Belbin & Agosto

K&P had won the Olympic bronze in 1984 for the Soviet Union and were to win other Olympic events - silver in 1988 and the gold in 1992. The ISU has honored only a very few skaters with the request to convert their original to a compulsory.

"They asked us to put the steps down on paper and we did. It is a fast dance but when we did it, it was six counts faster. All except maybe three of four steps are the same as we did," Ponomarenko explains.

He believes compulsories are very important to the sport of ice dance. "I think they will be around for at least ten to fifteen years. It is the only way you can really compare the skating of the couples.

"The most difficult part is to show the character of the dance. In very few couples would you know what dance they were doing if you turned off the music. They could be doing a Blues or a Tango.

"The waltz is a very light dance. It should seem you are not touching the ice at all. The knee bend should not be as low as in the Blues and the stretch of the leg should not be higher than ninety degrees."

Ponomarenko is now an experienced Technical Caller and was serving in this capacity in Skate America. "I’ve done three events last season and I think I will do five this time. It is a very difficult task. You have to concentrate fully. My eyes never leave the feet. I don’t look at the skaters’ faces at all. I don’t even remember what they wear."

The Golden Waltz was the second Russian devised compulsory. The first was the Tango Romantica, created by the first Olympic ice dance champions, Ludmila Pakhamova & Alexander Gorshkov (1976).

An odd situation occurred in the 1998 Olympic Games where the Golden Waltz was a compulsory. The Canadian champions, Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz, who had won bronze medals in the previous two world championships, were only fifth in the Golden Waltz, the first of the two compulsories.

The loss of those marks prevented them from winning the bronze medals. Since they were trained by Dubova, who had relocated to the United States, the Canadians felt they had been extremely well educated in this compulsory and deserved a higher place. It turned out that Bourne & Kraatz were doing a couple of steps wrongly because the ISU had made a minor change of which the Canadians were not aware.

Following in Dubova’s footsteps, Klimova & Ponomarenko also moved to the United States. The married couple, who have two young children (the oldest is just beginning school), settled in California. They now both coach in San Jose.

Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto skated third and easily took the lead. They were dressed completely in white and they have a slight appearance problem. His adorable sexy goatee and her wild hair exactly compliment their gypsy free but they are not in keeping with the elegance of a grand waltz.

Nevertheless, they easily placed first both in technical elements (with a score of 19.90, 1.34 points ahead of the Israelis, Galit Chait & Sergei Sakhnovski) and in program components (which now have four categories for a compulsory – skating skills, timing, performance, and interpretation) of 23.81, 1.39 points ahead C&S.

Belbin exuded good spirits. "The last time we skated this dance, we had only had about two weeks to train it because we did the Junior Worlds then went right to Worlds. It’s such a difficult dance so that wasn’t enough time. It felt nice to be able to present it really well this time."

Agosto said, "We’re coming in as champions from last year but, at this point it’s too soon to put pressure on ourselves. It’s the first competition of the season. We felt very good about all the elements. It’s a difficult dance but it felt great. We felt comfortable and confident with it."

In turn the Israelis were significantly ahead of the third placed Canadians, Megan Wing & Aaron Lowe.

Even before stepping on the ice, the flamboyant blonde, Svetlana Kulikova, dressed strikingly in brilliant red and her tall debonair partner, Vitali Novikov, in his black tails and white tie looked great.

However, although the Russians took fourth place, their total element scores were lower than the fifth ranked Scottish brother and sister, Sinead & John Kerr.

The Britons are trained by former world runner-up Joan Slater who said, "They are improving all the time. They are happy with each other and they have good rapport and that’s very important. This is always the one section that is most worrying for them."

Kendra Goodwin & Brent Bommentre took ninth place. Their coach, Robbie Kane, said, "They were very composed. Their interpretation, feeling and expression was really consistent. This is the beginning of a journey for them. They’ve only been together for 18 months."

Bommentre said, "I like the fine technical aspects of the compulsory, but I like doing the free dance elements – the lifts and spins and things – better."

Their teammates, Loren Galler-Rabinowitz & David Mitchell, did not have a good time and are lying tenth of the eleven couples from eight countries.

Mitchell explained, "I had a piece of fabric stuck to the bottom of my blade, so the whole second pattern was bad. We had a similar experience at a Junior Grand Prix event. We stopped but the referee said we had to continue so we were afraid to stop this time. We told the referee (immediately after they completed the compulsory) tonight and she said that was unfortunate and that she would mention it to the judges."

The fabric was not part of Galler-Rabinowitz’s outfit. It was pink and might have come off one of the stuffed toys the enthusiastic if sparse crowd were throwing onto the ice after each performance.

THE FOLLOWING IS BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE COMPETITORS

1. Belbin born: July 11, 1984 in Kingston, Ontario; Agosto b. January 15, 1982 Chicago, Illinois.

They are the US champions and defending Skate America title holders. They were fifth in the 2004 World championships. Their coach is Igor Shpilband who trains them in Canton, Michigan.

2. Chait b. January 29, 1975 in Kfar-Saba, Israel; Sakhnovski b. May 15, 1975 in Moscow. They are many times Israeli champions and were seventh in the 2004 World championships.

