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| World Championships 2004 Compulsory Dance B Midnight Blues |
| To begin with, I would like to put a big question mark over the ISU decision to split the dancers into two groups if the number of pairs taking part is exceeding 25. Why can the judges mark all the 29 teams in the OD but they cannot in the shorter, easier to mark CD? The groups were unbalanced and with the very little movement in ice dance, it’s not fair for the skaters. I have watched the event on TV (which makes it impossible to see the pattern and evaluate the speed properly) and haven’t properly looked through the element sheets for the Midnight Blues so my comments will be quite general. Again I have ordered the teams how I would place them. It helps me to make sense of what is happening on ice and makes me care less about the judging. I already accepted that the results have got more to do with how the couples placed before than with how they actually skate. Of course this is just my subjective opinion and it’s just another point of view on the competition (or the only point of view if you haven’t seen it ;). The actual placements appear in brackets after the names and the link to the full results is here: COMPULSORY DANCE B |
| 1. Tatiana Navka/Roman Kostomarov /RUS/ (1) They were superior to everyone else here. Nobody came even close. Perfect lines and extensions. Gorgeous skating quality. I am not sure about their timing though. 2. Isabel Delobel/Olivier Schoenfelder /FRA/ (3) They were fast, powerful and worked well with their knees. The edges were fairly, deep, clean and smooth. They have been very unlucky, losing to the Germans on a 4:3 split. Muriel Bucher-Zazoi is an amazing coach. All her three couples here had wonderful basics. 3. Melissa Gregory/Denis Petukhov /USA/ (7) The biggest surprise of the evening. He is a bit better dancer than her but you can see that she worked very hard since both of them skated well. Quite deep edges and fantastic knee-bend. I think they captured the feel of the Midnight Blues the best, out of the all couples and I think that they skated to the beat most of the time. They carried across a smooth, “relaxed”, “bluesy” feeling. 4. Kati Winkler/Rene Lohse /GER/ (2) They skated this compulsory in the same manner as in Malmo last season. Skated well, without any noticeable mistakes but the edges could have been deeper and the knee-bend softer. 5. Galit Chait/Sergei Chaknovsky /ISR/ (4) Their edges were shallower than G/P’s who skated just before them. It was a big struggle. Not very soft in the knees, the turns looked ragged and messy. They were fast and powerful but this dance is just so not them and they couldn’t capture the feel at all. 6. Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin /RUS/ (6) Whenever I watch them, my attention is brought to the fact that, while he has very good kneebend, she is still quite stiff and hasn’t really improved it since last season. Their edges were quite shallow and a little insecure but overall they skated a fairly strong dance. Their basics are good and they have an edge over all couples placed below them, who all had some issues with their technique. 7. Julia Golovina/Oleg Voiko /UKR/ (11) They skated very close together, were smooth and used their knees well. Chris said they looked a bit tight and I had the same feeling. They were dancing to the beat most of the time but kept falling out. I am quite worried about Julia since at the moment, she looks bigger than Oleg. Kozlova/Baranov will be right on their heels so they better be in much better form next season. 8. Nozomi Watanabe/Akiyuki Kido /JPN/ (10) Another very big surprise. Fairly deep edges, nice lines and they went deep down in the knees. Having said that, their edges could be softer and they had to toe-push a couple of times. 9. Federica Faiella/Massimo Scali /ITA/ (5) I never understood what the judges see in their compulsory dances. Well the fact that Eurosport cut half of their skate because they were showing 2002 Olympics didn’t help either. Their edges were shallow and they haven’t succeeded in presenting the feel of the blues. 10. Kristin Fraser/Igor Lukanin /AZE/ (8) This was a very poor performance. Shallow edges, did not use the knees well and drifted apart in places. 11. Svetlana Kulikova/Vitaly Novikov /RUS/ (9) Their edges were not good, not smooth and not deep. They seemed to be off-beat. 12. Diana Janostakova/Jiri Prochazka /CZE/ (14) They started on very deep edges but got worse as the dance progressed. The same happened with the kneebend, which started off well but deteriorated later on. They were a little apart and their hips did not match in a face-to-face hold. The Australians performed the dance better but I put the Czechs in front on the basis of better skating quality. 13. Natalie Buck/Trent Nelson-Bond /AUS/ (13) They skated right after the Lithuanians and you could see that they were in a different class. Quite stiff but not far apart. Shallow edges and lacked extension but managed to complete the dance without major mistakes. 14. Josee Piche/Pascal Denis /CAN/ (12) Skated far apart on shallow edges, without getting any extensions. I thought that the Australians were more precise and executed the dance a little better overall. 15. Clover Zatzman/Aurimas Radisauskas /LTU/ (15) Very bad scratchy edges and messy footwork. They were very slow and seemed to struggle with the steps. They skated very far apart and were drifting even more apart in places. |