2006

World Championships

Pairs Event

by Maggie Doyle

Dan Zhang & Hao Zhang hold a 0.60 point lead over their countryman Qing Pnag & Jian Tong after the Short Program.  Dan Zhang, who took a nasty fall during the Olympic competition skated in a bandage on her left knee.  "I feel much better now that at the Olympics," she said.  "The cross ligaments and inside ligaments in the knee were affected.  I still have to stabilize the knee (with a bandage)."

Zhang & Zhang skated a clean program, which was well skated, with all their signature moves, such as the double twist, well done.  They earned a peronal best for thier performance.

Pang & Tong also gave a well skated performance.  They scored within a few tenths of a point of Zhang & Zhang for both elements and Program Components.  Though they attempted a program with slightly higher base value, they earned fewer element points than Zhang & Zhang, so in this case, the quality of the leaders trumped the difficulty of the challengers.  Pang & Tong were also marked slightly lower in Program Components than Zhang & Zhang, as invariably proves the case for these two teams.

Although the top two teams are virtually tied, history says that unless Zhang & Zhang self destruct in the Free Skating, the positions of these two teams will not change.

Maria Petrova & Alexei Tihkonov lie 2.51 points back behind the leaders, in third place.  While competitive with the top two teams in Program Components, they were less so in elements, in large part due to a negative GoE on their throw triple loop versus the positive GoEs earned by the Chinese teams on their throws.

Less than four tenths of a point behind the Russians, lie Valerie Marcoux & Craig Buntin, the Canadian champions.  They had the third highest element scores, but came up short  on Program Component scores.  Their main weakness here are their presentation components.  The lively sections of their program well skated, but the middle section misses the mark in terms of expressing the music and keeping the attention of the audience.

The current U.S. Champions, Rena Inoue & John Baldwin sit in sixth place, 4.68 points behind the leaders, and 2.14 points outside of the medals.  Though still mathematically in the running for a medal, their prospects are not encouraging.  They landed throw triple Axel, but with GoEs of -1 from five of twelve judges.  There main problem, however, is their Program Component marks in the mid 6s, where the top teams are at 7 and above.

Since the judges seem to use the component marks to slot the skaters into the places they want, and given the fact the component marks don't change much from one program (or competition) to another, about the best this team can hope for is that a good skate in the Free Skate will move them into the top five.

Commenting on their performance, Inoue said, "We practice all elements equally, but a lot ofpeople make a fuss about the throw triple Axel, because we are the first to do it.  We kind of knew that it would be there, because it's been really consistent.  I wasn't worrying about it.  I was focusing more on the overall program and not one element.  I think it owrked out pretty well.  But our score wasn't too high, we were a little bit disappointed."  Added Balwin, "Our goal here is to put two programs together with that Ael in it.   Technically the program is going to be there for us.  We just really want to get into the performance aspect of it and bring our second mark up as well.  Our combinaciton spin was graded a level two, and usually it was a level four."

Marcy Hinzmann & Aaron Parchem placed tenth, 12.72 points behind the leaders.  They had a decent skate with typical Program Component marks of 6.0.  The program was well performed with good expression and a nice forward inside death spiral and good unison on their straight line footwork.  Their unison on their side-by-side spin was off, however, and received several negative GoEs, and their triple toe lops, which they both landed, had tight landing edges.