Here's a clip from I think an old exhibition in Oświęcim. There's Mariusz Siudek (European and World Championship medalist) skating with Bartosz Domański (or at least I think that's him in the dress ;-P, he was Polish National Champion twice) and eventually a third guy takes the ice, but I don't know much about him.
At any rate - it's fun ;-P
Showing posts with label figure skating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label figure skating. Show all posts
Friday, July 06, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
Take That - the manband
Here we go, yet another post that has been in my drafts since December ;-P
For those who don't know, Take That was a British boyband that was immensely popular in the early and mid 90s (Robbie Williams was part of it until 1995) and I managed to get hooked on them when I was about 12 - I think it was March-April 1996 (they split in February 1996). As you see I had terrific timing with when I chose to get hooked (but hey - uptil I was 11-12 I thought all modern music was crap and classical was the only thing worth listening to so there really was no opportunity to get hooked before that ;-P).
Anyway, they were a pop band that was particularly famous for their live shows. And I really do believe that there is no pop band or pop singer ever that did shows which were as spectacular to watch. I think there may have been quite a few boybands that made a bigger name for themselves worldwide like The Backstreet Boys, The New Kids on the Block and perhaps even Boyzone, but none of these boybands had the dancing skills, physical fitness or frankly even sense of humour and creativity to be able to pull off shows to the standard of Take That (btw, the choreography and ideas for Take That's shows came from within the band - another aspect not typically to be found in most pop acts).
Just to demonstrate what I mean, here's one of Take That's live performances at the Wembley Arena (their first arena tour) in 1992:
Apart from very energetic dance routines they also did very cheeky TV appearances, which were another thing of theirs that I loved (hey, I think it's quite obvious from this blog that I like cheeky TV appearances ;-P). Here's one that had me laughing for a whole weekend (from Italian TV I think and this was their last single so it must have been late 1995 or early 1996 - no Robbie Williams just the four of them):
And here's the bizzarre part - 10 years later Take That have decided to make a comeback. Many doubted this would work out. Take That's whole image was built on things which seem very difficult to recreate by men aged 35-38. Many also thought that they wouldn't manage without Robbie Williams (though I hardly thought it would be an issue - they managed without him very well after he left the band in the 90s).
But it seems like everybody was wrong ;-P In fact Take That are getting more impressive results in the charts than they did the first time round! They did an amazingly successful comeback tour, which sold out in a few hours. They managed their first ever chart double (no.1 single and no.1 album in the same week). "Patience", their first single was no.1 in the charts for 4 weeks. Their new album was no.1 for five weeks and after the release of their second single, "Shine" (which was no.1 for two weeks) the album has gone back to the no.1 spot on the charts, which so far makes a total of 7 weeks (more than any other of their previous albums!). Their second tour since their reunion sold out even faster than their first. And they made the most spectacular comeback in the history of the Brit Awards - winning Best Single for Patience. You can see them getting the award in the video below (I guess I put it in mainly because I was amused by the Valentine kissing bit ;) but the whole thing is rather sweet ;) ):
It's quite an amazing story considering all that happened to them after they split up. Robbie Williams was the only member who commercially survived the break up. Gary's solo career started better than Robbie's but once it went wrong it went wrong drastically. Mark although his career never went as low as Gary's also ended up losing his record deal. He got back into the public eye after winning Celebrity Big Brother, but his solo career really couldn't be called particularly successful. Howard's solo material never even got released and he ended up doing DJ work. Jason never even tried for a solo career...
