Ladies Long Program from China

What strange results...Rochette managed to pull up greatly from the short, though it wasn't her best performance. It's such a dynamic and high-quality program she's got that I reckon she'll do very well in Vancouver, in the race for silver. Nagasu also had a good skate, minus one fall, but she had 4 under-rotations which pulled her down to 5th.

1 Akiko SUZUKI JPN
176.66 4 1
2 Kiira KORPI FIN
163.27 2 3
3 Joannie ROCHETTE CAN
163.18 7 2
4 Rachael FLATT USA
157.71 5 5
5 Mirai NAGASU USA
155.38 1 6
6 Carolina KOSTNER ITA
154.18 3 7
7 Fumie SUGURI JPN
145.99 6 8
8 Diane SZMIETT CAN
144.28 11 4
9 Yan LIU CHN
132.80 8 9
10 Beatrisa LIANG USA
131.39 9 10
11 Bingwa GENG CHN
121.20 10 11
WD Binshu XU CHN
12

Cup of China - More Results

So here's the rest of the results from the first day of Cup of China.

Ice dance had some really high quality programs. Belbin and Agosto's definitely deserved their score - it was a wonderful performance, as was Khokhlova and Novitski's, despite the terrible music!

1 Tanith BELBIN / Benjamin AGOSTO USA
98.66 1 1
2 Jana KHOKHLOVA / Sergei NOVITSKI RUS
92.78 2 2
3 Federica FAIELLA / Massimo SCALI ITA
89.96 3 3
4 Anna ZADOROZHNIUK / Sergei VERBILLO UKR
79.65 6 4
5 Alexandra ZARETSKI / Roman ZARETSKI ISR
77.83 4 7
6 Xintong HUANG / Xun ZHENG CHN
76.20 8 5
7 Madison CHOCK / Greg ZUERLEIN USA
76.03 7 6
8 Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE CAN
71.51 5 9
9 Xiaoyang YU / Chen WANG CHN
67.09 9 8

Pairs was a great event...Shen and Zhao were absolutely flawless, and have a ten point lead so the gold is theirs. Another great skate was from the Russian pairs, who were almost unknown before this event.

1 Xue SHEN / Hongbo ZHAO CHN
72.28 1
2 Tatiana VOLOSOZHAR / Stanislav MOROZOV UKR
62.98 2
3 Lubov ILIUSHECHKINA / Nodari MAISURADZE RUS
62.54 3
4 Dan ZHANG / Hao ZHANG CHN
61.92 4
5 Meagan DUHAMEL / Craig BUNTIN CAN
55.08 5
6 Huibo DONG / Yiming WU CHN
50.32 6
7 Amanda EVORA / Mark LADWIG USA
48.02 7
8 Vanessa JAMES / Yannick BONHEUR FRA
47.28 8

Cup of China Results So Far

Here are the results so far. It's shaping up to be a pretty exciting competition; the ladies and mens long programs tomorrow will be good as the skaters are so close together that who knows who'll win?

1 Nobunari ODA JPN
83.35 1
2 Sergei VORONOV RUS
81.40 2
3 Evan LYSACEK USA
80.80 3
4 Samuel CONTESTI ITA
72.08 4
5 Jinlin GUAN CHN
66.70 5
6 Yannick PONSERO FRA
66.65 6
7 Stephen CARRIERE USA
65.24 7
8 Chao YANG CHN
65.10 8
9 Denis TEN KAZ
64.05 9
10 Ming XU CHN
61.02 10
11 Kevin REYNOLDS CAN
60.12 11
12 Armin MAHBANOOZADEH USA
59.54 12

1 Mirai NAGASU USA
62.20 1
2 Kiira KORPI FIN
61.20 2
3 Carolina KOSTNER ITA
61.12 3
4 Akiko SUZUKI JPN
59.52 4
5 Rachael FLATT USA
58.80 5
6 Fumie SUGURI JPN
55.46 6
7 Joannie ROCHETTE CAN
52.12 7
8 Yan LIU CHN
51.28 8
9 Beatrisa LIANG USA
50.76 9
10 Bingwa GENG CHN
47.64 10
11 Diane SZMIETT CAN
44.24 11
12 Binshu XU CHN
37.08 12