Chait, who was raised in New Jersey, competed in the 1994 US senior ice dance championships before representing the country in which she was born. Sakhnovski was the 1993 world junior champion with Ekaterina Svirina competing for Russia.

They are coached by Tatiana Tarasova in Simsbury, Connecticut.

3. Wing b. November 1, 1975 in Vancouver, BC; Lowe b. October 12, 1974 in Vancouver, BC. They have been in the top three in Canada for over six years. They were 11^th in their third world championship in 2004.

They are coached by Igor Shpilband in Canton, Michigan.

4. Kulikova b. November 14, 1980 in Moscow; Novikov b. January 13, 1979 in Moscow. They were third in last season’s Russian championships, and13th in the 2004 world championships.

They teamed up in January 2003 winning the first competition they entered – the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany, in October of that year.

They are coached by Tatiana Tarasova in Simsbury, Connecticut.

5. Sinead Kerr, b. August 30, 1978 in Dundee, Scotland; her brother, John, was born June 2, 1980 in Edinburgh.

They won last season’s British championship deposing the holders and gained 14^th place in their first world championship in 2004 where John created a sensation appearing at the closing banquet in the national dress of Scotland, a kilt.

Because the sport of curling is very popular in Scotland, figure skaters are often at a disadvantage in getting ice time. The Kerrs are the first Scots to win the national ice dance title.

They are coached by Joan Slater in Deeside.

6. Kauc b. February 2, 1980 in Lodz; Zych b. May 28, 1982 in Gdynia.

After breaking up with previous partners, Kauc & Zych won the Polish national title and finished 24^th at the 2004 world championships.

They are coached by Maria Olszewska-Lelonkiewicz in Lodz and Kyrnica. Their choreography was done by Igor Shpilband & Marina Zueva in Canton, Michigan.

7. Golovina b. September 30, 1982 in Kharkov; Voiko b. March 25, 1980 in Kharkov. They are the second ranked Ukrainians who have finished 22^nd and 21^st in the past two world championships.

They are coached by Rinat Farkhutdinov in Euless, Texas.

8. Bentley b. April 4, 1982 in Leeds, England; Pernet b. May 9, 1980 in Lyon, France.

They are the fourth ranked couple in France. Bentley was British Junior champion with Andrew Hallam and competed with him in the World Junior championships for Britain but they trained in France, where Hallam had established himself with a previous British partner. When Hallam decided to go to Canada, Bentley decided to stay in Lyon and teamed up with Pernet.

9. Goodwin b. October 27, 1982 in Java, Indonesia; Bommentre b. b. May 10, 1984 in Chestnut Hill (Philadelphia), PA.

They finished fourth in the 2004 US championships in their first season together. Both skated in the world junior championships with previous partners.

They are coached by Robbie Kane in Philadelphia and Newark.

10. Galler-Rabinowitz b. January 19, 1986 in Boston; Mitchell b. April 23, 1982 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They won the bronze medals in the 2004 US (Senior) championship, after winning the Junior title in 2002 and the Novice title in 2000

They are coached by Natalia Dubova in Stamford, Connecticut.

11. Romanovskaya b. December 3, 1984 in Moscow; Grachev b. July 28, 1984 in Moscow

They won the world junior championship last season in their fourth attempt. They also won bronze and silver medal in the last two Junior Grand Prix finals.

They are coached by Svetlana Alexeeva & Elena Kustarova in Moscow

Chait & Sahknovski

Belbin & Agosto, skating tenth, continued to lead showing off their original which starts with an energetic Charleston from overture to the hit show Cabaret and flows into a well polished slow foxtrot to the tune New York, New York, and then takes another part of Cabaret to show off a Quickstep.

Afterwards Belbin explained, "We feel like we’ve skated it better technically at home, but performance wise this was really good. We’re generally happy with it. Technically, I had a bobble on the side by side footwork, so we know that there are a few areas that we need to work on when we get home."

Her partner added, "The crowd really got into it. We give it more emotion when the crowd is behind us. In the past we’ve usually been coming from behind after the compulsory dance, so it feels a little different to be starting out higher. But we feel confident and comfortable in our dances so we can go out and do our job."

They executed the Midline non-touching Step sequence as the first of their five required elements. Three judges awarded them plus two (plus three is the maximum). Five judges gave them a plus one, and two punched in a conservative zero which means that nothing was added to the base value of 5.4.

They followed with their Serpentine which morphed into a Rotational Lift (technically a Curve Lift Level 3 plus a Rotational Lift Level 4) worth 4.2 which gained four plus twos, five plus ones and one zero.

While there was no obvious flaw on their Diagonal step sequence, which rated a Level 2 with a value of 3.5, they looked a little tentative towards the end and Belbin admitted they had a slight problem. They received only one plus two and three plus ones. The rest of the panel gave zero.

Then came their rotation lift Level 4, also with a base value of 3.5. Their final element, the combination spin was a Level 3 with another base value of 3.5 which was rewarded with one plus two, six plus ones, and two zeros.