And then all of a sudden they get together again and they're even more successful than they were the first time round - it's a strange business, isn't it? ;)
Anyway, I love their new live performances as much if not more than their old ones, so I'll just fill the rest of this post with youtube videos ;-P
I think my favourite performance of theirs is what they did to "It Only Takes a Minute Girl" which was a very early single of theirs (probably about 1991 or so) and it's a veeeery primitive kind of tune which I think they rightly decided they couldn't perform the way they used to. But for you to really get the "joke" I think you need to hear the original tune first, so check out this live performance from Manchester in 1995 (I think the staging of this one is great but if you don't then trust me - the modern one is drastically different ;)):
In contrast this is what the same song looked and sounded like on the 2006 reunion tour lol:
Take That apart from managing all sorts of firsts in the charts did a different sort of "first" in a TV program in December. You can read up on the concept of the "Audience With" program here. Take That are the first ever band to do the program live. And I'm going to put a youtube video (or rather playlist) of the whole thing below. I think the opening is particularly good, but otherwise just watch whatever you like - I couldn't really make my mind up so I just decided to put the whole thing into the post ;-P If you're wondering what Jason and Lulu are talking about in clip no.3 - well the whole comeback thing actually started out because of a documentary. It rekindled a lot of interest in Take That. In that documentary it was implied that Jason and Lulu had at some point slept with each other... Anyway, here's the program :) :
Finally, for the figure skating fans - you might like to see a clip of Take That performing on Dancing on Ice with Torvill and Dean. Check it out here
For those who don't know, Take That was a British boyband that was immensely popular in the early and mid 90s (Robbie Williams was part of it until 1995) and I managed to get hooked on them when I was about 12 - I think it was March-April 1996 (they split in February 1996). As you see I had terrific timing with when I chose to get hooked (but hey - uptil I was 11-12 I thought all modern music was crap and classical was the only thing worth listening to so there really was no opportunity to get hooked before that ;-P).
Anyway, they were a pop band that was particularly famous for their live shows. And I really do believe that there is no pop band or pop singer ever that did shows which were as spectacular to watch. I think there may have been quite a few boybands that made a bigger name for themselves worldwide like The Backstreet Boys, The New Kids on the Block and perhaps even Boyzone, but none of these boybands had the dancing skills, physical fitness or frankly even sense of humour and creativity to be able to pull off shows to the standard of Take That (btw, the choreography and ideas for Take That's shows came from within the band - another aspect not typically to be found in most pop acts).
Just to demonstrate what I mean, here's one of Take That's live performances at the Wembley Arena (their first arena tour) in 1992:
Apart from very energetic dance routines they also did very cheeky TV appearances, which were another thing of theirs that I loved (hey, I think it's quite obvious from this blog that I like cheeky TV appearances ;-P). Here's one that had me laughing for a whole weekend (from Italian TV I think and this was their last single so it must have been late 1995 or early 1996 - no Robbie Williams just the four of them):
And here's the bizzarre part - 10 years later Take That have decided to make a comeback. Many doubted this would work out. Take That's whole image was built on things which seem very difficult to recreate by men aged 35-38. Many also thought that they wouldn't manage without Robbie Williams (though I hardly thought it would be an issue - they managed without him very well after he left the band in the 90s).
But it seems like everybody was wrong ;-P In fact Take That are getting more impressive results in the charts than they did the first time round! They did an amazingly successful comeback tour, which sold out in a few hours. They managed their first ever chart double (no.1 single and no.1 album in the same week). "Patience", their first single was no.1 in the charts for 4 weeks. Their new album was no.1 for five weeks and after the release of their second single, "Shine" (which was no.1 for two weeks) the album has gone back to the no.1 spot on the charts, which so far makes a total of 7 weeks (more than any other of their previous albums!). Their second tour since their reunion sold out even faster than their first. And they made the most spectacular comeback in the history of the Brit Awards - winning Best Single for Patience. You can see them getting the award in the video below (I guess I put it in mainly because I was amused by the Valentine kissing bit ;) but the whole thing is rather sweet ;) ):
It's quite an amazing story considering all that happened to them after they split up. Robbie Williams was the only member who commercially survived the break up. Gary's solo career started better than Robbie's but once it went wrong it went wrong drastically. Mark although his career never went as low as Gary's also ended up losing his record deal. He got back into the public eye after winning Celebrity Big Brother, but his solo career really couldn't be called particularly successful. Howard's solo material never even got released and he ended up doing DJ work. Jason never even tried for a solo career...