1 Tanith BELBIN / Benjamin AGOSTO USA
38.33 1
2 Jana KHOKHLOVA / Sergei NOVITSKI RUS
36.30 2
3 Federica FAIELLA / Massimo SCALI ITA
35.37 3
4 Alexandra ZARETSKI / Roman ZARETSKI ISR
30.88 4
5 Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE CAN
30.40 5
6 Anna ZADOROZHNIUK / Sergei VERBILLO UKR
29.43 6
7 Madison CHOCK / Greg ZUERLEIN USA
28.76 7
8 Xintong HUANG / Xun ZHENG CHN
27.87 8
9 Xiaoyang YU / Chen WANG CHN
24.73 9

Russia - A Round-up

I wasn't able to watch the long programs or free dances from this evet, but from looking at the scores...wow. Dance and pairs were fairly predictable, ladies and mens less so (Weir in 6th!). This is shaping up to be an exciting season, and we've only had two Grand Prixs so far!

View all results here.

Rostelecom - Original Dance

So this one stayed basically the same in terms of positions. Have to say though, I absolutely loved Meryl and Charlie's original dance. It seemed really authentic, like they have studied Indian dance, and the final lift was really spectacular.

1 Meryl DAVIS / Charlie WHITE USA
100.08
2 Anna CAPPELLINI / Luca LANOTTE ITA
85.31
3 Ekaterina RUBLEVA / Ivan SHEFER RUS
81.25
4 Vanessa CRONE / Paul POIRIER CAN
78.39
5 Anastasia PLATONOVA / Alexander GRACHEV RUS
75.81
6 Katherine COPELY / Deividas STAGNIUNAS LTU
75.65
7 Ekaterina RIAZANOVA / Ilia TKACHENKO RUS
75.34
8 Lucie MYSLIVECKOVA / Matej NOVAK CZE
75.09
9 Carolina HERMANN / Daniel HERMANN GER
68.18

Unfortunately I'm going away tomorrow, so there won't be any updates from the long programs and free dance. But expect a full round-up when I come back Tuesday/Wednesday. Good luck to all the skaters!

Rostelecom Short Programs - Ladies and Pairs

Pairs results were fairly predictable, ladies result...less so. Unfortunately I missed almost all of both of these events (doesn't college realise I have skating to watch?) but did catch the end of the ladies. Mao two-footed a double axel in the place of her triple, and didn't even get a combination on the end. Miki also messed up the second jump in her combination. There were also some awful falls, from Jenna McCorkell and Annette Dytrt. But the American ladies, not to mention Sebestyen and Leonova, did great!

1 Julia SEBESTYEN HUN
57.94 1
2 Alissa CZISNY USA
57.64 2
3 Miki ANDO JPN
57.18 3
4 Alena LEONOVA RUS
56.78 4
5 Ashley WAGNER USA
55.16 5
6 Mao ASADA JPN
51.94 6
7 Amelie LACOSTE CAN
51.82 7
8 Oksana GOZEVA RUS
51.08 8
9 Katarina GERBOLDT RUS
42.64 9
10 Anastasia GIMAZETDINOVA UZB
42.30 10
11 Jenna MCCORKELL GBR
40.94 11
12 Annette DYTRT GER
36.76 12

1 Qing PANG / Jian TONG CHN
65.40 1
2 Yuko KAVAGUTI / Alexander SMIRNOV RUS
61.62 2
3 Keauna MCLAUGHLIN / Rockne BRUBAKER USA
61.34 3
4 Vera BAZAROVA / Yuri LARIONOV RUS
54.42 4
5 Nicole DELLA MONICA / Yannick KOCON ITA
53.56 5
6 Anastasia MARTIUSHEVA / Alexei ROGONOV RUS
51.94 6
7 Mylene BRODEUR / John MATTATALL CAN
46.66 7
8 Maria SERGEJEVA / Ilja GLEBOV EST
44.88 8

Now its just the original dance left for today, which is exciting. Apparently Davis and White's is excellent, so that'll be worth watching.

Rostelecom Compulsory Dance Results

So...I'm no expert on dance, but this event was really great! Charlie and Meryl were just...wow. They looked like they were skating a different dance to everyone else. They have a comfortable lead, which I know they're going to maintain this evening and tomorrow. However, I could be completely wrong; I'm watching it on a Russian TV feed and so have no idea what the commentators are saying!

