2001 Four Continents Championships

Ice Dance

Standings

Notes after the free dance.

We witnessed a miracle today in the free dance - two couples changed place in the standings.  Other than that all was in order in the Universe.

Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz won the gold medal with a well skated routine more contemporary in style than they have used in the past.  The increased difficulty of their program and speed with which they skate makes them competitive for a medal at Worlds next month, something that did not appear to be the case a year ago.  Their dance had decent lifts but the focus of their program is on the footwork and step sequences.  While other teams here had more spectacular lifts, in terms of the difficulty of the steps and the quality of the basic dancing the Canadians deserved to be on top.

Lang & Tchernyshev gave a dynamic, dramatic performance with some blindingly fast movements followed by slower interludes.  They were one of the teams were the strength and focus of the program was the lifting, and they did it spectacularly.   The complexity of their footwork sequences, however, did not meet he Canadians.

Another team that showed strength in the lifts were the bronze medalists, Dubreuil & Lauzon.  In their program the focus was again on the lifts, but while Lang & Tchernyshev used sweeping dramatic lifts with as much height as the rules will allow, the lifts in Dubreuil & Lauzon's program were more unusual, and not so much ugly as simply weird.  In several cases they involved swinging Dubruil around in limp positions like a sack of potatoes.

Today's miracle occurred in fourth and fifth place.  Joseph & Forsyth struggled through their routine with everything looking like it was an effort, perhaps the result of the team still not being fully recovered from illness last week.  In addition, about half way through the routine Joseph fell during a step sequence in a move where she swings her leg over Forsyth's head.  Even, without the fall, however, the laborious look to their routine probably would have cost them fourth place.

Wing & Lowe, who had been in fifth place after the original dance, skated a program with moderate speed and nice spins, perhaps some of the best of the event (some of the couples in this event could barely keep an upright dance spin going).  The lifts were not the entire focus of their routine but nearly so, and like their countryman who won the bronze medal, their lift positions are again best described as weird looking.  All in all, it was a strong performance that deserved to be bumped up a place to fourth which placed them fourth overall for the competition.

Notes after the original dance.

Over the past few years the ISU has been under a lot of pressure to introduce more movement into the ice dance results, and to some extent they have been successful - but not here.  In all three dances so far, the results have been identical.

One of the innovations introduced by the ISU in 1998 was to require different panels of judges for each section of the dance event.  That rule has been followed here in word only, but not in spirit.  Only ten dance judges are here, which means the only difference from panel to panel is who gets to be the substitute judge.  Because the organizers and/or ISU were too cheap to bring in enough judges to have three independent panels the nagging doubt is again raised that the ISU is not committed to the independent judging of each dance free from bias and reputation judging.  It may well be in some cases that the relative quality of the skaters is so cut-and-dried that a perfect sheet is the reality of the situation, but in order for such results to be believable truly independent panels are essential, regardless of the cost or inconvenience of implementing them.

Another flaw in the event here is that during the original dance the prior placements of the competitors was displayed on the scoreboard while the couples skated.  It is difficult enough for judges to put prior impressions out of their minds under the best of circumstances.  To have a constant reminder of the current placements visible while judging only makes the situation worse and is also a violation of the spirit of the rules which forbid a judge from bring a list of prior results to the judging stand.

As for the skating, Bourne & Kraatz skated a fast lively dance that was well done.   During their career, their skating at times has suffered from a lack of speed, but in this dance they moved, and moved well.  Lang & Tchernyshev also had a good skate, though a bit below the level at U.S. Nationals two weeks ago.  Dubreuil & Lauzon skated a smooth fluid dance that was well done but with lesser difficulty and speed than the first two teams.

Remaining in fourth place, Joseph & Forsyth presented a dance of reasonable difficulty that was well skated but a bit slow.  Wing & Lowe skated a fast and lively dance, though were a bit wild, to music from "Chicago" and "All that Jazz".  It was an entertaining number that suits their style.  Handra & Sinek had a decent skate to their amusing "Happy Feet' program.  Although a fast routine, without increased difficulty they are not going to break out of their current position, either nationally or internationally.

Notes after the compulsory dances.

The only Worlds medal contenders here are Canadians Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz, who are embarked on a comeback attempt after missing last year's Worlds due to Bourne' knee injury.  Beyond that, U.S. fans get to asses the relative prospects of national champions Naomi Lang & Peter Tchernyshev.  The other two teams representing the U.S. are not members of the U.S. World Team.

Bourne & Kraatz were the unanimous panel favorites in both compulsory dances, the Westminster Waltz and the Silver Samba.  Both dances were skated cleanly and confidently.

Lang & Tchernyshev gave two strong performances in both dances and were rated second in both cases by all but one judge.  The number two Canadian team of Marie France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon followed behind with mostly third place marks in both dances, but also two fourth place marks.  Dubreuil & Lauzon won the bronze medal at Skate Canada, and at that competition the Canadian press was looking hopefully to a future in which they would be the successors to Bourne & Kraatz as medal contenders at the world level.  If that does occur it will take some time.  The Canadians placed tenth at 2000 Worlds behind the eighth place American team and thus far here it appears the Canadians have not gained any ground on Lang & Tchernyshev over the past year.

The next three places in the compulsory dances were also taken up by American & Canadian couples.  The new pairing of Jessica Joseph & Brandon Forsyth skated well with their Silver Samba a little stronger than the waltz.  They were followed by Megan Wing & Aaron Lowe, who skated the waltz well but Wing had a small slip up in the samba.  Both Joseph and Forsyth had been sick after U.S. Nationals and had considered withdrawing.  They decided to stick it out and their decision was vindicated by the results so far.  In sixth place after the compulsory dances were Beata Handra & Charles Sinek who skated both dances well, and were the last team of senior quality in the event, the other skating better than good junior level skaters, or worse.

Free Dance

Original Dance

Compulsory Dance 2

Compulsory Dance 1

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