Friday, June 25, 2010

This and That


Kurt Browning was recently interviewed on blogto.com as her prepares for season two of Battle of the Blades. He is as charming as ever.

The ISU has released the requirements for the short dance. The 2010/2011 dance is the Golden Waltz, which is only the third time in five years that the ISU is using this dance. How original. Personally, I think a Bollywood short dance is in order.

The five required elements for the short dance this season are:
-2 (1/2) Golden Waltz Patterns
-Twizzle Sequence
-Short Lift
-Midline Non-touching Step Sequence

So we'll be golden waltzing and then we'll be twizzling?! Wouldn't a dance spin be more appropriate for something grand and flowing like a waltz? It is such a shame that Tanith doesn't get to debut this dance. I'm doing my best to keep an open mind and ''trust'' the ISU, but I have serious doubts about this potential hot mess.


Scott Hamilton had surgery to removed a benign tumor from his brain yesterday. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

USAG National Team officials informed Alicia Sacramone that she needs to train floor exercise in order to be viable for teams in the future. It is not entirely unexpected, as her reputation as a beamer is one big cemented 'NO!'

Serena Williams was NOT pleased to be playing on Court 2 at Wimbledon yesterday. She felt that Centre Court or Court 1 was where she belonged. Just to hammer the point home, she drilled her second round match 6-0, 6-1. Serena was so nervous meeting the Queen earlier in the day that she initially forgot to address her as 'Your Majresty' until midway through the Queen's greeting to her. (It should work to Serena's favor if the organizers keep pissing her off. Serena achieved her infamous 'Serena Slam' after a breakup and wanted her ex-boyfriend to see her everywhere being successful.)

The Zaretskys have retired from competition citing a lack of support from the Israeli Federation and intend to pursue coaching careers. This opens up two invitations for Grand Prix events.

Jeremy Abbott is set to debut his new Flamenco short program at All That Skate, this summer's premiere ice show. Someone better remind me to get excited for this program amidst the queening out I'll be doing over Michelle's two new exhibitions.

Ice Network is reporting new music choices for several skaters:

The Shibutanis' new free dance is to the music of 'Smile' and 'Let's Face The Music and Dance.' (Both will be performed by Nat King Cole) Their short dance will tell the story of the musical Carousel.

Dobbs and Jacobsen will be skating a new free skate to Bohemian Rhapsody, which was choreographed by Rene Roca (mastermind behind Jill Trenary's 'The Mermaid.')

Evora and Ladwig will skate to The Mask of Zorro for their new short program.

Zhang and Toth will skate to Claire de Lune for their short program and Miss Saigon for their free skate.

Richard Dornbush's new free skate is to the soundtrack of Sherlock Homes and is choreographed by Cindy Stewart.

Agnes Zawadzki's short program is 'Gopher Mambo,' while her free skate is set to Hungarian Gypsy Music. Agnes has added a triple toe-triple toe to her short program and a double axel-triple toe to her long program. She will debut the short at this weekend's Broadmoor Open.

Fans can check out a live stream of the Broadmoor Open this weekend.

9 comments:

  1. Fact is, Alicia did 6 beam routines for the US in team competition and hit 5 of them. One fall does not an inconsistent beamer make. I appreciate that she fucked up in 08 when it really mattered, but she was the team's top beam scorer in both 06 and 07. Saying that, I can see why she's been told to train floor.

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  2. I follow Jeremy Abbott on Twitter and was wondering who this Antonio person is doing his choreography. (Abbott also seemed a bit too sad the dude was leaving...) Flamenco should be interesting. And add "Mask of Zorro" to the list of music that needs to be retired. It was already old when Bobek skated to it.

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  3. Antonio Najarro, who choreographed Pechalat-Bourzat and Anissina-Peizerrat's flamenco ODs, and Lambiel's tango program. Translation of Najarro's comments from his Facebook page, on Jeremy's Facebook fan page: "Najarro has created for Abbott extremely complex and vanguard choreography, which will be much talked about in upcoming competitions in the season 2010-2011". Jeremy commented that his brain was sore attempting to learn the choreography. Can't wait to see it!

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  4. Shawn and Nastia both had beam mishaps in 07 worlds. They both competed beam for the team competition in Beijing. Fact is, having Alicia back is a huge break for this team because she is a natural leader, and her vaults help us tremendously. But I do love her floor :) And one beam fall does not constitute her not being a "beamer". If that is so, then neither are Shawn and Nastia, and if you remember correctly, the only event Nastia competed at VISAs last year was beam, and they put her on the national team, and considered her for worlds until she pulled herself out.

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  5. Thanks for the info, nashvilledancer.

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  6. Shawn and Nastia both also went on to fuck up again on beam in 07 worlds. They both only had a 2 out of 4 hit ratio. If we're setting the bar so high for US beamers that one fuck up disqualifies you from doing it in TFs, we're going to have a very short list to choose from. Bross would also be out. Memmel would have to be dug up again, then Raisman, and I don't know who else?

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  7. Besides, she could always just take out the mount if it makes Martha too nervous.

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  8. It probably has more to do with the fact that we are going down to five girls. Cant really afford a two event gymnast when one of those two events isnt an insanely high start value Bars. I think she also said that she was planning on adding floor but it was not going to be immediately ready.

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  9. She said something about not wanting to do the necessary cardio, which probably isn't going to impress TPTB. The US can afford a 2 event gymnast easily enough though. They've never yet used all 6 gymnasts in TFs so frankly it will make no difference at all.

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