2011 Pairs Event

by Alexandra Stevenson

Germans come from behind to recapture world title;
Chinese champions and Olympic silver medalists drop from first after the SP to third; may or may not continue;
New Russian partnership wins silver with teammates fourth and fifth;
Americans sixth and eleventh;
Canadian breaks nose of partner;

1.Overall 217.85; SP 2. 72.98 (39.12+33.86); FS 1. 144.87 (72.94+71.93) Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy, the seven-time German champions, broke the record overall score of 216.57 set by Olympic champions Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhao of China when they won gold in the 2010 Olympic Games. They did so by 1.28, coming from behind, to regain the world title they held in 2008 & 2009 but lost in 2010. Savchenko was clearly ecstatic. She said, "This is an amazing new Season’s Best. It was a very special atmosphere in the arena."

In the SP, the day before the Free, the Germans skated 19^th of the 22 pairs from 15 countries, immediately following the Chinese. Savchenko & Skolkowy presented a lively Short Program to the Russian folk music Korobushko performed by Bond. It was awarded 1.02 marks less (0.97 lower on the elements and 0.05 lower for components) than the leaders of this section, Qing Pang & Jian Tong, the 2010 Olympic silver medalists and 2006 & 2010 world champions.

The Germans’ SP opening move, a soaring throw triple flip, gained three of the maximum +3 Grades of Execution. Four judges punched in +2 but two judges looked down their noses and determined it worthy of only +1. The discrepancy in opinion between the nine judges continued to their second element, a huge throw triple flip that was awarded Level 2 by the Technical Panel which included Australian/American Peter Cain. The judges gave six +2s and one +1, but also two -1s, which meant that duo of officials saw something actually wrong with the move.

There was mutual agreement that Savchenko and Szolkowy’s solid triple toe solo jumps were worthy of +1 or +2. Their Level 4 Axel lift gained three +3s, five +2s and one +1. Their Level 4 back inside death spiral got a solitary +3 which stuck out. By the end of this move, they were straining and moving quite slowly. One judge gave +2 but six judges presented +1 and the remaining official punched in zero, which is for a merely adequately performed move. Their straight line steps were Level 3 and the final flying camel combo spin Level 4.

When their total marks flashed up, the Germans knew immediately that they were not in the lead. Szolkowy said, "Compared to the rest of the season, this was another good program. It has been hard to keep the motivation up with the uncertainty of these last few weeks." Savchenko, who looked really very disappointed, is originally from the Ukraine. Her parents were in the audience here, which has been a rare occurrence. Her father is a former weight lifter who was instrumental in getting his only daughter (he also has three sons) into figure skating.

In the Free, they skated first of the final four, immediately after their warm-up and prior to the Chinese. She said, "It was quite good for us to skate first and the starting number 13 seems to be a lucky number for us." Right from the start, when she kept darted out from behind him and he mimed his frustrating inability to find her, they demonstrated they were taking a pair skating routine into a new realm of story telling. They didn’t put a finger wrong, flying through jumps – two triple toes in a sequence and later synchronized double Axels; throws – triple flip to begin with and triple Salchow to conclude the four minutes forty seconds; lifts – all three gaining the maximum Level 4 as did their solo spins and the pair spin. It was a delight to watch and will surely become a classic on the internet. They set themselves up to get and did get a record score for this section and overall.

memories of Moscow. We competed here in our first Worlds in 2005. We believed in this Pink Panther program. We were sure about it from the very beginning. As for Sochi, we’ll take it year by year." Szolkowy said, "It was a perfect skate at the end of this long season."

2.Overall 210.75; SP 3. 70.35 (37.43+32.92); FS 2. 140.38 (70.14+70.24) Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov are a fresh pairing who won the Russian championship less than a year after they teamed up. Although they are new together, they are both extremely experienced. Their last event with their previous partners was the Olympics in Vancouver where he was eighth and she seventh. She is a four-time Ukrainian champion. The 24-year-old and her former partner, Stanislav Morozov, competed in five world championships with a top place of 4^th in 2007. (Earlier, Morozov won the world junior championship with Aliona Savchenko. They broke up when he was injured. Savchenko then went to Germany.) Trankov, 27, partnered Maria Murkhortova. They were Russian champions in 2007, silver medalists in the 2008 European championships and 2005 World Junior champions in 2005.

