Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The British Judge: How Did You Call It?



You're the ninth judge in Finland and everyone is looking to you for the tie-breaking vote.  How would your inner Vanessa Riley judge this event?  Be prepared to defend it at the judges' meeting the next morning.



5 comments:

  1. I have to say, at the time I was 100% in A/P's corner in this argument. But over time, I've become much more conflicted. I'd still go with the French. B/K were good but not in the same league and had a couple of little miscues.

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  2. Bourne & Kratz managed to look both improved and brittle. How is that even possible? I think they deserved bronze, though I really hated K&O's FD that year. I'm sure it was amazing technically, I just can't see it. They were my favourite dance back then, and I felt they were robbed in 1997. I think they deserved to be second, and if B&K had been able to really perform their FD, maybe even third because I just couldn't get over how disjointed it was. Tracy Wilson (I think) compared their FD to Drobiazko & Vanagas' 'tribal' program that year. I vaguely remember she said they weren't comparable technically, but she enjoyed D&V's program more.

    I go back and forth on thinking MITIM was amazing or over blown. A&P certainly delivered that night, though.

    I feel like '99 was the last year of real golden ice dance until recent times. K&O retired, B&K missed most of 2000, and thus lost a lot of momentum they had left. There was no one to really push A&P. Fusar-Poli and Margaglio and 2001 will always go down as a big joke that ice dance judges played on everyone.

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  3. I can't speak like a judge because I do not have nearly that kind of depth of understanding of the technicalities.

    But that does not stop me having feelings about what I saw.

    Really liked K/O's program a lot at first but it was too long and repetitive and I got bored.

    All I could think of while watching A/P was how much I revere Yagudin's Olympics performance to that music (despite the fact I don't like the music). I think A/P deserved to win based on just what Dick said, they create moments that stick in your memory. From my untrained eye, their skating seemed sharper than K/O.

    Hated the costumes of both men in the above pairs. Also there is a kind of bombastic quality in both that I find off-putting.

    The 'cleanness' of B/K was a tonic in context of the two other teams, but it made me think again how while I usually find a lot to like about Christopher Dean's choreography for others, it always seems to come up short compared to when he and Jane were skating.

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  4. I think the podium/FD ranking is correct. I really enjoyed both of the top two.

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  5. Thanks for posting! I was in college at this time and must not have had much TV access because I barely remember ever really focusing on this event. What a pleasure to watch--three wildly different but fantastic free dances! A/P obviously gave me a wonderful performance, but I couldn't help but notice how many crossovers they had versus the other teams. Then again they sure know how to use said crossovers to get some blistering speed! And they obviously have the technical goods to back it up, as they demonstrated more in the second half, but I think their reliance on big movements early on may have fueled the argument for K/O to be ahead. I applaud K/O for stepping outside the box when they could have played it safe knowing they were set up for the world title that season. Anyway, fun stuff to watch, thanks!

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