1 Meryl
DAVIS / Charlie WHITE USA 37.87
2 Anna
CAPPELLINI / Luca LANOTTE ITA 32.73
3 Ekaterina
RUBLEVA / Ivan SHEFER RUS 30.33
4 Vanessa
CRONE / Paul POIRIER CAN 29.94
5 Katherine
COPELY / Deividas STAGNIUNAS LTU 29.39
6 Lucie
MYSLIVECKOVA / Matej NOVAK CZE 28.08
7 Anastasia
PLATONOVA / Alexander GRACHEV RUS 27.93
8 Ekaterina
RIAZANOVA / Ilia TKACHENKO RUS 27.89
9 Carolina
HERMANN / Daniel HERMANN GER 25.54

Predicting Rostelecom Results

That's right, it's time for some predictions from Rostelecom Cup of Russia! Though considering how unexpected the TEB results were (Savchenko/Szolkowy in third!) my predictions will probably be spectacularly wrong.

Mens

Mens is probably the hardest to predict, since who knows how Evgeni Plushenko will do? It's his first competition since his success in Torino , and he's been looking very solid in practice. He's allegedly training for 6 to 7 hours a day, and so has a good shot of making the podium, but how will he fare against Johnny Weir and Takahiko Kozuka? They're the three skaters I predict for a podium position, now that Patrick Chan has withdrawn. Others to watch at the event will be Kevin Van Der Perren and Florent Amodio, who will be making his senior Grand Prix debut.

Ladies

Mao Asada will be hoping to to win after her defeat in Paris. It'll also, reportedly, be the last performance of her current short program to "Masquerade", as she plans to change it after this event to her exhibition piece, "Caprice". The two skaters that will surely be rounding off the podium are her fellow team mate and supporter at Trophee Eric Bompard, Miki Ando, and the American Ashley Wagner, who recently started her own Youtube vlog series. I think another skater who might manage to sneak up to a podium place is Alena Leonova, who recently won the Findlandia Trophy. I also have to wish Jenna McCorkell luck; according to her Facebook, she had huge difficulties obtaining a visa to come to the event and so I hope all that effort doesn't go to waste for her.

Ice Dance

All eyes are going to be on Meryl Davis and Charlie White, especially now that Domnina and Shablin have withdrawn from the event. Their team mates Vanessa Crone and Paul Poitier will also be at the event, and will be likely to make the podium, unless the Italian couple, Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte get in the way. I think these three will be a cinch for medals, but Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer might also have a shot. They also have an advantage as they're skating in front of their home crowd, but trying saying that to someone like Brian Joubert!

Pairs

Again, it'll most likely be a home victory in this event; Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov will be looking to improve on last year's silver medal. However, they'll have stiff competition from Pang and Tong, who won the Grand Prix Final last season. The bronze medal has Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker's name on it; they'll be competing at the event for the first time. This'll be an exciting event, seeing how these pairs fare.

So that's the rundown of the competition; good luck to all the skaters!

Also, I've created a new poll; it's one which I have already run a few months ago but it'll be interesting to see whether the results change, considering it's a new season, with some of the events changed (Cup of Russia and Skate America both have new sponsors, for example).

Rostelecom; what'll happen?

That's right, it's time for some predictions from Rostelecom Cup of Russia! THough considering how unexpected the TEB results were (Savchenko/Szolkowy in third!) my predictions will probably spectacularly wrong.

Mens

Mens is probably the hardest to predict, since who knows how Evgeni Plushenko will do? It's his first competition since his success at the Torino Olympics, and he's been looking very solid in competition, but how will he fare against Johnny Weir and Takahiko Kozuka? They're the three skaters I predict for a podium position, now that Patrick Chan has withdrawn. Others to watch at the event will be Kevin van der Perren and Florent Amodio, who will be making his senior Grand Prix debut.

Ladies

Mao Asada will be hoping to to win after Kim beat her hands down in Paris. It'll also, reportedly, be the last performance of her current short program to "Masquerade", as she plans to change it after this event to her exhibition piece, "Caprice". The two skaters that will surely be rounding off the podium are her fellow teammates and supporter at Trophee Eric Bompard Miki Ando, and the American Ashley Wagner, who recently started her own Youtube vlog series I think another skater who might manage to sneak up to a podium place is Alena Leonova, who recently won the Findlandia Trophy. I also have to wish Jenna McCorkell luck; according to her Facebook, she had huge difficulties obtaining a visa to come to the event and so I hope all that effort doesn't go to waste for her.