And then all of a sudden they get together again and they're even more successful than they were the first time round - it's a strange business, isn't it? ;)
Anyway, I love their new live performances as much if not more than their old ones, so I'll just fill the rest of this post with youtube videos ;-P
I think my favourite performance of theirs is what they did to "It Only Takes a Minute Girl" which was a very early single of theirs (probably about 1991 or so) and it's a veeeery primitive kind of tune which I think they rightly decided they couldn't perform the way they used to. But for you to really get the "joke" I think you need to hear the original tune first, so check out this live performance from Manchester in 1995 (I think the staging of this one is great but if you don't then trust me - the modern one is drastically different ;)):
In contrast this is what the same song looked and sounded like on the 2006 reunion tour lol:
Take That apart from managing all sorts of firsts in the charts did a different sort of "first" in a TV program in December. You can read up on the concept of the "Audience With" program here. Take That are the first ever band to do the program live. And I'm going to put a youtube video (or rather playlist) of the whole thing below. I think the opening is particularly good, but otherwise just watch whatever you like - I couldn't really make my mind up so I just decided to put the whole thing into the post ;-P If you're wondering what Jason and Lulu are talking about in clip no.3 - well the whole comeback thing actually started out because of a documentary. It rekindled a lot of interest in Take That. In that documentary it was implied that Jason and Lulu had at some point slept with each other... Anyway, here's the program :) :
Finally, for the figure skating fans - you might like to see a clip of Take That performing on Dancing on Ice with Torvill and Dean. Check it out here
Monday, March 12, 2007
Maria Olszewska-Lelonkiewicz dies
Today is the funeral of Maria Olszewska-Lelonkiewicz. She was a figure skating coach in Łódź, probably the best ice dance coach we had in Poland in recent times. Sylwia Nowak / Sebastian Kolasiński and Aleksandra Kauc / Michał Zych were amongst her students.
I've still not heard any news about what she died from, but there's a short article in Polish that you can read here. It is a great loss to skating in Poland.
I've still not heard any news about what she died from, but there's a short article in Polish that you can read here. It is a great loss to skating in Poland.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Surya Bonaly to skate nude
Hopefully now that my heavy schoolwork period has almost finished I'll get back to regularly updating this blog.
For now, however, I have some fascinating figure skating news for all my readers (and since it's coming right after my celebrity nudity database post, I think I'm either going to lose or gain readers by giving the impression that this blog is about nudity ;) ).
Anyway, it's true - Surya Bonaly, a five-time European Champion is going to be skating nude to protect baby seals in North Canada. The news is in a couple of places, but the only English article I found is here (albeit it's a Russian site). The FSU forum is having a lot fun picturing exactly what Surya might do in her program. After all, she is the first ever woman to do a back flip on the ice, not to mention a wide repertoire of very bendy moves (she is an ex-gymnast). So enjoy whatever images this has brought to your mind ;)
Edited to add: Apparently Surya is not the first skater to do this. See here
For now, however, I have some fascinating figure skating news for all my readers (and since it's coming right after my celebrity nudity database post, I think I'm either going to lose or gain readers by giving the impression that this blog is about nudity ;) ).
Anyway, it's true - Surya Bonaly, a five-time European Champion is going to be skating nude to protect baby seals in North Canada. The news is in a couple of places, but the only English article I found is here (albeit it's a Russian site). The FSU forum is having a lot fun picturing exactly what Surya might do in her program. After all, she is the first ever woman to do a back flip on the ice, not to mention a wide repertoire of very bendy moves (she is an ex-gymnast). So enjoy whatever images this has brought to your mind ;)
Edited to add: Apparently Surya is not the first skater to do this. See here
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Polish Junior National Figure Skating Championships 2007 (aka my social life take two)
Yep, I actually have another excuse to try and prove I have a social life. If Senior and Novice Nats weren't enough, there's junior Nats too *grin* (results are here).