They were also placed ahead of the field for the five component scores. There was one judge who put the Israelis ahead for Choreography as well as the Interpretation and Timing score, each by a quarter of a point, and four individual ties of the 55 marks given for program components.

With eleven couples, the draw for the original is made with the bottom three skating in reverse order and the top eight drawing for the other position. Since the resurface came between the top two groups of four and Chait & Sakhnovski pulled out number four, which meant they skated first of the top eight, they could have felt they had drawn the short straw.

When asked how she felt, Chait smiled and raised her shoulders. "I would prefer it was drawn like the free," she said. "But what can you do? I can’t change the system."

They gave a very speedy showing starting with a Quickstep to Benny Goodman’s Sing, Sing, Sing which segued into a slow Foxtrot to Smile by Nat King Cole and then reverted into Sing, Sing, Sing.

Sakhnovsky said, "I feel okay. We do our best. We’ve been working for 10 years but you still get nervous. Experience helps a lot. With the new rules, there are more requirements. There was another change two days before the event. Even the judges do not know what to do. Everyone understands something differently.

"I want to skate in another Olympics and come back to the podium." (They were third in a controversial decision in the Nagano worlds in 2002 where a petition signed by two thirds of the ice dance competitors, a judge and some coaches was given to the referee, Courtney Jones, stating that the Lithuanians who finished fourth should have been third. No action resulted from the petition.)

They went into the free dance 5.65 points behind Belbin & Agosto.

In third place, 13.15 points behind the Israelis, were the Canadians, Wing & Lowe, who performed a slow Foxtrot to Just in Time by Bobby Darin and a Charleston to That’s A Plenty by Lew Pollack. The Canadian second ranked couple revealed they are in far better shape now than they have been in the past.

Wing explained, "We were competing in our first Worlds in three years in Washington DC (in 2002) and I tore a meniscus in my knee. I made it through the competition and we finished 12^th but I had to have surgery.

"I had a long recovery period. Now, it’s so much easier being able to train and know that we are ahead of schedule rather than trying to catch up all the time. It’s such a mental relief."

Her partner said, "We’ve been working with the new judging system to get our programs up to par with the top ten teams in the world."

They were very excited about their position going into the free because of the possibility of a medal. Although Wing & Lowe have had a long international career, they have never won a Grand Prix medal.

The flashy Russians Kulikov & Novikov are only 3.77 points behind the Canadians. They began with a Quickstep, went into a slow Foxtrot to New York, New York, and then reverted to the Quickstep.

First on after the ice resurface, the British champions, were again fifth. They were skating splendidly up until almost the end of their straight line step sequence. John Kerr, looking elegant in his Louis Vuitton tuxedo, had a slight mistiming. "I had not practiced in the tails which was a mistake. They were swinging around and I was prepared for that."

His sister explained she was twizzling and saw John was a little off which put her off balance. "I was spotting John, which I don’t usually do, and just went down."

Fortunately, it was at the end of the sequence so they didn’t miss many steps. However, it meant they incurred a deduction of 1.0.

They laughed off the situation. John Kerr said, "I fell at the beginning of our Matrix free in Sheffield (when they won their national title dethroning the holders). So now we’ve had one fall a piece in competition. Let’s hope that’s the last time."

The Ukrainians, Golovina & Voiko, moved up from seventh to sixth while the Poles, had a bad collapse on their spin in which they both sat down. Not only did Kauc & Zych suffer minus three deductions for that element, the extensive time they lost from the routine because of the fall produced a deduction of minus three.

Their tenth place in the original dropped them from sixth to tenth overall.

Goodwin & Bommentre began with a Quickstep to One Bad Habit by Frank Wildhorn, then transitioned into a Foxtrot, Call Me Irresponsible, and then returned to the Quickstep.

They were seventh in this section and pulled up from ninth to seventh overall. That meant they got into the middle group for the draw for the free and picked the best spot, last, right before the ice resurface.

This is only their second international. Earlier this year they took fourth place in the Golden Spin contest in Zagreb. Goodwin said she thought they were handling their international debut season well and they are thrilled to be in the event.

Many people who know nothing about the sport of ice dance, denounce it as unathletic, but Bommentre defended skating saying, "It’s like an Olympic sprinter except they are out there only for a few seconds. In the original, we’re out there for over two minutes doing lifts and trying to keep our balance. It may look like we’re enjoying ourselves and smiling but that’s tough. It takes a lot of energy."

Lying eighth are Bentley & Pernet of France. Bentley, a former British junior champion, was skating with a bandaged shoulder and during the program once again dislocated her shoulder. She carried on to the end of their routine but was in obvious pain.

The US third ranked ice dancers, Galler-Rabinowitz & Mitchell, who are now trained by Natalia Dubova, started with a slow Foxtrot to Frank Sinatra’s famous I’ve Got the World on a String" and then went into a Lover’s Lane Charleston.

They were ninth in this section which moved them up from tenth to ninth going into the free.

"Galler-Rabinowitz said they had enjoyed their performance. "We really like doing the Charleston. We watched a lot of movies and worked with a Charleston expert, a woman, to choreograph the program."

Mitchell added, "I like the total abandon and emotion of the Charleston."