The 2007 World Figure Skating Championships continued in Tokyo, Japan, with the Men’s Short Program and the Pairs Free Skating. The Toyko Metropolitan Gymnasium was sold out with over 6,000 spectators.
Men, Short Program
The Men’s event started with the Short Program. Brian Joubert of France captured the lead ahead of Canada’s Jeffrey Buttle. Daisuke Takashi followed in third place. The skaters ranked third to sixth are separated by less than two points.
Joubert delivered an energetic performance of his “James Bond” routine “Die Another Day”, hitting his opening quadruple-triple toeloop and the triple Axel and showed good footwork. He had the crowd behind him from the first second. The European Champion put down his hand on the triple flip, but he earned a level four for his three spins and a level three for both step sequences. The Frenchman collected 83.64 points (44.85 element score/38.79 program component score), exceeding his previous best of 80.75 points. “I’m very happy with my performance. I beat my personal best. I did one small mistake on the triple flip, and I’m a little disappointed about that. Everything else was clean”, Joubert commented. “I was very nervous. I saw Stéphane Lambiel just before me and that he did mistakes. He did not have a good short program, and it gave me more confidence. He helped me a lot. When I came on to the ice, I just wanted to do my job. That’s all”, he went on.
Brian Joubert (FRA) Photo by Teunis Versluis
Buttle landed a solid triple flip-triple toe, a triple Axel as well as a triple Lutz in his elegant Tango routine to a piano version of “Adios Nonino” by Astor Piazzolla. His three spins were all graded a level four by the Technical Panel. The Olympic bronze medalist scored 79.90 points (42.76/37.14) an set a new personal best for himself. “Despite the short season I think I made a stride this year, and I’m just really looking forward to the long program”, Buttle said, referring to the back injury that had kept him out of the Grand Prix events. “I was just able to train in ways I was not able to train before Nationals and Four Continents. It was a lot more intense. We were able to get a lot more run-throughs done, and just be a lot harder on the back than I was before. So I really think that made a huge difference, and I feel stronger because of it”, answered when asked on how he progressed since the Four Continents Championships.
Takahashi opened his program to Peter Tchaikovski’s Violin Concerto with a triple flip-triple toe, but the second jump was underrotated and downgraded. The 21-year-old went on to produce a triple Axel, a triple Lutz as well as a level-four combination spin to score 74.51 points (36.94/37.57).
“It was my worst performance in this season. I was not able to show what I can do. I am very lucky to end up in 3rd place”, Takashi told the press and admitted to feeling pressure. “We are the host country, and the crowd had very high expectations and I tried to respond to it. This made me very nervous. I’ll have an aggressive attitude towards the Free Skating tomorrow in competition and positive thoughts.”
Johnny Weir (USA) finished in fourth place at 74.26 points. His performance included a triple Axel and a triple Lutz-triple toeloop combination, but he stumbled out of his triple flip. Evan Lysacek (USA) risked a quadruple toeloop for the first time in the Short Program, but stepped out of it. He is currently standing in fifth place (73.49 points). Two-time and reigning World Champion Stéphane Lambiel (SUI) came in sixth. He fell on his triple Axel and downgraded his planned quad-triple toe combination to a triple-double (72.70 points).
Pairs, Free Skating
The Pair event concluded with a dramatic Free Skating. Xue Shen/Hongbo Zhao of China skated to the gold with their teammates Qing Pang/Jian Tong edging Germany’s Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy for the silver medal. It was the third World title for Shen/Zhao. Pang/Tong completed their set of World medals with the silver while Savchenko/Szolkowy stood for the first time on the podium at the World Championships.
Shen/Zhao put out a strong performance to “Mediation” from “Thais” by Jules Massenet. The crowd cheered for every move as they reeled off the side by side triple toeloop-double toeloop combination, side by side double Axels, a big triple twist and throw triple loop. They produced a level-four forward outside death spiral, and also received a level four for two of their three lifts. When Shen landed the last key element, the throw triple Salchow, a big smile lit up her face. After they had finished, Shen/Zhao shared an emotional moment on the ice, knelt down and hugged each other while the audience gave them a long standing ovation. The Chinese received 132.43 points (65.29 element score/67.14 program component score) accumulated a total score of 203.50 points.
Pang/Tong had drawn to skate last and ended a difficult year on a high note with their best performance of the season. Their program to “Phantom of the Opera” featured a double Axel-double Axel sequence, a triple toeloop, a high triple twist, a triple throw loop and Salchow as well as a difficult one-armed lift and a level-four spiral sequence. The defending World Champions earned 121.71 points (61.65/60.06) for this program which added up to a total of 188.46. They moved up from third to second, edging Savchenko/Szolkowy by 1.07 points.
The Germans had skated first in the final flight. They opened their routine set to “The Mission” by Ennio Morricone with a throw triple flip followed by a triple toe, but Szolkowy stepped out of it. The European Champions hit the triple twist, the throw triple Salchow and strong lifts (all three of them were awarded a level four), but Savchenko singled the Axel (in a sequence with a double toeloop). Savchenko/Szolkowy scored 119.74 points (59.93/59.81) and slipped to third at 187.39 points.
“Right now I’m very tired, and what we need is a long break. This break might take maybe one year. There may be a comeback in the future, but when this will happen we will have to look at our competence and ability as well as physical strength to decide”, Shen explained. “We were just full of joy, and we were overwhelmed with emotions, so we weren’t really thinking very much about the standing ovation. But I would like to thank the audience, because it was the greatest gift any audience could give to us”, Zhao added.
“All top three pairs performed well tonight. For me, I saw the score for the pair that skated before us which motivated me to skate well. We want to continue to work better and harder to improve our performances. Last year, we were the world champions, but it was very hard for us this year because of our accident and illness. But all that made us very strong for the competition. I am so happy about our result”, Tong said.
“Until now we still have mixed feelings between joy and disappointment. We can skate better than that. We made a few mistakes. But that’s sport, unfortunately, that’s the way it is. We’ve had a hard season. It was difficult to skate yesterday the short and also difficult in the free program today, but we fought for it. Considering that, we did quite well. To be on the podium was our big goal and we fulfilled that. The bronze medal means a lot to us. Tomorrow morning at the latest when we will wake up, we will be very, very happy with it”, Szolkowy commented.
Tatiana Volosozhar/Stanislav Morozov (UKR) moved up from eighth to fourth with a personal best Free Skating that contained a triple toe-triple toe sequence, a triple Salchow and high triple throws (173.62 points). Dan Zhang/Hao Zhang (CHN) rallied back from a faulty Short Program and finished fifth at 173.39 points. They completed a side by side triple Salchow, a triple twist, throw triple loop and Salchow, but he fell on the back end of the planned double Axel-triple toe combination.
Dorota Siudek/Mariusz Siudek (POL) withdrew after the warm up for the Free Skating as he injured his back. They stood in 9th place after the Short Program. Maria Petrova/Alexei Tikhonov (RUS) withdrew earlier today due to injury as well. According to the medical bulletin he suffered from an adductor injury in the right leg. They had finished 11th in the Short Program.
The ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2007 continue Thursday with the Original Dance and the Men’s Free Skating.
Results
Photos