Anyway, here's one of the pictures that my lovely friends insisted on taking at the end of the day. This one was taken by Bożenka :)
Incidently, the ice behind us will be used for the European Championships very soon, so I'll have even further opportunity to try and convince you that I am not as lonely as I seem ;)
But now I actually *will* post a bit about the skating (only about what I thought was most exciting - "exciting" being a word that many will find inappropriate in Polish figure skating context, but that's their problem ;-P ).
This part of Edwin's program cracks me up, but I just loved it. Very original way of hiding a bad landing - it makes you wonder how much of it was planned and how much of it wasn't:
You can see the complete performance here and it was a fantastic effort :) It was the 2nd best free program of the event (although overall he was 3rd). The junior men's competition was won by Maciej Cieplucha who turned in an amazing performance. It's not that I've never seen him skate like this, it's just that he's never (to my knowledge) done it when it was so important to do it (last year he started his season off like that and everyone thought he was a very strong favourite for the Polish junior Worlds representation and yet at both Polish Nationals and a special test skate he came second to Mateusz Chruscinski). He had already lost to Mateusz at senior Nationals this season, but here he really outclassed everybody and is finally going to make his debut at the Junior World Championships in March, go Maciek! *grin* And here's the performance that earned it:
Finally (but perhaps most importantly as they will represent Poland at the upcoming European Championships in Warsaw!) Joanna Budner and Jan Mościcki put in some rather nervous looking performances and yet I'm still kind of impressed with them. Originally, Aleksandra Kauc / Michal Zych were pretty much the only ice dancers who were being considered for Europeans, but they very unexpectedely split up in October (you'll find a little bit about that in one of my previous posts). This left Poland with no ice dancers in senior competition! So suddenly mid-season Joasia and Janek (who are Poland's strongest junior eligible skaters at current) started working towards making the required changes to their junior programs (amount of elements, length of program, different compulsary dances) to be able to skate in senior competition. Finally in November they performed as seniors for the first ever time at a very small event in the Czech Republic. Then to make things even more hectic Janek had an ankle injury in December. For this reason they were not able to attend Polish Senior Nationals (but since they would have been the only competitors they were allowed to skate their senior programs at junior Nationals). After all this, this is what they managed to produce at their second ever competition as seniors (this is the Original Dance):
Loads of small mistakes on the required elements (but then ever since the new judging system this tends to happen to ice dancers a lot more), but I'm still rather impressed. Ice dance is the discipline where the difference between junior and senior is the biggest. A good junior single skater can make the top10 at senior World championships, a good junior ice dance couple will be very lucky to make the top20. And while clearly Joasia and Janek are going to be fighting for spots rather low in the European ranking, they're definitely not going to be last or look out of place.
Anyway, here's one of the pictures that my lovely friends insisted on taking at the end of the day. This one was taken by Bożenka :)
Incidently, the ice behind us will be used for the European Championships very soon, so I'll have even further opportunity to try and convince you that I am not as lonely as I seem ;)
But now I actually *will* post a bit about the skating (only about what I thought was most exciting - "exciting" being a word that many will find inappropriate in Polish figure skating context, but that's their problem ;-P ).
