2011 World Figure Skating Championships

They were supposed to take place more than a month ago - in Japan.  But then the big quake hit.  Although the playing venue in Tokyo was undamaged, in the end it was decided that it was not feasible to for Japan to host the championships amidst the ongoing post-quake crisis.

The ultimate substitute venue chosen was - Moscow!  The championships took place beginning on April 24 (I think) and ended today.  The big events were held today - the ladies' free skate and, amazingly enough, the final free dance in ice dancing! Who'd have thought that ice dance would become so popular? But with the rise of the North American ice dance teams during the past 10 years or so, interest in the sport here has increased. The duel between the popular (and beautiful) Canadian and American ice dance teams who won Gold and Silver in the last Winter Olympics, coached by the same coaches, training on the same ice in Michigan! No one could write a soap opera better than this. 

The bad news: USA crapped out on men's singles, women's singles, and pairs. 

The good news is that we won GOLD (second time?) and BRONZE (fourth time?) in ice dancing!  Who would have thunk it?

How well I remember being glued to the television when the incredible English dance team of Torvil and Dean electrified the entire world with their performance to Bolero, and won the Gold Medal - kicked the otherwise dominant Russians/Soviet Union out of the stadium with their performance.  That was 1984.  I watched that performance again tonight at You Tube. It sent shivers up and down my spine and brought tears to my eyes.



Here's the report from The New York Times on Davis and White's incredible performance and first ever (may it be the first of many more to come) gold medals in ice dance for the USA:

American Ice Dancers Tango to Gold, Nation’s First on World Stage
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
Published: April 30, 2011

Video now available at You Tube!

Ice Dance - 2010 World Figure Skating Championshps

I just checked to see what was happening at the ISU website and found this (top 10 only) - results after the Free Dance:

Ice Dance - Free Dance
Result Details

Pl. Name Nation TSS  = TES  + PCS  + SS MO PF CH IT Ded.  - StN.
1 Meryl DAVIS / Charlie WHITE USA 110.49 53.70 56.79 9.50 9.35 9.40 9.55 9.60 0.00 #17
2 Tessa VIRTUE / Scott MOIR CAN 110.03 53.10 57.93 9.60 9.50 9.75 9.75 9.80 1.00 #18
3 Nathalie PECHALAT / Fabian BOURZAT FRA 98.09 48.70 49.39 8.20 8.05 8.25 8.35 8.45 0.00 #16
4 Federica FAIELLA / Massimo SCALI ITA 97.84 47.10 50.74 8.35 8.20 8.60 8.65 8.70 0.00 #19
5 Sinead KERR / John KERR GBR 93.32 45.70 47.62 7.90 7.85 8.00 7.95 8.05 0.00 #20
6 Alexandra ZARETSKY / Roman ZARETSKY ISR 91.34 46.30 45.04 7.40 7.25 7.70 7.65 7.75 0.00 #15
7 Vanessa CRONE / Paul POIRIER CAN 91.22 47.90 43.32 7.30 7.05 7.25 7.30 7.30 0.00 #14
8 Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV RUS 89.76 47.60 42.16 7.05 6.80 7.15 7.10 7.20 0.00 #11
9 Nora HOFFMANN / Maxim ZAVOZIN HUN 83.52 42.60 40.92 6.90 6.65 6.90 6.85 6.90 0.00 #8
10 Emily SAMUELSON / Evan BATES USA 83.37 42.40 40.97 6.90 6.65 6.90 6.85 6.95 0.00 #6

Since Davis and White were in second place before the Free Dance, does this mean they won the gold medal since they won the Free Dance???

I'm going to check the news - (7:27 p.m.) -

7:29 p.m. - No, they didn't.  Virtue and Moir won the gold by 1.4 points -- total scores of 224.43 to 223.03.  Well you know what, that really sucks!  But congratulations to both the American and Canadian teams. What an amazing rivalry - and friendship.  Both teams train together and share coaches, and there's a little romance too, between White and Virtue.  Maybe they'll create their own commune and raise ice-dancing babies together and 18 years from now... okay okay, maybe not.

 Canadians placed 2 teams in top 10 and so did the Americans, both countries combined teams positions totalling 13 or less. That is the magic number that means both countries will send three ice-dance teams to 2011 worlds.  This is a really big deal!

Wow - ice-dance in North America has come of age!!!  The Russians had only one team in the top 10.  Unbelievable.  Putin is going to be spitting fire, ha ha ha!