14th Lalique Trophy


Thurdsay, 23rd November 2000



General comments

I arrived at 8h30 at the POPB, but pairs practice had already started ... at 6h30 am ! The weather was so nice while trying to find the right door to enter that i barely recognized Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze when i passed by them (they had just finish their practice), as they were protecting their head from the rain with their jacket. In fact i only recognized Elena -also thanks to the stripes on her jacket, the ones of the russian flag-, Anton's head was completely under protection. Anyway, with the first skaters i see being the former World champion, i guess the 14th Lalique Trophy couldn't start any better... :-)

First impression when i got inside : the rink appears smaller than usual..... but it is not actually (obviously). The ice is not especially good looking : i guess the idea was to paint it light blue, but on several places it turns brown, maybe what the colour would be with the hockey lines below (what i once thought, not for long though), but it does not really have a specific pattern, it's rather a random distribution. A closer look revealed that the brown colour is only due to a rather poor paint covering of the 'floor' or anything that is below the ice. Near the middle the ice also appears pale green.

BTW the colour of this edition of the Lalique Trophy is grey : grey sheets on rink boards, grey Lalique logo, grey carpet,... The decoration is based on somewhat cylinder tubes getting wider at both ends (6 on the roof, 5 on a side near the Kiss and Cry area).

Last thing on 'general comments', first row on the judge side is number 24, so apparently there's one row less than last year.

OK, let's swith to pairs...

BTW, as it's my first review, i'll just point out what i write down is things i've seen, and not all that was done. Obviously i can miss some elements ! As well as doing mistakes and doing typos... Damn, i'm only human. ;-)
 

Practice review, pairs

So, i missed the first group :-(
Everybody showed up on group 2 : Kyoko Ina / John Zimmerman, Dorota Zagorska / Mariusz Siudek and Vikotria Shklover / ValdisMintals.

Kyoko Ina / John Zimmerman   USA
Sbs 3T, sbs 2A, th 3Lp, step-3T-step-2T, th3S fall but sooo long !, th3S then she holds the spiral position and he catch her by the arm and skate while doing a betsi squat :-)
They looked fit, at ease with th3 jumps (didn't they only do a th3S with 2feet last year at Lalique ? if i remember well they didn't have an other thrown jump), which are long and of a good height.
At the end of the practice John put some ice on his right shoulder ... injury ? I don't think so, maybe only a little inflamation, don't know... anyway for me it's nothing serious as i hadn't see any problem with John, and i don't remember any problems with the lifts.

Viktoria Shklover/ Valdis Mintals   EST
Second time i see them this season :-)
They were struggling with the th3S which they kept repeating quite a lot. Best attempt so far : two footed.Th2A may have been too 2-footed, but later it was clean.Then on sbs 3T he had no problem but she did only 2.5 turns.I *think* i remember something similar happening at Saint Gervais...

Dorota Zagorska/ Mariusz Siudek   POL
Sbs 2A, sbs 3T she doubles he turns out, then Dorota alone on the 3T with mayber a slight touch, th3S not so long but high, very nice entry to Inside Forwars Death Spiral -the best i could say is he supports her free skate with his skate-. Average-good practice for them i would say; nothing exceptional but still strong.
 

Group 3

In group 3 are Valerie Marcoux/ Bruno Marcotte, Qing Pang / Jian Tong, Jamie Sale / David Pelletier.

Valerie Marcoux / Bruno Marcotte, CAN
I am not the only one to say he looks like Michael Weiss ! ;-) But with even bigger arms... he looks very strong.
Their music for the long program is from "Les Miserables", so there are only a few 'chance' they don't become one of my favourites ;-). In fact the pieces of  music are (at least what I call :) "Donnez" and "A la volonte du peuple" (yes, in french in the text).
2Tw, th3S, FIDS, sbs3S he fell, th3Lp, BIDS (yes, backward inside !), small pb with a lift, but a -almost- complete run through !
Then they redo the sbs3S on which she stepped out. Actually her free foot comes very close to her other foot -yes, the left ;-)- on the take off, so it could look like she will do a loop. Then i guess the take off is on two feet.

Qing Pang / Jian Tong   CHN
Unfortunately she is still so slim, thin, etc... (human line). Unfortuntaly as i think it's not very good looking, but then they've got an icredible height on Twists and throw jumps.
LP music is some classical music, then a chinese music with lots of violin.
Th3S, sbs2A, th3Lp high, sbs2A -- 2T, 3Tw (i wanna see a quad !), th3S, th3S again, th3Lp, th3Lp again, sbs2A, sbs2A again. She then did a clean 3T.
Well, least we can say is consistency is there...

Jamie Sale / David Pelletier   CAN
Black and violet practice costumes -the other pairs mainly wore all black costumes-.
sbs2A.
RT : th3Lp, sbs3T he doubles, 3Tw, th3S, star lift very nice with several changes, sbs spin, sbs2A she pops -- 2T, FIDS
Also : sbs2A he t-out, sbs3T she doubles he fell out, sbs3T she 2ft.
Complete run through, impressing ! But i don't feel the music choice is very efficient in the slow part, i didn't really like it and didn't think it's easy to show emotion on this type of music. Maybe seeing this program more will prove me wrong ;-)...
Anyway, quite a good practice, except for sbs 3T.

More pairs practise report tomorrow, from the other practice that starts at ...6h30 AM again !
 

Skatak



List of abreviation :
A = Axel
T = Toe Loop
S = Salchow
Lp = Loop
F = Flip
Lz = Lutz
fLz = fLutz
sometimes you will see Lip as well...
Tw = twist
DS = Death Spiral (+ Forward/Backward, Inside/Outside)
sbs = side by side
th = throw (jump)
(between 2 jumps '-' is for combination, '- -' for steps)
2ft = 2 footed
t-out = turn-out
RT : what skaters did on their music, run through
 
 

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