After deciding to skate together, they did not compete in last year’s world championships in order to fulfill the ISU "sit-out" regulations. Skaters changing countries, as Volosozhar was, cannot compete in an ISU international for their new country for a year. The Olympics, of course, were over a year ago. Volosozhar said, "We are pleasantly surprised with this result since we have skated together for such a short time. I was only cleared to compete for Russia last month. We just wanted to show our best performance and that's what we did."

Trankov said, "For us, it is already amazing that we are Russian Champions. We tried not to think about winning. We just work hard and we’ve been feeling better every day. We try to skate for each other (they are a couple off the ice) and I think that works for us. Of course, if we didn't have any hopes for a medal in the next Olympics, we wouldn't have created this pair. That is what it is all about. We made this change because we have aspirations for Sochi."

3. Overall 204.12; SP 1. 74.00 (40.09+33.91); FS 3. 130.12 (61.71+68.41) Qing Pang & Jian Tong, China After winning the Four Continents championships in Chinese Taipei in February, Pang & Tong, who are both 31, revealed they were planning to marry this summer and were thinking of retiring because, as he revealed after winning the Four Continents championship in February, "We are getting older and every year I feel my legs. I have to practice longer and longer to get the same standard."

But they are now saying that, maybe, they will continue to compete. The defending world champions, who also earned the title in 2006, are silver medalists from the Vancouver Olympics. They were superb in the SP presenting a mesmerizing performance to Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Their throw triple loop received five +3 GoEs. The rest of the panel gave +2.

Pang said, "It went really well today, with all the elements well done. Today's performance gives us confidence for the free skating tomorrow. We are just happy that this competition is taking place and that we were able to achieve a season’s best score. Hopefully, tomorrow we can skate a strong program and can land all our jumps."

Their Free, set to Liszt’s Liebestraum, had a problem right away when he singled the first jump in their opening sequence of two planned double Axels, and then doubled his triple toe loop in their third element. That cast a shadow over the rest of the routine although the other ten elements all gained positive GoEs of from +0.50 for their Level 2 back outside death spiral up to +1.90 for their first throw, a triple Salchow. Their score was still a Season’s Best for them. She admitted, "We were a little nervous today and it is a pity we didn't skate as well as we could have, but we will try harder next time."

4. Overall 187.36; SP 5. 62.54 (31.83+31.71 -1); FS 4. 124.82 (61.38+64.46 -1) Yuko Kavaguti & Alexander Smirnov, Russia, the 2009 & 2010 World bronze medalists, who were fourth in the Olympics and lost their European title this season to the Germans, skated their SP, set to Richard Strauss’ Thus Sprake Zarathustra, last of the 22 pairs. He fell in their Straight Line Step Sequence. Smirnov explained, "I got carried away by the emotions in the program and I forgot to focus on my feet so it was my fault. We were at our peak at the time for Worlds in Tokyo. After the tragedy, our coach tuned down the training a bit but then stepped it up again. Tomorrow we’ll fight."

They won the Russian championship three times, 2008-2010 but were dethroned this season. In their Free, set to Debussy’s Claire de Lune, Kavaguti, 29, fell on their throw triple loop, but were able to overtake their teammates and finish fourth by a minuscule 0.23 points. Smirnov said, "We skated good, beautiful and gently. It was hard to concentrate for this performance, but Yuko told me, ‘Let’s skate for us, our coach and the audience,’ and so we did. I think we made what we wanted. We gave everybody this feeling of warmth. One element didn’t come out, but we still have time until Sochi. Our coach, Tamara Nikolaevna (Moskvina, who won the pairs silver in Worlds in Colorado Springs in 1969), has some plans for new programs but we don’t know about them yet."

Kavaguti is one persistent lady! Over a decade ago, she traveled from Japan to New Jersey and turned up at the rink in New Jersey where Moskvina was teaching unannounced. She shadowed Moskvina continually asking for her help in finding a partner. Moskvina teamed her up with a Russian, Alexander Markuntsov, and they represented Japan three world championships 2001-3.

Kavaguchi had subsequent partners but eventually gave up her Japanese citizenship (that country does not allow their citizens to hold more than one passport). She even had to accept a revised Anglicized spelling of her last name in order to represent Russia in the Olympics. By then Moskvina had moved back to her native St. Petersburg.