This part of Edwin's program cracks me up, but I just loved it. Very original way of hiding a bad landing - it makes you wonder how much of it was planned and how much of it wasn't:
You can see the complete performance here and it was a fantastic effort :) It was the 2nd best free program of the event (although overall he was 3rd). The junior men's competition was won by Maciej Cieplucha who turned in an amazing performance. It's not that I've never seen him skate like this, it's just that he's never (to my knowledge) done it when it was so important to do it (last year he started his season off like that and everyone thought he was a very strong favourite for the Polish junior Worlds representation and yet at both Polish Nationals and a special test skate he came second to Mateusz Chruscinski). He had already lost to Mateusz at senior Nationals this season, but here he really outclassed everybody and is finally going to make his debut at the Junior World Championships in March, go Maciek! *grin* And here's the performance that earned it:
Finally (but perhaps most importantly as they will represent Poland at the upcoming European Championships in Warsaw!) Joanna Budner and Jan Mościcki put in some rather nervous looking performances and yet I'm still kind of impressed with them. Originally, Aleksandra Kauc / Michal Zych were pretty much the only ice dancers who were being considered for Europeans, but they very unexpectedely split up in October (you'll find a little bit about that in one of my previous posts). This left Poland with no ice dancers in senior competition! So suddenly mid-season Joasia and Janek (who are Poland's strongest junior eligible skaters at current) started working towards making the required changes to their junior programs (amount of elements, length of program, different compulsary dances) to be able to skate in senior competition. Finally in November they performed as seniors for the first ever time at a very small event in the Czech Republic. Then to make things even more hectic Janek had an ankle injury in December. For this reason they were not able to attend Polish Senior Nationals (but since they would have been the only competitors they were allowed to skate their senior programs at junior Nationals). After all this, this is what they managed to produce at their second ever competition as seniors (this is the Original Dance):
Loads of small mistakes on the required elements (but then ever since the new judging system this tends to happen to ice dancers a lot more), but I'm still rather impressed. Ice dance is the discipline where the difference between junior and senior is the biggest. A good junior single skater can make the top10 at senior World championships, a good junior ice dance couple will be very lucky to make the top20. And while clearly Joasia and Janek are going to be fighting for spots rather low in the European ranking, they're definitely not going to be last or look out of place.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Polish National Figure Skating Championships 2007 (Senior and Novice)
My more detailed skating impressions are in Polish on the walley forum where they belong. This is just a random post which pretends to be about skating, but is actually a very bad attempt at proving that I do have something that you might call a social life and that isn't confined to the internet (something that everyone including me seem to notoriously doubt). Just to keep up appearances though, here are the results of this event.
Anyway, back to my social life - here is the proof I have for its existance:
See, I am sitting with as many as four people (and a fifth is taking the picture), don't you think that's impressive? ;)
Ok, ok - I know I've not convinced anyone ;-P I am a sad, lonely person who doesn't have a social life and nobody likes me, so I keep writing a blog instead ;-P
I do however have a peculiar passion for watching figure skating and it can get so extreme that I go to watch skating events that no more than 5 other people (who aren't skaters, coaches, skating officials or families of a skater) want to watch and then I torment innocent people by putting up video clips of these performances on-line.
If you think you're up for the challenge, here are two clips from Nats (do you like my camerawork? ;-P). I uploaded them to google because youtube doesn't like me (either me or my firewall). There will be more vids on the walley forum, but this is all I'm putting on my blog from this event.
This is Ania Jurkiewicz who has made a comeback this season. She was once 5th at junior Worlds, but has not competed for the last 4 years or so. Me and the 4 people you can see on the photo above tried to remember when was the last time that a lady in Poland landed a triple flip at Polish Nationals and we had to go back to about 1999 or 2000... Therefore please enjoy the first triple flip performed by a lady at Polish Nats in the last 7 years or so ;-P (and the program is pretty good too, she won the senior ladies by a mile)
And this is the short program of Przemek Domański. I'm a huge fan of his. And while probably a major reason for my fandom is that he likes to tell us about how he keeps wiping his nose on his trousers during sit spins and what happens during a jump if he doesn't find a moment in the performance where he can wipe it (which apparently was particularly problematic at these Nats because the rink was very cold), he is also a very ambitious skater and I think this season he's skating at a truly international level. Proof of that is that he was not satisfied with this short program which he said was his worst this season (he had meant to start with a triple-triple combination, not a triple-double). He still won both parts of the senior men competition and ended up with a 20 point margin over everyone else.
So after having failed to convince anyone that I have a social life or that Polish skating is interesting (which it really is to me although sometimes even I'm surprised by this), I convey my Christmas wishes to all who are reading my blog :) I hope the one or two people reading it spend it very enjoyably!