Ice Dance

All eyes are going to be on Meryl Davis and Charlie White, especially now that Domnina and Shablin have withdrawn from the event. Their team mates Vanessa Crone and Paul Poitier will also be at the evnt, and will be likely to make the podium, unless the Italian couple, Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte get in the way. I think these three will be a cinch for the podium, but Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer might also have a shot. They also have an advantage as they're skating in front of their home crowd, but trying saying that to someone like Brian Joubert!

Pairs

Again, it'll most likely be a home victory in this event; Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov will be looking to improve on last year's silver medal. However, they'll have stiff competition from Pang and Tong, who won the Grand Prix Final last season. The bronze medal has Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker's name on it; they'll be competing at the event for the first time. This'll be an exciting event, seeing how these pairs fare.

I'm going away this weekend (to Paris, again!) so won't find out whether these predictions were correct or not until Monday.

Trophee Eric Bompard, firsthand

So I'm back from Paris! And what a weekend. This is going to be a seriously long blog post so be prepared!

After arriving in Paris and checking into our hotel we went straight to the arena, POBP Bercy, for the compulsory dance. If you haven't seen it, it's an amazing arena; the sides are covered in grass, and I've always wondered how they cut it, since it's vertical!

1. Tessa Virue/Scott Moir CAN 38.41
2. Sinead Kerr/John Kerr GBR 36.13
3. Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat FRA 35.53
4. Emily Samuelson/Evan Bates USA 31.11
5. Kristina Gorshkova/Vitali Butikov RUS 29.56
6. Kimberly Navarro/Brent Bommentre USA 27.17
7. Madison Hubbell/Keiffer Hubbell USA 27.17
8. Ekaterina Rubleva/Ivan Shefer RUS 27.12
9. Pernelle Carron/Lloyd Jones FRA 26.28
10. Zoe Blanc/Pierre-Loup Bouquet FRA 24.08

I'd never seen a compulsory dance before, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Virtue and Moir are really in a league of their own; their precision was totally amazing and they managed to keep it up throughout the whole competition. I managed to sit in the 6th row for the whole of Friday's event (it's first come first served for seats, though you can only sit on one side of the arena!). Plus Albena Denkova was sitting two rows in front of me, which was pretty exciting.

Next was the mens' short program:

1. Tomas VERNER CZE 81
2. Nobunari ODA JPN 79.2
3. Adam RIPPON USA 75.82
4. Sergei VORONOV RUS 72.8
5. Yannick PONSERO FRA 72.5
6. Brian JOUBERT FRA 72.15
7. Alban PREAUBERT FRA 66.49
8. Ryan BRADLEY USA 65.21
9. Chao YANG CHN 60.72
10. Javier FERNANDEZ ESP 60.56
11. Peter LIEBERS GER 60.31
12. Vaughn CHIPEUR CAN 51.45

The highlight for me had to be Adam Rippon. His short program, to "Jonathan Livingston Seagull", had the audience in complete silence (which is very rare in France!) as they paid attention. His happiness whilst he is skating is so evident and really makes his skating far more enjoyable to watch. The US men actually did a really great job on the short program; I adored Ryan Bradley's SP, though it didn't score so highly. He skated to the ever-popular "Dark Eyes" and showed real charisma. The audience absolutely loved him, especially on his step sequence, though it only obtained Level One. His triple axel in the program was massive, best 3A I saw all weekend. The other amazing SP was obviously Tomas Verner. When I had got over his costume, I really got into his program; "Zorba the Greek" worked so well for him. Brian might not have done so well, but I still adore that program. I also got a t-shirt with him (and the other French Olympic hopefuls on) for 19 euros.

Then we watched the Pairs SP:

1. Savchenko and Szolkowy, Germany: 72.98
2. Mukhortova and Trankov, Russia: 66.98
3. Dube and Davison, Canada: 64.54
4. Canac and Coia, France: 55.96
5. Inoue and Baldwin, USA: 55.06
6. Dong and Wu, China: 49.70
7. Castelli and Schnapir, USA: 49.50
8. James and Bonheur, France: 38.96

I'm a huge Savchenko and Szolkowy fan, but those painted clown faces? Honestly, they were so distracting, I could barely enjoy their program. I did, however, really enjoy Dube and Davidson; they seem to have recovered from the disappointments of last season. Their body language seems so much better as well, in the kiss and cry and whatnot. On the subject of body language, I had to mention Mukhortova and Trankov - they seemed to have turned a real corner after her cold behaviour last year. Canac and Coic did so well; I had a seriously noisy French family in the rown behind me who screamed and went absolutely nuts when they skated; turned out to be Florent Amodio! Candice Didier was also sitting and watching for most of the events; it's a real shame she didn't get to skate. Dong and Wu were excellent, I thought, though it seems to me she is far more talented than him. Her jumps were totally consistant throughout the warm-up, whereas he didn't look so solid.

