Never mind, went to Cybercafe and caught up with internet goings on. Then onto FD practice; obviously some people had been there a long time, but we were there for the last 2 groups (the best). Porny M jogged right behind us! We could have touched him!! PML! Laughed over some French schoolkids going up to Justin Pekarek and asking him to sign a picture of Tim Goebel ( PML!).

The practice rink was really cool. It was on the 5th floor of umm, some sort of car park...LOL! On one side was a swimming pool and on the other was the rink. The whole one side of the rink was one big window, which made it impossible to take pictures, but it was worth it for the great view.

Everyone skated great in the practice session. The biggest cheers were for Anissina and Peizerat of course, but the whole final group did pretty well for cheers. (The others were Lang and T, Dubreil and Lauzon, FP&M, and D&V).

We then went for a drink with Susanne (German photographer) and then into the rink for the Pairs’ Free Skate. We bought stuff to throw for Sale and Pelletier (toys from Michelle, flowers from me) And I bought a rose for Obertas and Palmarchuk. The bouquets were really nice and just 30FF.

I sat there having a bit of a snorefest for the first 2 groups and those seats were damn uncomfortable! Michelle went off with Susanne to watch men’s practice over the road. When she came back she told me how she had held the elevator door open for Sasha Abt to escape his fans. I was insanely jealous, but my own 'Michelle envy' moments were to come the next day. ;) So we continue to watch the pairs’ competition. When O&P went up to skate, I said to Michelle 'Oh, I do hope they skate well, she deserves flowers!'. Well they were having the skate of their lives, weren't they? But of course as I'm sure you know 10 seconds before the end he dropped her on a lift and she landed right on his head. A groan went up from the crowd, but that turned to stunned silence when he failed to get up and Yulia started to cry.

We couldn't believe that they didn’t put the poor guy on a stretcher straight away and when he collapsed at the other side of the rink, we were ready to throw up/cry/shout at someone. Oh well, the 'show' must go on and out came poor Sargeant and Wirtz who had seen the whole thing. Poor things, he especially looked grey. Although the ref would not allow them to restart the crowd was with them for all of their skate and gave them a standing ovation at the end. Job well done guys. I can't say I've ever been a fan of this couple, but I have a new respect for them now.

Scott and Dulebohn (USA) were next to skate and skated a blinder! Just the one error, what a great debut at worlds for this promising pair.

Then out came Totmianina and Marinin. I said to shell: 'I hope they skate well, I'll throw them these flowers.' Shell told me to shut up...LOL! They did anyway, and got the flowers. Very elegant pair. (IMHO)

OK, so we were into the last group. Of course the crowd went crazy for Sarah and Stefan and they turned in an emotional performance. Shen and Zhao were on the way to making me a fan at last after their wonderful short program the other day, but the free skate was boring and lacked sparkle, even without the errors. P&T were fine, what else can I say about them? I really want to like them , he looks such a nice person, but they just don't have that star quality in my opinion.

Poor Jamie Sale, the girl broke her heart and ours after the free skate. I felt bad that the crowd started cheering wildly when the results went up and they could see that Sarah and Stefan had medaled. But that was nothing against Jamie and David, the crowd really liked them and if you ask me, they were lucky to have been in 3rd after the Short Program.

On the monitor screens, we could see Jamie crying, Shen crying, Sarah and Stefan crying and the crowd was NOT happy.

The reason for this? Well, all around us were a lot of elderly French people who had just come to watch as it was in their home town--nothing wrong with that I may add. But someone else who was more or less in the same section told me that the people thought Shen and Zhao's, and didn’t even see their mistakes. This may have been because most of them took place at the other end of the rink from us and you had to lean forward a bit at times to watch the jumps going on up there. But P& T deserved their gold medal and I was horrified to hear some booing going on as they came out to get their gold medal. I turned around to the guy sat directly behind me and gave him a real filthy look. When the referee came out to present the medals and was greeted by yet another cacophony of booing, despite Stefan Bernadis' attempts to shush the crowd, Michelle and I decided that we had had enough and left for the Sofitel bar.

