2002

Skate America

Dance Event

The skating of the compulsory dance was a rather haphazard affair with respectable performances from only the top three couples.

The Israeli couple of Galit  Chait & Sergei Sakhnovski, who placed third at the 2002 World Championships in a controversial decision marred by accusations of Russian Mafia involvement, gave a mediocre performance at best.  The compulsory dances, however, have never been their strong suite and so they certainly have the opportunity to move up into the medals.

For the bottom five couples, however, the performances were unimpressive, and one wonders how some of those couples ever managed to pass the test.

The placement of Americans Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto, currently in third place, is another sign of their continued progress in the international ranks over the past two years.  If their placements hold up here it would tend to solidify their position as the best future hope for the U.S. in international ice dance.

Also as in the compulsory dance, the top three teams gave clearly superior performances with the fourth place team of Chait & Sakhnovski close behind.  Below fourth place the quality trailed off substantially, with the bottom three teams skating programs of only junior quality, at best.  Many of the lower placed teams skated elements, such as the spins and straight line step sequence, in slow motion, and among those couples only Americans Melissa Gregory & Denis Petukhov skated a routine that was even remotely interesting.

The three top placed teams all skated interesting programs with good speed and strong required elements.  Of these, the presentation of the Ukrainian team of Elena Grushina & Ruslan Goncharov was championship caliber.

The program presented by the American Team of Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto was lively and entertaining and some observers thought it worthy of second place.  It would be interesting to know if any of the panel felt that way, but the super-top-secret scoring system in use precludes us from knowing that.

The Israeli team of Chait & Sakhnovski skated a respectable program, but the choreography seemed stale and derivative of previous programs they have presented in the rhythms of this dance.

The free dance was a bit of an improvement over the previous dances of this event.   Nevertheless, there was still a marked difference in the quality of the top four couples compared to the remainder, with the lowest three couples in way over their heads.

The gold medalists, Elena Grushina & Ruslan Goncharov, skated a strong fast dance of contemporary style.  They were followed in the placements by Tatiana Navka & Roman Kostomarov who performed a seductive, sexy dance for which Navka wore a costume that barely covered what some ISU judges like to refer to as her "assets".  So much for the push from last season to eliminate indecent moves and costumes!

Third in the free dance were Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto who skated a lively, routine of Elvis Presley songs.  They were fast and entertaining and clearly the crowd's favorite, receiving a thunderous response from the audience.   Based on their performances here, and rumors that Naomi Lang & Peter Tchernyshev are struggling this season, talk has begun that Belbin & Agosto could end up as U.S. National Champions this season if the judges in Dallas have the courage to dethrone the reigning champions.

Galit Chait & Sergei Sakhnovski stayed in fourth place with a middling dance of little interest while Melissa Gregory & Denis Petukhov looked like a typical make-work American dance couple.

After the compulsory dance, ISU management were touting the value of their new anonymous random scoring system, saying we wouldn't have seen the results we saw in the CD without it.  They didn't say so directly, but what they meant was the judges would not have dumped Chait & Sakhnovski into fourth place were it not for anonymity.   On the other hand, by the end of the event, all nine couples placed identically in each dance of the event, as is nearly always the case.

By the logic presented to us before the season, anonymity should also have give the judges the courage to move the couples around in each dance, but they didn't.   So the ISU claim is hard to verify.  It is possible that anonymity did give the judges the courage to place Chait & Sakhnovski fourth.  It is equally possible that anonymity allowed the judges to stick it to the couple for some other reason without getting caught.  Because of the secrecy we will never know.  That's the problem with secrecy.

2002 Skate America Dance Medalists