2006 U.S. Nationals

Junior Dance

by Martha Kimball

Compulsory Dance events are known for their cloyingly repetitive tape loops of the same several pieces of music.

"That’s what I thought, too," said the affable Charlie White. But "they took that one out of the vault."

White, 18, and partner Meryl Davis, 19, standing in their opening pose for the Austrian Waltz, were surprised to encounter a piece that they had never heard before. They swallowed their surprise and managed to start moving on time. The result was "not quite as good as we had been hoping," White admitted, but it was fine for a first-place finish.

White, who placed third in Novice Men and second in Junior Dance two seasons ago, sat out the 2005 Nationals with a broken ankle and was glad to be back in the thick of the action. He and Davis used the fallow interval to work on presentation, learning how better to create characters on the ice.

The duo from the Detroit SC, the current Junior Grand Prix Final silver medalists, skated superbly to the second Compulsory, the Paso Doble, and solidified their lead. In fact, all thirteen couples received higher scores on the second dance than for the first, with the top five maintaining their placements across the board.

Complimented on his remarkably ornate gold-and-black embroidered matador jacket, White volunteered that it belonged to former US ice dance champion Jerod Swallow, who may actually have inhabited the jacket during the dance.

"He just took over," joked White. "I don’t remember a thing."

Emily Samuelson, 15, and Evan Bates, 16, another longtime duo (of five and one-half years’ standing), who train in Ann Arbor, MI, took second place in the Compulsory Dance segment with 33.02 points to Davis & White’s 35.42.

A USFS official gave the entire Junior Dance field, assembled for the Original Dance draw, a little pep talk: "Really go for it tomorrow. Nothing is in stone yet." That sentiment reflected the new flexibility and possibility for movement that are inherent in the CoP scoring system. Asked if they are affected by the machinations involved in garnering maximum points, Samuelson and Bates revealed pragmatically, "The CoP? Coaches deal with it. We skate as well as we can. We do what we’re told."

The 2005 Novice champions assessed their move to Juniors as a good one, though they found the Austrian Waltz "more difficult than any compulsory we’ve ever done." They’ve worked with a ballroom teacher in interpreting the characters of various dances.

In third place after the Compulsory Dance phase with a point total of 32.03 were Jane Summersett and Elliot Pennington, both aged 18, who train in Marlborough, MA. The natives of L’Anse, MI, and Wayland, MA, were fifth in Junior Dance last year and hope to move up to the podium.

Pennington’s hip was injured last season, but it has healed. The current distraction is Achilles tendonitis. Pennington and Summersett try not to think about placements, but they agree that the current field is strong. Said Pennington, "It’s a real good (dance) field for nationals – both Junior and Novice."

Thirteen couples took the ice at The Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri for the Junior Original Dance competition of the 2006 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships, offering spectators a potpourri of spicy Latin rhythms.

Once again, heavy favorites Meryl Davis & Charlie White, who train in Canton, Michigan under Igor Shpilband and Marina Zoueva, were the class of the field, outpacing their nearest rivals by nearly seven points.

The couple showed superior speed, edges and difficulty throughout their routine to mambo, rumba and mambo rhythms, with fine unison and fast twizzles in their mid-line step sequence; attractive low sit-spin like positions and quick rotations in their spin; and a fast rotational lift with Davis in a modified Biellmann position.

"That was the best we’ve done all year. Everything – the spins, lifts and footwork -- worked today," said the 18 year-old White, who is also competing in the junior men’s event.

"We’ve been working a lot off and on the ice with a ballroom dance teacher, and it’s really helped us bring the character to the dance," added Davis, who turned 19 on New Year’s Day.

Davis & White, who took the silver medal behind Canada’s Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir at the Junior Grand Prix Final in Ostrava, The Czech Republic in December, earned 58.06 points for their OD and enter tomorrow’s free dance with 93.48 points. They now lead the field by more than nine points.

Emily Samuelson & Evan Bates, the 2005 U.S. Novice champs who were second after the compulsories, maintained their place with a fine routine to cha cha and rumba rhythms that earned 51.07 points.

The youngsters, just 15 and 16 years old, maintained the Latin flavor of the dances, with a fine mid-line step sequence showing good unison and well-done forward and backward twizzle sequences. They had a strong rotational lift with Samuelson in the ever-popular modified Biellmann position.

"We skated well today. We’re happy with both our performance and our placement, especially since this is our first year in seniors," said Bates.

"We’re trying to stay relaxed and not get too nervous heading in to the free skate. We’re trying not to think about possibly winning a medal," added Samuelson.

The couple heads in to tomorrow’s free dance with a total of 84.09 points.

Third place went to Jane Summersett & Elliot Pennington, who also performed the cha cha and rumba. The opening cha cha suited Summersett’s perky style, but while their footwork sequences were clean and well done, the couple had awkward moments in both their straight-line lift and their spin. Nevertheless, they earned 48.14 points for the OD and take 80.17 points in to the free dance.

"It was pretty good, but it could have been better. We held our lift a second too long and got a (one-point) deduction. But we’re pleased with our placement," said the 18 year-old Summersett.