Then it was the ladies' event:

1. Yu-na Kim, Korea: 76.08
2. Yukari Nakano, Japan: 59.64
3. Mao Asada, Japan: 58.96
4. Alexe Gilles, USA: 58.22
5. Caroline Zhang, USA: 57.26
6. Kiira Korpi, Finland: 54.20
7. Carolina Kostner, Italy: 51.26
8. Elene Gedevanishvilli, Georgia: 48.68
9. Anna Jurkiewicz, Poland: 43.86
10. Gwendoline Didier, France: 41.96

...or as I like to call it, the competition for second place. Yu-na Kim might have the hugest scores ever (my friend worked out that she could have missed out every single jump and still won) but my does she deserve it. Her James Bond SP was just perfect, and she had a huge amount of support in the crowd; there were hundreds of Koreans, all with elaborately made banners that put mine to shame. Tatiana Tarasova might have been a talented coach, but honestly I think Mao needs to move on. It really was just not working well for her this event. The suprise of the event, for me, was Alexe Gilles. Her SP was mature and elegantly skated, and was really a great Senior Grand Prix debut. Caroline Zhang's program was nice; she might have improve in a lot of areas, including her speed over the ice, but her technique (the infamous "mule kick") seems to be getting even worse.

The last event of the friday was the original dance:

1. Virtue and Moir, Canada: 100.32
2. Pechalat and Bourzat, France: 91.87
3. Kerr and Kerr, Great Britain: 90.86
4. Samuelson and Bates, USA: 77.66
5. Navarro and Bommentre, USA: 77.36
6. Gorshkova and Butikov, Russia: 75.14
7. Rubleva and Shefer, Russia: 74.24
8. Carron and Jones, France: 71.46
9. Hubbell and Hubbell, USA: 70.24
10. Blanc and Bouquet, France: 68.32

The OD of the evening had to be Sinead and John. There were three American country/folk ODs in a row and the best was definitely saved until last. Yes, I have have a British bias, but I think the whole audience agreed with me! The theme (a trucker, Sinead, picks up a hitchiker, John) was clearly obviously, and the music (Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere") worked really well. Virtue/Moir and Pechalat/Bourzat were obviously better in terms on technicality, but for audience fun Sinead and John won hands down. I got talking to a woman sitting near us who turned out to be a family friend who used to coach them when they were young. She told us loads of interesting stuff, including the real reason why Sinead broke up with her partner before John (Jamie Ferguson) and why John was put on the ice in the first place (he was annoying and "full of it" and needed to be kept out of trouble!) I think Samuelson/Bates and Navarro/Bommentre are going to be ones to watch for the future.

The saturday opened with the mens' long program. I managed to get a video of the warm-up:

1 Nobunari ODA JPN 242.53
2 Tomas VERNER CZE 229.96
3 Adam RIPPON USA 219.96
4 Brian JOUBERT FRA 207.39
5 Yannick PONSERO FRA 205.74
6 Sergei VORONOV RUS 204.45
7 Alban PREAUBERT FRA 189.63
8 Chao YANG CHN 178.63
9 Ryan BRADLEY USA 177.65
10 Peter LIEBERS GER 176.52
11 Javier FERNANDEZ ESP 170.16
12 Vaughn CHIPEUR CAN 155.43