5. Overall 187.13; SP 4. 64.64 (36.10+28.54); FS 5. 122.49 (62.29+61.20 -1) Vera Bazarova, &Yuri Larionov, Russia, finished only 0.23 behind their teammates. Skating their SP to Secret Garden’s Adagio, they got a -0.40 off the base value for their triple toe loops but the rest of the elements had good GoEs. Then in their FS, set to The Man in the Iron Mask, Larionov fell on this jump. The 24 year old shrugged, saying "I don't know what happened." Bazarova, 18, said, "It is disappointing to end our season like that, not on the highest point. We will not relax and will be going on. We are already getting ready for the next season. We will start working on new programs and breaking in new boots, but now we need to relax."

6. Overall 175.94; SP 8. 58.76 (32.93+26.83 -1); FS 6. 117.18 (59.75+57.43) Caitlin Yankowskas & John Coughlin, the new national champions, gained the highest place for a US pair since Rena Inoue & John Baldwin were fourth in 2006. They skated their SP to Astor Piazzola’s Oblivion 20^th. All went well with their triple twist, which gained a full point over the base value, and their throw triple Salchow, which earned an extra +0.90. However, he fell after their triple toes.

The 25-year-old explained, "Our goal all season is to get as many ‘plus’ elements as possible. We had the one negative GOE on the (triple) toes and, unfortunately, I kind of was faked out trying to get synced back up afterward and tripped. I’m the captain of my team so that’s on me. Live and learn. The rest of the program was solid. I thought we did a nice lift considering both of my hands were wet and we were off timing. I hate to say learning experience, but we are sitting in a pretty good spot for our first worlds.

Overall, it was a positive experience for us. We did some good things. (They skated 20^th, immediately following the pairs who took the top two spots in this SP section.) It was a tough crowd following some awesome performances so, to get this position, I feel like we belong."

Yankowskas, 20, added, "I felt really good out there considering that this is Worlds. We trained really hard and the program felt easy and the ice feels good. We just had a few mistakes. (She stepped out of her triple toe.) But I don’t think it’s going to hinder our confidence going into the Free. I’m looking forward to getting back out there and performing again."

They drew to skate their FS, choreographed to Schubert’s Ave Maria, 12^th and performed it almost flawlessly. The only misstep was Yankowskas putting a hand momentarily on the ice on the throw triple Salchow Their only mistake was Yankowkas brief hand down on the landing of the throw triple Salchow. Coughlin said, "The long, today, was everything we were hoping it would be. It’s kind of a farewell to this very emotional piece and a farewell to this chapter for us. Your first national title is something you will never experience again and we wanted to savor this and (give the number a final outing). I’ll be grateful to everyone forever for this program."

Yankowskas said, "I knew it was going to be good because we were both really serene and calm before we took the ice. I just looked at him and got chills, and thought, ‘Oh, man! We’re not alone.’ I had the utmost confidence going into this program and we didn’t second guess one thing. We were really into each other and it’s so awesome to skate that way and not be worried about anything." After they finished, he knelt down to kiss the ice. He explained, "This program is dedicated to the memory of my mother, who passed last year."

7. 173.03; SP 7. 58.83 (34.77+24.06); FS 7. 114.20 (61.52+52.68) Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford are Canada’s second ranked pair, competing in their first season together. Dramatic photographs of her left elbow smashing his nose during their triple twist in their SP made newspapers all over the world! An astonished Duhamel, who finished sixth and eighth in the 2008 and 2009 Worlds with previous partner, Craig Buntin, said, "They showed it on Russian television and it was even on the page of a paper in Australia!"

"When we went into the lasso lift, I said, ‘Let’s stop.’ But he just kept going. I’m SO proud of him for finishing the program." Radford, who is 26, said, "I was shocked when I saw the photographs of impact squish. I was very shocked when it happed and it hurt a lot. You can see from footage of my face that when I was going into the Lutz, I was blank, not seeing anything because of the tears. But I just kind of magically did it.

"I never considered stopping, even when Meagan mentioned it after the lift. But I could see, I could breathe. I wasn’t dying. I was determined to just keep going. I thought, ‘I’ll deal with the problem after we’re finished." Duhamel said she felt herself whack Radford, then only had to look at him to realize he was in rough shape.

8. Overall 163.17; 10.SP 56.86 (31.33+25.53); 8.FS 106.31; Kirsten Moore‐Towers & Dylan Moscovitch, the 2011 Canadian champions, only teamed up in 2009 although both had skated pairs before. The 26-year-old Moscovitch should have been right at home, here in Moscow. His name means "Son of Moscow". But no! "My heritage is actually Roumanian," he says with a laugh. Earlier in the season, they had earned silver medals in both Skate Canada, where they were a last minute replacement, and the Skate America Grand Prix. They were sixth in the Final.

