Friday, Oct. 28, 2011

Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011

Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011

Sunday, 30 October 2011

Tessa Virtue & Sott Moir unveiled their new "Funny Face" Free Dance to an appreciative early afternoon audience.  It was not contest, of course, and the Canadians took home the gold medal.  They scores here were slightly higher than those for Merly Davis & Charlie White last week at Skate America, but a comparison of scores so similar is not meaningful given the different panels and the limitations of the scoring system.  In our view, Davis & Whites performance was superior and in a head to match at this time the U.S. couple would prevail.   The proof of the pudding will not come, however, until the Grand Prix Final at which both teams are expected to appear.

Kaitlin Weaver & Andrew Poje dropped to third in the Free Dance but held a sufficient lead from the Short Dance to hold on for a second place finish by 1.12 points.  Anna Cappellini & Luca Lanotte  gave an engaging performance to music from "La Strada" and for entertainment value alone was our favorite.

Madison Chock & Evan Bates came back strong in the Free Dance, where they placed fourth, and moved up to a fourth place final result.

Unofficial Attendance:  Dance Free Dance, 2500; Exhibition, 3000

Saturday, 29 October 2011

The maturity of the veteran Japanese skater Akiko Suzuki displayed itself in her Program Components for a well skated program that was scored first in the Free Skate, which took her from fourth in the Short Program to second overall.  Elizaveta Tuktamisheva deservedly had the highest technical score in a program with six clean triples, including a superb triple Lutz - triple toe loop.  The young Russian skater was two points behind Suzuki in Program Components which proved the deciding factor in the Free Skate results.  Tuktamisheva's Short Program lead, nevertheless, held up to give the gold medal in her first Senior Grand Prix appearance.  Ashley Wagner was the most prepared looking of the U.S. skaters, placing third in the long and third overall.  She had edge calls on two triple Lutz attempts, falling on the second of these.  Mirai Nagasu held fifth place in the long for a fifth place finish.  Finally, in a performance more dreadful than one could ever have imagined before the start of the competition, Rachael Flatt placed last in the long to finish last in the event, nearly 50 points behind the gold medallist.

The premier event of the day was the evening skating of the Men's Free Skate.  Patrick Chan again proved himself the consummate performer by skating a fluid nearly seamless program despite two falls, one on his opening quad toe loop, and a fall in nothing setting up a triple Lutz mid-program.  Chan won the Free Skate by nearly five points and moved up from third in the short to win the gold medal.  Javier Fernandez, was scored first in TES, with two clean quads, a toe loop and a Salchow.  He was more than six points behind Chan in components, however.  Fernandez demonstrated here he has the tools to be a contender at the Grand Prix Final, and a top five competitor at Worlds.  The Bronze medal was taken by Daisuke Takahashi who placed third in the long.  He was scored second in components, but in TES he lagged Chan and Fernandez by a considerable margin.  Takahashi executed a downgraded quad flip, and had a triple Axel that was called under-rotated.  He also did not have a three jump combination.

Among the U.S. men, Adam Rippon turned in the best results with a forth place finish in both the short and long fro a fourth place result overall.  He had a downgraded quad Lutz and fell on a triple Axel.  After a shaky start, he gave a secure elegant  performance for the last two-thirds of his  program.  Ross Minor skated a nearly clean program with only a step out of his second triple Axel.  The difference between his short and the long was night and day.

Attendance picked up on the second day of the competition, with 3000 or more spectators for each event.  Pity poor Skate America that could not pull 1000 spectators for some of it's sessions.

Unofficial Attendance:  Ladies Free Skate, 3000; Pairs Free Skate, 3500; Men's Free Skate 3200

Friday, 28 October 2011

The three short programs and the short dance were all conducted in the opening day of Skate Canada.  With the reduced number of competitors in each event, the events began later in the day that they would have otherwise, but the school-day/workday afternoon start still impacted attendance that built through the day.  The order of events was set to favor the attendance in the Men's and Dance events where Canadian skaters were expected (quite rightly) to dominate the field.

First up were the ladies which had an unusual mix of three U.S. skaters in addition to the three expected from the host country, leaving only four of ten spots for other countries.  Elizaveta Tuktamisheva, a 14-year-old newcomer to the scene from Russia, was a firecracker.  The girl can jump and she can skate.  Start practicing that name because you will need to use it often in the future.  Among the U.S. ladies, Ashley Wagner had a decent, nearly clean skate, with just an edge call on a triple Lutz. She was followed in third place by Rachael Flatt who reprised her "East of Eden" program from last season.  Mirai Nagasu had a good skate except for a fall on Triple Lutz what was under-rotated and had an edge call.  Her components, however, were second best.  The three Canadian ladies placed sixth, eighth and ninth.

In the Pairs, Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov were head and shoulders above the rest and opened up over an eight point lead over Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford.  Narumi Takahashi & Mervin Tran, representing Japan, place third.  Jessica Dube and her new partner Sebastian Wolf placed sixth far behind the leaders.

The Men's event was a closely contested battle with 1.43 points separating the top three men.  The unexpected leader in the Short Program was Javier Fernandez, from Spain.  He landed a strong quad toe loop.  The remainder of the program was clean but for a few -1 GoE on his flying upright spin.  His presentation was not the strongest of the group, but still competitive with the rest of the men.  Daisuke Takahashi, took the second spot with a program that was clean put for an error on his change camel spin which ended up called level 1.  Third pale was taken by Patrick Chan who had a rough start to his program, but kept his head and finished strong.  He had a small stumble in the setup to his first element, a quad toe loop combination.  He put a hand down and stepped out of the quad.  Then, on the following triple Axel attempt he opened up and executed a double.  Later in the program he landed a clean triple Lutz and added a triple toe loop to complete a combination.  He had the highest component marks of the group, which left him in range to win the event with a strong Free Skate.

In the Short Dance there was Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir, and then there was everyone else.  Virtue & Moir opened up an 8.30 pint lead over Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje.  The Italian couple Anna Cappellini & Luca Lanotte placed third, though with the second highest components.  The sole U.S. couple here, Madison Chock & Evan Bates had a nasty fall where Bates when down and then Chock skated back into Bates and also fell.  In the process her blade got tangled up in his hand, but fortunately he received only minor cuts.

HURRICANE HAZEL DELIGHTS SKATING CROWD

by Alexandra Stevenson

Born on Valentine’s Day, 1921, the longest living elected Canadian public servant, Mayor "Hurricane Hazel" McCallion, gave the welcoming address for this event. She took office in 1978 and is so beloved, in recent years, she has not had to campaign for reelection. However, sources in the know say she has agreed to step down after this term because of a property development scandal involving her son. Dressed in a dark grey business suit, with a yellow blouse adorned with a broach peeking through at the neck, she looked remarkably spry, for a 90-year-old, although her face is buried in wrinkles. She is very aware of ice sports, since she played forward on a professional hockey while at school in Montreal. When she married, in 1951, her in-laws gave the couple a parcel of land in Mississauga and she has grown as the area, which is adjacent and west of Toronto. This is the third time, Skate Canada has been held at the Hershey Center in Mississauga. The previous occasions were 2000 and 2003.

Unofficial Attendance:  Ladies Short Program, 1100; Pairs Short Program, 1400; Men's Short Program 1700, Dance Short Dance 1700