Nobunari Oda really stole the show with his Charie Chaplin routine, it was totally adorable. He always looks so young! Speaking of young, again Adam Rippon did amazingly! I felt he looked nervous in the warm-up, but he came out and did a really excellent routine. His joy when he realised he was in position for a medal was seriously cute; I don't know if Ice Network caught it, but he did a jump off the side of the kiss and cry, and punched the air. Aww. He seems really sweet; I saw him talking to Joubert before the warm-up and Verner whilst on the podium. He's friendly! On the subject of Verner, he might not have been able to prevent himself running out of steam in his "The Godfather" LP, but I reckon if he can perform it to the best of his ability, he'll be a force to reckoned with. Speaking of which, I don't think Yannick Ponsero should be written off; his LP to a Gershwin medley was really excellent, despite a number of doubling outs jumps. However, in France he gets very little support, compared to Alban Preaubert; every time he skates, the French fans almost take the roof off the arena! Despite a crowd-pleasing routine to a medley of Rolling Stones songs, I can't say I'm a fan. Similarly, Joubert didn't fare well at all, finishing in the same place as last year. Despite all the faults in both his programs, I though he was great. If he manages to "get his head in the game" I think those programs will fare him well.

There was quite a bit of drama in the pairs' LP:

1 Maria MUKHORTOVA
Maxim TRANKOV RUS 192.93
2 Jessica DUBE
Bryce DAVISON CAN 180.97
3 Aliona SAVCHENKO
Robin SZOLKOWY GER 174.42
4 Rena INOUE
John BALDWIN USA 158.36
5 Adeline CANAC
Maximin COIA FRA 150.18
6 Huibo DONG
Yiming WU CHN 144.45
7 Marissa CASTELLI
Simon SHNAPIR USA 133.01
8 Vanessa JAMES
Yannick BONHEUR FRA 118.66

I can't believe anyone saw that coming; what a meltdown from Savchenko and Szolkowy! It was really unfortunate; they were lucky to end up in 3rd. Better now than in Vancouver, though. The two pairs who leapfrogged over them did derserve their positions. though. Dube and Davidson's program to "The Way We Were" was magical, I felt, and many are comparing the program to Sale and Pelletier. Speaking of S/P, I was one of the people who saw extreme irony in Mukhortova/Trankov using the iconic "Love Story". Whilst I found it hard to get S/P out of my head, I though they actually did a great job. Finally, have to mention Inoue/ Baldwin; man that triple axel was AMAZING. They might be a bit older than most of the skaters at the event but I think they've still "got it". Their program was definitely a crowd favourite.

In between the pairs and ladies event, everyone is forced to leave the stadium. A couple of my friends were staying at the Novotel, the official competitors' hotel across from the arena, so we went to do hang out in the lobby. In the space of about twenty minutes we saw Inoue and Baldwin, who signed autographs and posed for pictures for ages, and Nobunari Oda, who also did the same. We also saw Brian Orser and Yu-Na Kim's mother, holding her dress, waiting for Yu-Na to come down the lifts. There was positively a crowd waiting. Her, Mao and Yukari all came out but were bundled off to the arena really quickly. We also saw Miki Ando (who wasn't competing) with Morosov, just the two of them, a couple of times, which did nothing to extinguish those relationship rumours. Her and Valentina Marchei watched most of the competition together.

Anyway, we had kind of resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren't going to actually talk to any of the skaters/coaches (they were far too busy and we were far too nervous!) so we left the hotel. As we were leaving, I spied Adam Rippon coming in and just had to get a picture. I told him how much I loved his short program and he was seriously nice, considering I was going all crazy fangirl on him! I've obviously cropped my friends out of the picture.

So back to the arena, for the ladies:

1 Yu-Na KIM KOR 210.03
2 Mao ASADA JPN 173.99
3 Yukari NAKANO JPN 165.70
4 Caroline ZHANG USA 153.15
5 Alexe GILLES USA 151.92
6 Carolina KOSTNER ITA 147.63
7 Elene GEDEVANISHVILI GEO 143.43
8 Kiira KORPI FIN 138.83
9 Gwendoline DIDIER FRA 118.07
10 Anna JURKIEWICZ POL 115.06

Erm, so...wow. Yu-na's skate, and subsequent score just blew me away. Brian Orser is just the most amazing coach, period. I want to just give all the European ladies a big hug. I really hope Carolina and Kiira can pull it together. Elene Gedvanishvili might have had a program to Carmen, of all the pieces, but actually she did a really great job.

And finally....to the ice dance.

