By Maggie Doyle
The Crest Whitestrips International Figure Skating Challenge, held in Auburn Hills,
Michigan on Friday, December 13, gave skating fans all the top international skaters in
one event. All the singles 2002 Olympic medalists took part except Michelle Kwan in this
head-to-head competition that consisted of one ISU freeskate per competitor. The marks of
the five judges all counted and their identities were known and associated with their
marks. Since Sarah Hughes and Timothy Goebel missed this year's ISU Grand Prix circuit due
to injuries, this gave the chance to get this program out before the judges prior to the
2003 U.S. nationals in January.
The men's field contained six competitors with Takeshi Honda of Japan opening the competition. He landed six triples in his program to "The Mummy" despite back problems. He missed his two quad attempts but landed his triple Axel, finishing fourth.
USA's Matt Savoie skated to his Ragtime musical freeskating program. He has improved to skating with more expression with this program this season. He did not try his quad here -- he wimped out and put in a another triple Axel when his first one was doubled. Now he still has the quad monkey on his back for nationals, which will be a higher-pressure event for him. With finishing last here, he would have been better served by getting a quad attempt under his belt in Auburn Hills. He did land seven triples and should have been placed over Yagudin who scaled down his program considerably.
The USA's Michael Weiss, coming off his Trophee Lalique victory, was trying the tough jumps here in his Malaguena" and "Concerto to de Aranjuez" freeskating program. He two-footed his quad Lutz but successfully landed a quad toe- triple toe combination with just the imperfection of an extra turn on the second jump's landing. He then included a triple Axel-triple toe combination and three more triples. His six triples plus a quad put him in second place.
The injured Alexei Yagudin of Russia said he was here for the money he could make in this event but his jump content was greatly reduced to five triples in the second of his three December competitions (He skated in the Canadian Open and Hallmark Championships, too.) He completed a triple flip, triple toe-double toe combination but tried no quad jumps for fifth place. "At least I wasn't sixth," he said.
Timothy Goebel of the USA used this chance to get his Spanish freeskating program to music by Albeniz and Turina before international judges. He landed seven triples and a quad Salchow but missed his quad toe loop, finishing in third place. He was not helped by his presentation scores although he is showing more improvement in that area. He says he is recovered from the hip injury that kept him out of this year's grand prix series.
Evgeny Plushenko of Russia was the final competitor and skated his tribute program to St. Petersburg. This program had much less of the superfluous gestures and complimented his skating well. He tried for the second time in competition his combination of quad toe loop - triple toe loop - triple loop, with just a slight problem with the landing of the triple loop. He followed that with another quad toe and a gigantic triple Axel, completing seven triples and two quads to win easily here.
In the ladies event, the Zamboni provided additional challenges after eating a large hole in the ice with its wheel. The five ladies in this event had cones on the warm up at one end of the rink for warm-up and competition. They could have removed the cones to compete but none opted for that although several skaters were bothered by the cones when jumping in that rink area by kiss and cry.
America's Jennifer Kirk opened the ladies event and introduced her new freeskating program that replaced her Abba medley program for the rest of this season. She now skates to Strauss' "Die Fiedermous" and her only error was a popped Lutz near the orange cones. She landed five triples and her increased jump height and speed is evident since her coaching change to Richard Callaghan this season but she still finished fifth despite landing more triples than the third and fourth place finishers.
Ann Patrice McDonough of the USA started out strong with a triple Lutz -double toe combination but then began doubling several of her jumps. She completed four triples and placed fourth with her "Madame Butterfly" program. Her costume was ornate but lovely and created by her mother.
Russia's Irina Slutskaya skated to music from Verdi's opera, "LaTraviota" but her garish green and purple costume was less attractive than others she would wear at her next event, the Hallmark championships. She complained of jet lag and only landed three triples in her freeskate but still finished third after opening the program with a double Lutz.
