2003 World Figure Skating Championships

25 March

Ice Dancing, Compulsory Dance Group A

Elena Grushina/Ruslan Goncharov (UKR), 2003 National Champions
Grushina: The Austrian Waltz is a difficult dance. You can see right away who can skate well and who cannot. We’ve done it twice in competition this year, so we felt comfortable with it. (On the Qualifying Groups) We had that before. It feels like the real competition will start in the OD.

Megan Wing/Aaron Lowe (CAN), 2002 Four Continents bronze medalists
Wing: (On competing at World’s again) It feels like we belong here. This is a really comfortable venue for us. (On her bleeding cut on her leg) It happened during the warm up.  
Lowe:   It feels really great to be back.  I applaud our other teammates for getting a third spot.  We feel really confident being back again. Naomi Lang/Peter Tchernyshev (USA), 2002 Four Continents Champions  

Lang:  The crowd was great, we skated pretty clean.  My injury hasn’t held me back since before Nationals.  I like having to skate only one compulsory dance, having to go back for a second compulsory dance was always a challenge. 

Tchernyshev:  (On the importance of the compulsory dance) It’s about 25-30% important.  Now we look forward to the Original Dance and Free Dance.  (On the ISU opposition group)  Competition is always healthy.

Isabelle Delobel/Olivier Schoenfelder (FRA), 2003 National Champions
Delobel: We had hoped to be closer to Grushina/Goncharov as we beat them already in the compulsory dance at Trophee Lalique. I think our Waltz was strong technically. We like this dance. It’s demanding, there are a lot of turns, of changes of edge and changes of direction in it. Each step is a challenge, and we enjoy the interesting and difficult dances. The ice surface is smaller than in Europe, that made it harder.

Galit Chait/Sergei Sakhnovski  (ISR), 2002 World bronze medalists
Chait:  We felt good out there.  The Austrian Waltz is new this year and I like it.  It is nice to be here, we have lots of audience support and many of our friends are here.

Sakhnovski:  It is good that we have new and different Compulsory Dances to skate to.

Irina Lobacheva/Ilia Averbukh (RUS), 2003 European & 2002 World Champions
Averbukh: We did this dance for the first time in competition. It’s a new dance that never was done at Worlds. It was new to everybody. Frankly, we didn’t have much time to prepare it. We learned the steps during the summer, but then we didn’t have this dance in our Grand Prix events, and we prepared another dance for Europeans. Then we had to prepare the second free dance for the Grand Prix Final and didn’t have time for the Waltz. We really started to work on it only two weeks ago. Considering that, we’re very pleased with this performance. Of course, it could have been better. It’s a good dance, and there should be many more new compulsories.

Ice Dancing, Compulsory Dance Group B

Shae-Lynn Bourne/Victor Kraatz (CAN), 2002 World silver medalists
Bourne:  It was awesome; we’re at the top of our game.  It was the first time we skated this dance in competition and the last time we will skate a compulsory dance.  There were so many supporters in the audience we felt like it was a Canadian Nationals.  (On the proposed World Skating Federation) We need more facts and then we can form an opinion.

Kraatz:  (On the World Skating Federation) This is news to me, the first time I have heard of it.  I have no information on it.

Tatiana Navka/Roman Kostomarov (RUS), 2003 European bronze medalists
Kostomarov: Finally the competition started! I waited for it to start impatiently. The first day is always the hardest, and it’s really important to do well. I prefer the fact that there is now only one compulsory dance. The Austrian Waltz is a hard dance. We did it at Skate America and we worked on it a lot before this event.

Tanith Belbin/Benjamin Agosto (USA), 2003 Four Continents silver medalists
Belbin: (On finishing second at Four Continents) Great! This was redemption for us. We wanted to prove we can skate three good solid performances.  We are definitely happy. We overcame two higher ranked teams we never overcame before.

Marie-F. Dubreuil/Patrice Lauzon (CAN), 2003 National silver medalists
Dubreuil:  This was the first time we performed this dance in competition.  The ice is a bit small for this dance but we can deal with it and did the best we could.

Lauzon:  This was the first part of the competition this week and it was a bit stiff but good.

Albena Denkova/Maxim Staviski (BUL), 2003 European silver medalists
Denkova: We never did this dance before in competition, and therefore I was quite nervous. Most of the other couples have more experience with this new dance, they did it at their Grand Prix events. I hope I will be more relaxed in the OD.

Staviski: We didn’t have much time to prepare the Waltz. Therefore I think that this is our weakest compulsory, we do the others with closed eyes.

Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin (RUS), 2003 World Junior Champions
Domnina: It was not bad. It has been a junior dance before, but I don’t remember doing it. We only worked on it one month only.
Shabalin: In practice, this dance came easy to us. In competition, it’s harder, of course, because you’re nervous. But we want it to look easy and effortless. We are nervous, but we shouldn’t let if affect our performance. These are our first (senior) World Championships, but so far we feel relaxed. I was more nervous a Junior Worlds, because we were competing for the first place there.