1 Tessa VIRTUE
Scott MOIR CAN 197.71
2 Nathalie PECHALAT
Fabian BOURZAT FRA 181.64
3 Sinead KERR
John KERR GBR 177.11
4 Emily SAMUELSON
Evan BATES USA 158.07
5 Ekaterina RUBLEVA
Ivan SHEFER RUS 155.54
6 Kimberly NAVARRO
Brent BOMMENTRE USA 150.29
7 Kristina GORSHKOVA
Vitali BUTIKOV RUS 145.96
8 Madison HUBBELL
Keiffer HUBBELL USA 143.28 7
9 Pernelle CARRON
Lloyd JONES FRA 140.27 9
10 Zoe BLANC
Pierre-Loup BOUQUET FRA 138.12

All of the top free dances from this event absolutely blew me away. Navarro/Bommentre, Samuelson/Bates, Kerr/Kerr, Pechalat/Bourzat and Virtue/Moir were all magical. Virtue and Moir were especially spectular; I love how they encorporated the lift from last year's FD but added a innovative dismount. Some said that their Mahler music was boring, but I think the complete opposition. That FD has Olympic Gold Medal written all over it, if they clean it up a bit (there were 2 deductions). For this event we sat behind the Kerrs' aunt and cousins, who were cheering them on very enthusiastically.

Then we watched the medal ceremony: pictures below. When all the skaters finished posing for the photographers they all skated off, but we shouted for John and Sinead and they stopped right in front of us to take some pictures, which was nice. Their dad filmed the entire medal ceremony rink-side! And Tessa and Scott and their coach posed for loads of pictures on the kiss and cry and stuff, it was so sweet!



Overall, it was a great event; really got me excited for the rest of the season! Agree or disagree with what I said? Comment below!

Cohen's out of Trophee Eric Bompard

Anyone else see this one coming? Sarcasm aside, it's a real shame that Sasha won't be competing in Paris next weekend due to tendinitis in her right calf. What's even more of a shame is that the event is so close, there probably isn't enough time for them to find someone else to take her place. It was going to be such a great showdown with her and Yu-na and Mao, though it'll still be an exciting event. Jennifer Kirk has some really interesting comments on her blog, which I recommend you read. What do you think about her withdrawal?

Good news, bad news

Been a while since I blogged, and 3 weeks there has been a lot of skating news, both good and bad.

The Good

NBC is going to air some of the Grand Prix series;

The partnership includes 12 hours of live event coverage on NBC Sports during the 2009-10 season, including live primetime coverage of the ladies free skate at the 2010 AT&T U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Jan. 14-24, 2010, in Spokane, Wash. The 2010 U.S. Winter Olympic Figure Skating Team will be determined at the conclusion of this event. Universal Sports, available in more than 56 million homes, will once again offer additional coverage and re-airs of Skate America and the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Excellent for those in the US, where the popularity of skating has seen somewhat of a decline in recent years.

Also, Isabelle Delobel gave birth to a baby boy called Lois on the 1st October. Congratulations Isabelle!

The Japan Open also just finished a few days ago, and seemed to be very successful, especially for Joannie Rochette, whose LP from the event is Program of the Day. I just thought it was wonderful, and will be interested to see how it progresses through the season. She looks in great shape already, and actually got a new personal best of 126.39 points for the program, which is to Camille Saint-Saens' "Samson and Delilah".



Also, the Finlandia Trophy is currently on at the moment in Vantaa, Finland, and finishes on the 11th. Today is the compulsory dance and the mens's short program. Big names in the competition include the Kerrs, Laura Lepisto, Fumie Suguri, Kiira Korpi, Susanna Poykio, Kevin van der Perren and Kristoffer Berntsson. It is also the return of Daisuke Takahashi, who had an injury that forced him to miss the whole of last season, which is exciting. As soon as results get in, they'll be posted here. The full line-up of skaters is available here.

The Bad

It appears Eurosport will not be showing the Grand Prix series this year, due to apparent legal issues. They broadcast every event last year and it seemed to be very successful, but despite impassioned pleas from the die hard fans (myself included, of course) the channel won't budge. Ice Network also announced their subscription schedule today but the Grand Prix series are only available to those in America, sadly.

Kimmie Meissner has also had to withdraw from her two Grand Prix events and thus the whole season due to a knee injury. Things have been tough on Kimmie these past few months and this setback is so awful. Furthermore, there are rumours flying around, which I cannot confirm either way, that US Figure Skating will announce the withdrawal of one of their skaters from Trophee Eric Bompard, which starts a week today. Let's hope this is a false rumour.