(5 March 2020) The Rhythm Dance of the 29 couples at the Junior World Championships in Tallinn had a very high level. Especially technically many couples performed a flawless program with excellent presentation for junior level.

Elizaveta Shanaeva & Devid Naryzhnyy from the ice dance school of Irina Zhuk and Alexander Svinin in Moscow took a close lead with 70.03 points. The Russians danced to a Foxtrot from “Bonnie and Clyde“ by Frank Wildhorn. In their two Teatime Foxtrot Sequences, they met all eight key points and they had GOEs of mainly +2. The Twizzle Sequence and the Rotational Lift also had a level 4 and mainly GOEs of +3, the Midline Step Sequence a level 3 and also mainly GOEs of +3. They danced in a sovereign way, in high speed, but nevertheless clean steps. Their components had an average of 7.9.

Shanaeva commented: ”We are very pleased with our performance today and with the progress we've made since the previous competitions. In this season, our coaches suggested us to skate to Bonnie and Clyde. We really liked that music and we were very excited about it from the very beginning. In the first part, I am inviting him to dance and tell him the story how cool it would be to conquer this world. In the second part, he agrees with me and we conquer this world together.”

Maria Kazakova & Georgi Reviya from Georgia are currently second, winning 69.98 points. Skating to ”Take Good Care of my Baby” from “Beautiful the Carole King” and “Dream a Little Dream”, they won six of the eight key points in the Tea Time Foxtrot Sequences, performed an excellent Twizzle Sequence, a good Stationary Lift and a very good Midline Step Sequence. Their components were around 8.0. Reviya said: ”Today, we tried to turn in a good, a strong, clean, powerful performance. We tried to skate with emotion and to squeeze out everything possible from each single step, and maybe as it seems to me today the emotions took the upper hand a bit and therefore something did not work out. The choice of music was very easy for us, the music was switched on for us and we liked that song. There are really nice lyrics and we thought that they really suit us well. Masha is the "baby" and I am the guy who wants her to like him and is jumping around her. The second part, "Dream a little Dream", it's our dream. We felt that this music will connect very well with us and that it how it worked out.”

Avonly Nguyen & Vadim Kolesnik of Novi, Michigan are on third position with 68.27 points. The students of Igor Shpilband and Pasquale Camerlengo, who had three couples in Tallinn, opened their program to the soundtrack of ”Aladdin” with an excellent Midline Step Sequence, followed by the Teatime Foxtrot Sequences, meeting six key points, a very good Rotational Lift and a Twizzle Sequence in which she slipped a tiny little bit. Their components were around 8.0.

“To be honest, we are a little bit disappointed”, Nguyen said, ”because we left a few points on the table. We wanted to put on a really entertaining show, because the theme is Broadway this year and we really enjoy performing this program this season.” Kolesnik added: ”I don't know if anyone watched the new movie Aladdin. I personally love this movie. When I watched it, I knew that should be our program, but we already decided a long time ago, because when I heard it has to be entertaining, it has to be a musical, I knew it should be Aladdin from the beginning. When I was a kid, I was watching the cartoon and I just loved it. I just wanted to perform to it once in my life.”

The second Russian couple of Arina Ushakova & Maxim Nekrasov is on fourth position with 66.97 points. They met only four key points, but had the highest components of all couples, with an average of 8.1. Russians Diana Davis, who is the daughter of single skating star coach Eteri Tutberidze, and her partner Gleb Smolkin are fifth with 66.53 points and components of around 7.6. The French team of Loicia Demougeot & Theo Le Mercier are on sixth place, earning 64.88 points after getting only level 1 for the midline step sequence.

The second U.S. couple of Novi, Katarina Wolfkostin & Jeffrey Chen is currently on seventh place with 64.77 points. They met all eight key points, had excellent other levels, but their GOEs were mainly +2 and the components around 6.9. The third American couple Oona Brown & Gage Brown of Dix Hills, New York, placed 11^th with 59.50 points. They met four key points, but had otherwise very good levels. Their components had an average of 6.8. The three Canadian couples were eighth, ninth and tenth, Emmy Bronsard & Aissa Bouaraguia of the Ice Academy of Montreal being the best of them.