As we walked in, we ran into Scott and Dulebohn and congratulated them on their great skate. They were really sweet and informed us that they were sticking around for the rest of the week to 'party' :)

We then went into the bar with Emma Abraham and some other people and sat around for a bit, discussing the free skate. Then we got chatting with the two women who had been having the interesting conversation that we had eavesdropped on the night before.

Me being me, said to the one: 'So you're the Todd lady then?' Yes, it was. Fran Buhman and her friend Lynn. Had a good laugh. Then Michelle piped up: 'By the way, this is Sharpie'. Poor Fran! LOL! Then Michelle mentioned that her internet name was shellybean and Fran was laughing her ass off, she said to Lynn 'I’m talking to Sharpie and shellybean!' Of course Lynn, not being an internet person, went: 'Huh?'. LOL.

We were going to get up early to head to the cyber cafe, but that didn't quite happen, we got up late and headed to the cyber cafe...at any rate, no big deal. Sharon took a computer in the corner and I took one in the middle of the room. The keyboard was slightly different but no big deal, the only thing I couldn't find on it was the @ symbol. I later found out that I had an English keyboard. Sharon was complaining on FSU about the keys all being in the wrong spot, etc.. and I had NO idea what she was on about. (till the next day that is) We stayed about an hour, before we left I got a "jambon et fromage baguette" (one of many that week) for the road and we headed off to the rink.

Arrived at the rink to see, uhh...I don't remember what. OH!!!, we went to the practice rink to see free dance practice. For some reason we arrived just in time to see practically everyone we wanted to see. I think we saw about three flights, and in that time we saw, Winkler & Lohse, L&A, D&V, D&L, FP&M, A&P, the Bulgarians whose names I can't remember, L&T, the Isralies, among others. Quite honestly the only team I'd like to have seen but missed was Wing & Lowe. Practically perfect timing on our part. We ran into Susanne, a german photographer that Sharon had met at Lalique afterwards and ended up in the Novotel bar having a drink, watching the second half of the ladies qualifying (the weak group I think). After that we went to the rink to watch the Pairs free skate.

Susanne was there on a press pass but for some reason the security people wouldn't let her into where she needed to be to take her pictures, so Sharon and I snuck her in. Susanne and I decided to watch the first pair (because she really liked them) and then we'd go back across the street to watch the final flight of men practice. We saw Elena Berezhnaya (sp?) at the men's practice. I'm not surprised that she wasn't over watching the pairs event. Of course we get there and...no Plushenko, and no Yagudin. There was Stojko, Li, Weiss and Abt. We watched till the end of the practice and then started on our way back to the arena to watch the pairs. On the way out we passed Sasha Abt who had been cornered by girls wanting pictures and autographs. As we rounded the corner toward the elevator, I saw him making a mad dash in our direction, so I held the elevator for him. But he didn't come so I let it go. But then I hear yelling to keep it open, so we open it up again and in he comes with his bodygaurd. Have you ever seen him up close? Eeeek! He's gorgeous to say the least.

So, back to the pairs event. I have no idea how many pairs we missed, but it couldn't have been many. At any rate, you all heard about that disaster in the pairs event I'm sure. After the Ukrainians had their accident I felt physically ill, I have no idea how Kristy & Kris managed to skate at all. I know they had problems too, which really upset me more, but after they were finished I calmed down a bit. It's a shame they didn't skate up to their potential, they're normally in the top ten at worlds. The rest of the pairs event went relatively smoothly, well, at least in that nobody else was taken to the hospital. Totmiana & Maranin left out a lift at the end of their program, but nothing disastrous happened. The final flight of pairs didn't skate that well. Though the Russians absolutely deserved to win.

I left the medal ceremonies in disgust; apparently the people in the building didn't notice that Shen & Zhao made three very visible mistakes in their free skate. The people in the building BOOED the Russians as they came out for their medals. Can you believe it? I was absolutely disgusted. And they booed the judges, and the referee who was going to assist with the medal presentation. I left halfway through and headed to the Sofitel to the bar. Grabbed the same table that we sat at the night before, and told the people at the next table what had happened at the medal ceremonies, they were disgusted too. It was just ridiculous.