2003 ISU Grand Prix Final

28 February

Pairs, Free Program A

Julia Obertas/Alexei Sokolov (RUS), 2003 National bronze medalists
Obertas: That was the best we’ve skated so far all season. I was totally calm, and I don’t know even why. Maybe because I was tired emotionally. It felt good to compete at home, it is a nice atmosphere. I never felt as calm and relaxed as today. Today’s Free Skating was the most important program for us.

Dorota Zagorska/Mariusz Siudek (POL), 2000 European silver medalists
Zagorska: It’s not a problem for us to skate twice a day, it’s like practice. I’m satisfied with our performance.

Siudek: If I skate like today and do a triple toe, I’ll be happy.

Anabelle Langlois/P. Archetto (CAN), 2002 Four Continents silver medallists
Langlois: It was maybe a little bit quick. When you’re tired, you’re like this (slumps her shoulders) or you get tighter.  I think we reacted differently. I was a little bit more relaxed. We were happy after the twist – we were totally off timing – that we got back together and did the triple toe.

Archetto: I couldn’t control my legs. I tried to be smoother, maybe it was the tiredness. But it’s our first experience and the first time we’re doing two programs in one day.

Maria Petrova/Alexei Tikhonov (RUS), 2000 World Champions
Petrova: My fall (on the triple toe) was a stupid mistake. I worried more about the sequence with the throw triple loop, so maybe I was too relaxed when I went into the triple toe. But I pulled myself together immediately and didn’t let the mistake affect the rest of the program.

Tatiana Totmianina/Maxim Marinin (RUS), 2003 European Champions
Totmianina: This was our best performance for the last two years. I was tired before I went out, but when I came out, the people started to applaud, and I was ready to start.

Marinin: For us this is the first experience to do the Final. I didn’t expect it to be so hard to skate two programs in one day. Although we are doing it in practice it is different in competition. Then you are more nervous  and it makes you more tired. We are in great shape, we can compete against any rivals. Compared to the other free programs this (West Side Story) was easier for us to skate – there are not so many connecting steps.

Xue Shen/Hongbo Zhao (CHN), 2002 World Champions
Shen: We didn’t really have time to practice this program.

Zhao: This was not good. We felt tired. I tumbled on the triple toe. It was difficult to do the old program, because we didn’t remember all the linking elements.