But, after posting a personal-best score to claim the Canadian title in Victoria, B.C. in January, he and the 18-year-old Kirsten (who is called KMT), finished behind two of the pairs they had beaten in nationals, in the Four Continents Championships in February. Jet lag played a part in that setback. In Moscow, they were three places but less than two points behind their teammates after the SP, which they performed to Zorba, the Greek.

He said, "Of course, we were a little disappointed. Our scores were a little higher throughout the season, and that was probably our highest performance in terms of how well we skated it. We didn’t get the marks we were looking for." They were able to pull up two places with their Les Miserable FS, from tenth to eighth overall, but the gap between them and Duhamel & Radford stretched to nearly ten points.

9. Overall 160.10; SP 6. 59.16 (33.57+25.59) FS 10. 100.94 (50.09+52.85 -2) Narumi Takahashi & Mervin Tran, who live and train in Canada but represent Narumi’s birth country, Japan, are the 2010 World Junior silver and current World Junior bronze medalists, making their Senior World debut. Their SP, set to Michael Buble’s Feeling Good, put them in an excellent place, sixth. Tran, 19, said, "I’m satisfied with this performance. It was the best we could have done. We achieved a Season’s Best but we thought we could break 60 points, so we were a little disappointed with the score."

10. Overall 157.15; SP 9. 57.63 (32.46+25.17); FS 11. 99.52 (52.60+46.92) Stefania Berton, 20, & Ondrej Hotarek, 27, from Italy, were 11^th in their debut in this event last year. They performed their SP to Piazzolla’s Invierno Porteno and their FS to Nino Rota’s Romeo & Juliet. After the Free, he said, "We did our best, that’s why I’m happy." But she wasn’t. "I doubled my Salchow. This is a rare thing to happen – maybe once in 15 times so I am disappointed."

11. Overall 155.91; SP 11. 54.64 (30.99+24.65 -1.0); FS 9. 101.27 (53.84+49.43 -2) Amanda Evora & Mark Ladwig, the twice US silver medalists, who skated their SP to the lively Sing Sing Sing 12^th of the 22 pairs, were disappointed. The 30-year old Ladwig explained, "We had some excellent levels. Our spin and lift were Level 4. I’m not sure, but I must have been short on (the revolutions for) the back inside death spiral because we didn’t quite get the full count (only Level 1). There was a slight touch on the (triple twist) and we only got level 1, but it was very well executed. In terms of the jumps (side-by-side triple toes, on which Evora fell), when we got here at the beginning of the week, I was falling, too." Evora, 26, added, "I’m disappointed in my personal goals. However, we do have a program tomorrow so we are lucky to try to reach out goals again."

Ladwig was kicking himself after their FS, which they performed seventh to Puccini’s Nessun Dorma. Their triple twist was Level 2 (no one got higher) with a slight positive (+0.10). But, on their side-by-side triple toes, he readily admitted, "I totally botched the takeoff (and fell). I put my toe in and thought I had it (the takeoff). Then I squeezed and the next thing I know, I’m going forward which is never a good thing. (Almost all jumps are landed on a back outside edge.)"

Then, on their third move, the throw triple Lutz, Evora fell. However, she immediately sprung back and their next move, a change foot combination spin earned the maximum Level 4 as did their pair spin and their three spectacular lifts. Her landing on their second throw, a triple loop, was clean, and their back outside death spiral earned Level 3. Their only other mistake was on their jump combination, double Axel to half loop to double Salchow in which the Axel was downgraded.

Evora explained, "It was harder to get through worlds a second time. The first time, we had not competed against the field and there were less expectations. This time, we were kind of expected to do well. We have to learn how to deal with that stress every time we are out there. Yesterday, I felt like Mark was the rock (of reliability) and I felt like today, I had to be somewhat of a rock. I know the program score doesn’t show it but I did accomplish some of my personal goals and I am actually very happy about that. I felt much better tonight than yesterday. "

Ladwig said he enjoys coming to Moscow. "They have best Borscht in the world. The people have always been friendly here. It’s been fun." Overall, they were a good distance, 6.26, over the Germans, Maylin Hausch & Daniel Wende, who were 12^th in both sections and overall. However, it was frustration to realize they needed only 1.15 more points to have finished in the top ten.

Return to title page