Elizabeth Miosi & Dimitry Ponomarev, who were seventh in the compulsories, improved to fourth place in the OD (43.78 points) with a sexy, freewheeling routine to mambo and samba rhythms. Ponomarev, in particular, captured the character of the dances with fluid movement and undulating hips. The couple, who are in their first competitive season together, enter the free dance in sixth place with 70.98 points.

"We’ve made a lot of changes to this program throughout the season. It seems we make the levels higher every single week," said the 17 year-old Miosi, a South Korean native who has been skating with the Moscow-born Ponomarev for less than 12 months.

"The OD is our best event, so we expected to do well. This is our first year and we’ve already skated in two Junior Grand Prix events, so we’re ecstatic about the way things are going," added the 20 year-old Ponomarev.

Although they placed fifth in the OD with 43.43 points, Kimmerly Lauten & Augie Hill climbed from fifth after the compulsories to fourth place overall with 72.44 points. While the lovely blonde Lauten hit elegant positions in the lifts and spin, the couple lacked speed in their diagonal step sequence) and lost unison at times.

"We skated as well as we could given the training that we’ve had. You only skate as well as you practice. It was a good day for us; you have to be happy with yourself," said the 20 year-old Hill.

Kaitlyn Weaver & Charles Clavey dropped from fourth place after the compulsories to fifth place overall (71.47 points) after they hit the boards at the end of their diagonal step sequence and Clavey fell, causing an automatic one-point deduction. They placed sixth in the OD with 42.16 points.

The stylish Pilar Bosley & John Corona had good unison during their mid-line step sequence, which including a nice one-foot sequence. Unfortunately, Bosley is not as flexible as many of the other ladies, and their positions in the lifts and spins were not as refined as those of the top couples’. They placed seventh in the OD with 41.28 points and enter the free dance with a total of 69.25 points.

by Martha Kimball

As previously noted in this space, the "ace staff" was unable to cover this event in person due to general schedule insanity and the need to consume food, but a member of said staff was able to pick up the event’s quote-happy Rink Notes in the press room and to find Evan Bates in the stands, sitting right in the midst of a large group of enthusiastic and vocal young skaters who persisted through a number of false starts until successful in persuading the entire arena to join them in the wave during the Senior Men’s Free Skate event.

Bates, paired with Emily Samuelson, was in a cheerful mood after winning the Junior Dance silver medal, a laudable follow-up for the 2005 Novice Dance champion.

"Out of the top three, we were the only ones who were Novice last year. The first-place team didn’t compete last year because of injury [Charlie White’s broken ankle], and the third-place team were fifth in Juniors….Charles [Clavey] and Kaitlyn [Weaver] were third in the free dance, but they got fourth overall. They were Novice with us last year."

"We skated to music [‘Electric Samurai’] from the man who did the Kill Bill soundtrack. Our coaches chose the music, and I like it. It’s more modern music, electric guitar. It’s not something we’ve done before, and it’s fun to skate to. All four of our performances were very well skated, so we were really happy. This is definitely our cleanest event of any of the competitions we’ve skated this year."

Samuelson & Bates, with a Free Dance score of 76.23 and an overall total of 160.24, were second across the board.

Said Bates of the first-place team, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, "They’ve been skating together longer, of course, and they’re older than us. We weren’t expecting to beat them. We’re very pleased with second place."

Samuelson & Bates, from the Ann Arbor FSC, are 15 and 16 respectively. Davis & White, from the Detroit SC, are 19 (as of January 1) and 18.

Davis & White, who are both very strong skaters, were too skilled, experienced and consistent to succumb to a challenge. First across the board, they performed to Handel’s "Sarabande" for a point total of 85.45 in the Free Dance and 178.86 overall.

"I think we really identified with this music when we first chose it," Davis told the press. "It was something that we could really show emotion with, which is what we were really going for. We actually had this same piece of music last year that we didn’t get to perform at Nationals because of the injury. We’ve had it and we’ve really grown with it, and it has really served its purpose."

White said of the winning Free Dance program "It felt really good. From the beginning to the end, it was very powerful. We put as much expression into it as we could, and that has kind of been the theme of these Nationals."

Bronze medalists Jane Summersett and Elliot Pennington received 64.88 for their fourth-placed Free Dance, skated to a piece that was "off of one of our coach’s crazy dance music CDs," and 145.02 overall.

Pennington, somewhat saturnine in contrast to Summersett’s ebullience, said candidly of the Free Dance, "The performance was not so great. It was pretty shaky. It wasn’t nearly as good as it was at the other Nationals, but it was okay. We weren’t skating well with each other, and it made things go wrong."

Weaver & Clavey, 16 and 18, a Houston duo who train in Newington, CT, had placed fourth in the Compulsory Dance segment and sixth in the OD, dooming themselves to an overall fourth-place finish with 139.83 points in spite of a total of 68.38 for the third-ranked Free Dance to "Warm Air" by Vanessa Mae and "I’ll Fly Away" by Bond.