The ISU World Figure Skating Championships continued Thursday in Calgary, Canada, with the Ladies Short Program and the Free Dance.
Ladies, Short Program
The Ladies’ event continued with the Short Program. Sasha Cohen (USA) grabbed the lead ahead of Japan’s Fumie Suguri and Kimmie Meissner (USA).
Performing to “Dark Eyes”, Cohen put out a dynamic program. She two-footed her opening triple Lutz but added a double toeloop for her combination. The Olympic silver medallist recovered immediately from this mistake to produce a triple flip, a a double Axel and excellent spins and spirals that all were graded a level four by the Technical Panel. Cohen earned 66.62 points (36.00/30.62) for this routine and moved into the lead at 94.21 points. “It wasn’t my best jump today. I just told myself I’d better stay on my feet”, Cohen said, refering to her mistake. “I feel though that society always focuses on the negatives. I think they should focus on the things I did well, like the Axel, it was really good. I love this program. I loved the energy.”
Suguri’s elegant Flamenco program contained a triple Lutz-double toeloop combination, a double Axel, and strong spins, but she made a little error as well, stepping out of her triple flip. The 2005 Four Continents Champion scored 62.12 points (33.12/29.00) which added up to 90.59. “I had a jump mistake, but my skate itself was better than (in) Qualifying, for the skating skills and the performance. But I’m very disappointed about my jump mistake. So I will set my mind again for tomorrow and do my best”, Suguri told the press.
Meissner nailed a triple Lutz-double toeloop combination, a triple flip, double Axel and showed improved spins to receive 60.98 points (33.24/27.74) for her routine to “Symphonic Dances” by Sergei Rachmaninov. “It felt great, it was nice to end on a high note with the short. On the Lutz I just got a little bit out, so it was going to be hard to do the triple toe, so I thought it would be better just to do the double toe, make it look good. I believe the spins were a lot better tonight, I just need to remember to count and make sure that I don´t go crazy on them”, Meissner laughed. “It feels good to be at Worlds and being in this position makes me very happy. Every year that´s been leading up to this has been building for me, every competition now is building up to the next Olympics, Worlds, Nationals, everything.”
Yukari Nakano (JPN) came in fourth with a strong program to “Bolero” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, landing a triple Lutz-double toeloop and a triple flip and is very close to the podium at 87.41 points. Joannie Rochette (CAN), who had won Qualifying Group B, is standing in fifth place with 85.66 points. She singled her Axel. Elena Sokolova (RUS) delivered an energetic performance to “Tosca”, completing a triple Lutz-double toeloop, a triple flip and good spins. She was ranked third in the Short Program and is currently sitting in sixth place at 85.40 points.
Ice Dancing, Free Dance
The Ice Dancing event concluded with an exciting Free Dance. Albena Denkova/Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria danced to the gold, the first figure skating World title for their country. Canada’s Marie-France Dubreuil/Patrice Lauzon earned the silver medal and Tanith Belbin/Benjamin Agosto (USA) took the bronze. It was a very close competition.
First to skate in the last group were Isabelle Delobel/Olivier Schoenfelder of France, who stood in third place after the Original and Compulsory Dance. The 2005 European bronze medallists delivered a strong performance of their romantic program to “The Flight of the Dove” that is about carneval in Venice. They executed good footwork and original lifts to score 98.12 points (50.52/47.60) but still slipped to fifth at 195.44 points.
Next up were Lithuania’s Margarita Drobiazko/Povilas Vanagas. Their emotional Free Dance to the “Phantom of the Opera” featured excellent steps and lifts, earning them a level four for all their elements except the serpentine footwork. The crowd rose to their feet to give the husband-and-wife team a standing ovation. The 2006 European bronze medallists scored 99.75 points (52.58 element socre/47.17 program component score) and were ranked second in the Free Dance. They moved up one spot to fourth with 195.87 points.
Now the overnight leaders Denkova/Staviski took on to the ice. Performing to a modern arrangement of “Adagio” by Tomaso Albinoni, the couple turned in a dramatic dance that included difficult steps and innovative lifts such as a straight line-rotational lift with changes of position and a serpentine lift with him skating on one foot. Denkova/Staviski also earned the highest level of diffulty for almost all their elements and collected 99.74 points (51.56/48.18) for this routine. The Bulgarians placed third in the Free Dance, just edged by the Lithunians by 0.01 point, but they remained in first overall with a total of 199.14 points.
Then it was the turn of Belbin/Agosto. The Olympic silver medallists showed a passionate Flamenco Medley, completing nice lifts and intricate footwork as well as dance combination spin. The Americans had high level elements as well and earned 99.50 points (52.48/47.02). They were fourth in the Free Dance portion but moved up to third overall with an event score of 196.74 points. Dubreuil/Lauzon skated last. They moved the crowd with their romantic dance set to the “Somewhere in Time” soundtrack that featured beautiful lifts like a reverse rotational lift and a rotational lift and strong step sequences. Like their competitors, the Canadians were awarded level four for almost all elements. Their program had flow, and even the difficult steps looked smooth. Dubreuil/Lauzon received 100.57 points (53.07/47.50) to win the Free Dance and remained in second place overall at 198.69 points.
“I don’t believe it yet. We have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Finally when it’s here and we are the World Champions, I don’t know what to say. We’re very, very happy and we worked for this very hard. We skated very well at the Olympics. This (the placement) was the decision of the judges. We’re very pleased that they looked differently at us and our program here in Calgary and we got the gold medals”, Denkova said. “This is very important for our country and four the development of figure skating in Bulgaria. I think everybody is celebrating now in Bulgaria”, she answered when asked about making history.
“As everybody knows, four weeks ago I was in a wheel chair in Italy”, Dubreuil commented, refering to her fall at the Olympic Winter Games. “To be here today and to skate as strong as we did with very little practice on the ice, because we started skating only two weeks ago. The two weeks we skated were quite painful. We made it throught because we’re a strong couple. The way we skated tonight was memorable, for me, because these four weeks were hard. It makes this medal and this skate even more special for us. This program was the masterpiece of our career. It describes the best the passion we have for each other and for the sport”, she went on.
“It has been a very exciting week for us. It was kind of difficult for us to come back from the high of the Olympic Games and then to have to get our minds back into training mode, so we’re very happy with the way we were able to give ourselves back on track and to perform as well as we did. Tonight’s Free Dance felt wonderful, all the elements felt clean and strong”, Agosto said. The bronze medal after winning the silver at the Olympic Games was no “disappointment at all”, as he stressed. “This competition was so good for us as far as our skating was concerned. The thing we’d like to focus on in every event is to skate the best we can and we really felt that we went out at this championships and skated the best compulsory dance we ever skated, we skated a really good Original Dance, and tonight the Free Dance felt really strong as well. We couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. As far as the standings, I think it just proves how competitive ice dance is now and the standings are going to keep changing from event to event and it’s going to be very exciting for the next four years.”
The competition at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2006 concludes Saturday with the Ladies Free Skating.
Results