Sasha Cohen of the USA's strong performance was the highlight of this event. She landed seven triples and skated her complex footwork clean to win this competition and take every ordinal. Highlights included a triple toe-1/2 loop-triple Salchow combination and dramatic spirals in her Rachmaninoff's "Concerto # 2" freeskating program. Her star is shining bright this season and she could take it all in Dallas if she can keep up her momentum.
The USA's Sarah Hughes used this opportunity to get her "La Bayadere" balletic program by Minsk before the judges. She skated slower than last season and needs to regain the lightness her skating showed last season so that her skating is less plodding. She has recovered from the injury to muscles behind her right knee that kept her out of the grand prix series. She now needs to get herself ready for national level competition; hopefully she can. The competitive fire she has shown in the past was not in evidence here but she managed five triples as the final competitor and placed second.
| CHN | RUS | JPN | USA | CAN | CPts | ||
| 1 | Sasha Cohen USA | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| 2 | Sarah Hughes USA | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | Irina Slutskaya RUS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 4 | Ann Patrice McDonough USA | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 5 | Jennifer Kirk USA | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 |
| Viktoria Volchkova RUS Withdrawn | |||||||
1. Sasha Cohen USA
5.8 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.7
5.8 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8
11.6 11.6 11.5 11.5 11.5
1 1 1 1 1
2. Sarah Hughes USA
5.7 5.8 5.5 5.5 5.5
5.7 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7
11.4 11.6 11.3 11.2 11.2
2 2 2 2 2
3. Irina Slutskaya RUS
5.3 5.3 5.2 5.1 5.0
5.6 5.7 5.7 5.6 5.5
10.9 11.0 10.9 10.7 10.5
3 3 3 4 5
4. Ann Patrice McDonough USA
5.1 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.4
5.3 5.5 5.4 5.5 5.6
10.4 10.8 10.7 10.8 11.0
5 4 4 3 3
5. Jennifer Kirk USA
5.2 5.2 5.2 5.2 5.2
5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4
10.6 10.6 10.6 10.6 10.6
4 5 5 5 4
Referee Charles Foster ISU
Assistant Referee Jean Senft ISU (CAN)
Judge 1 Yibing Jiang CHN
Judge 2 Igor Dolgushin RUS
Judge 3 Hideo Sugita JPN
Judge 4 Brett Drury USA
Judge 5 Andrea Derby CAN
Substitute Samuel Auxier USA
| USA | JPN | RUS | CHN | CAN | CPts | ||
| 1 | Evgeny Plushenko RUS | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| 2 | Michael Weiss USA | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| 3 | Tim Goebel USA | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 4 | Takeshi Honda JPN | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | Alexei Yagudin RUS | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 |
| 6 | Matt Savoie USA | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
1. Evgeny Plushenko RUS
5.8 5.8 5.8 5.9 5.9
5.9 5.8 6.0 5.9 5.9
11.7 11.6 11.8 11.8 11.8
1 1 1 1 1
2. Michael Weiss USA
5.7 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.7
5.7 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.7
11.4 11.4 11.4 11.5 11.4
2 2 2 2 2
3. Tim Goebel USA
5.6 5.6 5.6 5.7 5.8
5.6 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.6
11.2 11.1 11.1 11.2 11.4
3 5 5 3 3
4. Takeshi Honda JPN
5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5
5.6 5.7 5.6 5.6 5.6
11.1 11.2 11.1 11.1 11.1
4 4 4 4 4
5. Alexei Yagudin RUS
5.2 5.3 5.3 5.2 5.1
5.8 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8
11.0 11.2 11.1 11.0 10.9
5 3 3 5 5
6. Matt Savoie USA
5.4 5.1 5.3 5.3 5.2
5.5 5.4 5.5 5.3 5.5
10.9 10.5 10.8 10.6 10.7
6 6 6 6 6
Referee Jean Senft ISU
Assistant Referee Charles Foster ISU
Judge 1 Samuel Auxier USA
Judge 2 Hideo Sugita JPN
Judge 3 Igor Dolgushin RUS
Judge 4 Yibing Jiang CHN
Judge 5 Andrea Derby CAN
Substitute Brett Drury USA