NOTE (29.XII.2006): I would like to give credit for the wonderful photo I used to Magda :D (see the comments to this post). I have also been instructed to say that she is not in fact a blackmailer contrary to what I've written about her in the comments (but I'm not sure if you're better off believing her or me about it ;-P)
Anyway, back to my social life - here is the proof I have for its existance:
See, I am sitting with as many as four people (and a fifth is taking the picture), don't you think that's impressive? ;)
Ok, ok - I know I've not convinced anyone ;-P I am a sad, lonely person who doesn't have a social life and nobody likes me, so I keep writing a blog instead ;-P
I do however have a peculiar passion for watching figure skating and it can get so extreme that I go to watch skating events that no more than 5 other people (who aren't skaters, coaches, skating officials or families of a skater) want to watch and then I torment innocent people by putting up video clips of these performances on-line.
If you think you're up for the challenge, here are two clips from Nats (do you like my camerawork? ;-P). I uploaded them to google because youtube doesn't like me (either me or my firewall). There will be more vids on the walley forum, but this is all I'm putting on my blog from this event.
This is Ania Jurkiewicz who has made a comeback this season. She was once 5th at junior Worlds, but has not competed for the last 4 years or so. Me and the 4 people you can see on the photo above tried to remember when was the last time that a lady in Poland landed a triple flip at Polish Nationals and we had to go back to about 1999 or 2000... Therefore please enjoy the first triple flip performed by a lady at Polish Nats in the last 7 years or so ;-P (and the program is pretty good too, she won the senior ladies by a mile)
And this is the short program of Przemek Domański. I'm a huge fan of his. And while probably a major reason for my fandom is that he likes to tell us about how he keeps wiping his nose on his trousers during sit spins and what happens during a jump if he doesn't find a moment in the performance where he can wipe it (which apparently was particularly problematic at these Nats because the rink was very cold), he is also a very ambitious skater and I think this season he's skating at a truly international level. Proof of that is that he was not satisfied with this short program which he said was his worst this season (he had meant to start with a triple-triple combination, not a triple-double). He still won both parts of the senior men competition and ended up with a 20 point margin over everyone else.
So after having failed to convince anyone that I have a social life or that Polish skating is interesting (which it really is to me although sometimes even I'm surprised by this), I convey my Christmas wishes to all who are reading my blog :) I hope the one or two people reading it spend it very enjoyably!
NOTE (29.XII.2006): I would like to give credit for the wonderful photo I used to Magda :D (see the comments to this post). I have also been instructed to say that she is not in fact a blackmailer contrary to what I've written about her in the comments (but I'm not sure if you're better off believing her or me about it ;-P)
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Polish Winter Sports funding
On page 12 of this pdf file there is an article (sorry, it's in Polish again) about recent happenings in Polish winter sports. Olympic level competitors are quitting because they're not getting the funding they need. The funding goes to young (junior level and below competitors), but hardly any money is spent on those who are on the highest level of competition (even Jagna Marczułajtis who was 4th at the Olympics in Salt Lake City has been forced to lose at least one season because she is not getting the financial support she needs).
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Ice Dance is back in style :D
The Senior Grand Prix in Figure Skating has just started this past weekend and the good news is that it looks very much as if I'm going to start enjoying ice dance again :D It used to be my favourite discipline some years back, but the last 3-4 years (partly because of the introduction of the new juding system and partly because many of the biggest personalities retired) it's become too focused on the technical elements and not enough on originality.
Unfortunately, we still have very much the same kind of positions on lifts and spins being repeated by everyone so that they can get the levels of difficulty on the elements (and therefore points) that they want, but originality and polish (rather than stumbling through things just to get the highest possible level) seems to be coming back to ice dance, wheee :D
And perhaps for the first time since about 2003 or so, I have a program in ice dance that I absolutely love :) And here it is, Albena Denkova/Maxim Staviyski from Bulgaria (the current World Champions and first ever skaters from Bulgaria to ever medal at the World Championships) in their Original Dance (this season the prescribed rhythm is the tango) at Skate America 2006:
And what I love is not just the program itself, but I think also technically it's a really beautiful performance - especially considering how early in the season it is (usually at this point in the season all the ice dancers are looking very messy cause they still have 3 months to the European Championships and 5 months to the World Championships).
