and the spins well-centered and fast. One of my many absolute highlights of Worlds :)
Sergei Davydov did 3a-3t and 3lutz (saved, but clean). Probably also a 3flip, but my notes make no sense. His program has lots of content and connections. He was fast and energetic, maybe even a bit wild at times though.
Johnny Weir was the second to blow me away during this SP, he skated to "Valse Triste", landed 3a, 3z-3t and 3f and was simply BEAUTIFUL, so classical and elegant, pretty much perfect and buildung up tension with his program towards the end.

Min Zhang had a quite interesting and well-choreographed program, even if he's not the most expressive guy in the world. He managed a 4-3, but stepped out of the 3axel. Frederic Dambier did a 4s-3t, but fell on the toeloop, the rest was clean. That program always just reminds me that Silvio Smalun did a much better job with the same music. Andrei Griazev was major highlight #3 of the SP, he started with a 3a-3t (saved the toeloop), had cool footwork. Of course he still is a bit of raw talent, but everything needed to make him into a great skater is already there and he already knows how to draw in the audience :) After his skate the screen showed some PML clips of Tarasova watching his skate, which got quite some clapping from the audience, I wonder if that seemed strange in front of tv (well I guess they got the clips too).

Michael Weiss, did a 4-3 that really looked good during the skate, but then in the replay you could see it was heavily 2footed. He must be the master of 2footing jumps in a way that makes it look as if they weren't. He was a bit messy on his straightline footwork and IMO his music choices in both SP and LP are really strange this year. Chengjang Li screwed up his 4t attempt and therefor in the end had no combo, plus he only had a 3loop as solo jump. It was a quite nice program to Indian music and he had a nice straightline. Gheorghe Chiper did a 4t(hand down)-2t, fell on his 3A, but had a nice 3z that was REALLY done out of steps. As in the SP he had very cool circular and straightline footwork :)

Evgeny Plushenko did everything, even though his landing on the 3z was a bit shaky. I don't like his SP as much as the LP, but it was still most impressive, especially one of the upright spins with an interesting position. His spins at Worlds looked really really good anyway, which at least judging from TV, they didn't at Europeans. Stefan Lindemann did 4t-3t, 3a and 3z, while Emanuael Sandhu unfortunately popped his quad and fell on the 3axel, aaaaaaaaaaargh :( Brian Joubert was clean, his jumps were maybe a bit shaky. Ilia Klimkin was the second aaaaaaaaaaargh, falling on the quad and doing an extra-turn between the jumps in his 3a-2t attempt. His spins were still most cool. Stephane Lambiel fell on the quad, but managed the 3a (a bit shaky I think). He tends to be a bit sloppy, but he always skated with passion :)