2003 ISU Grand Prix Final

1 March

Ice Dancing, Free Dance A

Galit Chait/Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR), 2002 World bronze medalists
Chait: (On what she did during her break) I had a shower, washed my hair and tried to relax.

Sakhnovski: When we showed this program for the first time, our former coach didn’t like my expression. But we liked this program a lot. It tells the story of Paganini, and we like to tell stories on the ice. It was very difficult to perform a second time today, as I was very tired and didn’t sleep well.

Elena Grushina/Ruslan Goncharov (UKR), 2003 National Champions
Grushina: This was a new program that we put together for the Final. We’ve used the music before, but we changed the steps, and we also edited the music. The program was ready before Europeans. For the first time in competition, I think we skated really well. We don’t know yet if we will use this program in the future.

Goncharov: We wanted to do something new and fresh instead of going back to an old dance. The old programs weren’t bad, but we didn’t win with them.

Marie-F. Dubreuil/Patrice Lauzon (CAN), 2003 National silver medalists
Dubreuil: This dance was last year’s program, and it was the easiest to remember. We did that program at the Olympics but not so good, we wanted another shot at doing it better. It’s easier for us to do something else and not thinking about skating during our break. On the bus coming here we started preparing, otherwise it gets too heavy in your head.

Albena Denkova/Maxim Staviski (BUL), 2003 European silver medalists
Denkova: It was a decent skate. Actually, it was easier for me to skate now than this afternoon. It was unusual to start the competition with the Original Dance. This Free Dance felt confident. (On what she did during the break) I just slept! I didn’t even eat.

Tatiana Navka/Roman Kostomarov (RUS), 2003 European bronze medallists
Navka: I liked this program very much, it’s a lot of fun. I enjoyed skating it. The audience is great, it’s good to skate at home. The audience is supporting everyone. It’s an unusual schedule for us. We didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t easy for us, but I think we did well.

Irina Lobacheva/Ilia Averbukh (RUS), 2002 World Champions
Lobacheva: We didn’t think about Worlds when we skated this Free Dance. When I dressed in this costume, it was like a flash back to the Olympic Games. We even laughed about it, Tanja (Navka) and I. It came all back to me, the excitement, the adrenalin rush. This costume will forever be associated with the Olympic Games. I remembered the last flight, the others girls – Barbara (Fusar-Poli), Rita (Drobiazko), and I felt all this energy again.