The Straight Line step sequence at the start of the routine is in beautiful unison (maybe apart from that Maxim covers a little bit more ice on the first twizzle, but I think that's the only part where you can actually fault it) and the one foot skating in it is fantastic - even after the twizzles, they look as if they could spend all day long without putting the other foot down (usually you see everybody putting their free foot down as soon as they finish a difficult step).
I love the first lift as well - even though all the couples seem to be performing a change of position into low balance kind of lift this season, I think this one if very original (and porny ;-P ).
The Diagnal Step Sequence again I think is great - most of the couples seem to be doing rather slow step sequences nowadays with all the requirements for what kind of steps one has to include to get a higher level, but theirs is at full speed and they've got a great one foot section in it as well.
I love the preciseness of the whole performance. They skate close to each other, use very complicated holds and hold changes and whenever they do a difficult step with a hold change it seems they end up in exactly the spot where the partner is expecting them to - they don't even have to look at the other person or adjust the position of their arm to be able to take hold of the other partner, it's great! :D
I'm really impressed with them - they weren't exactly convincing winners of the World Championships last season, only third in the Free Dance and the competition was very, very close (so whoever would have won wouldn't have been a particularly convincing winner I think ;-P ), but they really *do* look like World Champions now (usually whenever the expectations have been put on them, they've skated nervously). I hope they keep it up for the rest of the season!
Unfortunately, we still have very much the same kind of positions on lifts and spins being repeated by everyone so that they can get the levels of difficulty on the elements (and therefore points) that they want, but originality and polish (rather than stumbling through things just to get the highest possible level) seems to be coming back to ice dance, wheee :D
And perhaps for the first time since about 2003 or so, I have a program in ice dance that I absolutely love :) And here it is, Albena Denkova/Maxim Staviyski from Bulgaria (the current World Champions and first ever skaters from Bulgaria to ever medal at the World Championships) in their Original Dance (this season the prescribed rhythm is the tango) at Skate America 2006:
And what I love is not just the program itself, but I think also technically it's a really beautiful performance - especially considering how early in the season it is (usually at this point in the season all the ice dancers are looking very messy cause they still have 3 months to the European Championships and 5 months to the World Championships).
The Straight Line step sequence at the start of the routine is in beautiful unison (maybe apart from that Maxim covers a little bit more ice on the first twizzle, but I think that's the only part where you can actually fault it) and the one foot skating in it is fantastic - even after the twizzles, they look as if they could spend all day long without putting the other foot down (usually you see everybody putting their free foot down as soon as they finish a difficult step).
I love the first lift as well - even though all the couples seem to be performing a change of position into low balance kind of lift this season, I think this one if very original (and porny ;-P ).
The Diagnal Step Sequence again I think is great - most of the couples seem to be doing rather slow step sequences nowadays with all the requirements for what kind of steps one has to include to get a higher level, but theirs is at full speed and they've got a great one foot section in it as well.
I love the preciseness of the whole performance. They skate close to each other, use very complicated holds and hold changes and whenever they do a difficult step with a hold change it seems they end up in exactly the spot where the partner is expecting them to - they don't even have to look at the other person or adjust the position of their arm to be able to take hold of the other partner, it's great! :D
I'm really impressed with them - they weren't exactly convincing winners of the World Championships last season, only third in the Free Dance and the competition was very, very close (so whoever would have won wouldn't have been a particularly convincing winner I think ;-P ), but they really *do* look like World Champions now (usually whenever the expectations have been put on them, they've skated nervously). I hope they keep it up for the rest of the season!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Brokeback Skaters
LOL @ this video. It must be the gayest skating routine I've ever seen :D And these are all really well known skaters! I can't quite make out all the faces (there are 6 guys there), but I can definitely see John Zimmerman, Alexei Yagudin and according to the comments under this video on youtube the rest of them are Kurt Browning, Todd Sand, David Pelletier and Ilya Kulik. Apparently this was skated in 2003 long before the movie was made.
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