A whole article on this?

I've said before that I doubt Virtue and Moir are actually being coached by Marie France Dubreuil and Patrick Lauzon. I don't think they ever have been. Even last year's programs, I bet used a mere veneer of Dubreuil-esque flourishes while Virtue and Moir got their real coaching somewhere else. They're beyond Dubreuil Lauzon, technically and in every other respect. They've worked with and trained with the best in the world, and while there are excellent coaches who never became World or Olympic champions themselves, Dubreuil Lauzon are not among them. DL's signature team is Papadakis Cizeron. We can see how resourceful that choreography is, not to mention technically pristine.* Virtue and Moir are out of Dubreuil Lauzon's league, and if Papadakis Cizeron skated exactly as they skate now but didn't move to Gadbois, they'd have stayed in thirteenth place. Gadbois results aren't due to superior skating. It's just payola.

Here's a whole article out about Brian Orser kind of sub-coaching for Virtue Moir for three hours while D/L were delayed. Virtue and Moir don't need Brian Freaking Orser watching over their warm-up jackets and skate guards at this stage of their career and abilities. Not for a single practice session at Skate Freaking Canada. There are a million stand-ins who could do board duty.

OrserCoachesVM

I'd love to know how the money for this charade is structured. Dubreuil Lauzon and Virtue Moir could be a straight quid pro quo - they enhance Gadbois's reputation by giving Gadbois the credit for fixing their nonexistent flaws, and in exchange for that fake news, Virtue and Moir are allowed to win.

Virtue and Moir are absolutely stunning in the Skate Canada practice videos.



They're thrilling to watch, but it also makes me a little sick to my stomach. A bit later I'll do Virtue Moir's free dance rotational versus Gabriella sitting on Guillaume like a he's teacup in an Ages 3-7 amusement park ride, while we all know that the judges are going to treat both elements as if they're equal in quality and oh so close in execution. I know this, and yet it's hard to keep down.

Also, Weaver & Poje go back to a 2012 free dance.

Je suis triste de Je Suis Malade

Blech. Bunched fists of drama from Kaitlyn, lots of face skating. Hated that program.

Beverly Smith has dumbed down her writing incredibly. Je suis malade à ce sujet aussi.


*Sarcasm.

Putting these up as a placeholder. Delayed due to a series of travel meltdowns that started Friday night. Everything is finally squared away, and I'll fill this post in later.








I'm already aware that their rumba pattern doesn't cover the ice with the power and speed of Virtue and Moir - but whose does, and their rumba pattern still does show power and speed. They're skating closer together with even cleaner unison than before. I'm just choking on the necessity of pointing out once again that P/C suck and yet on fan forums and in the judges' scoring will be proclaimed technically superior as well as the better performers.

I hate hate hate hate the rest stop in the step sequence, no matter how brilliantly Virtue and Moir manage it (with nobody noticing). Look how Tessa arrests her momentum on a dime and nails that attitude pose every time. They figure out how to brilliant it up so they don't lower themselves to the level of pathetic, but how much dumber is ice dance going to get?

Look ma, no hands (very nearly). 
A 2-footed stationery lift I can get behind.

I'm glad this apples to apples lift exists. Try to see the difference, ice dance. Or better to say, try to acknowledge the difference, ice dance, as the sport already knows and understands the difference, but has decided not to credit it.

I mean, every BIT as difficult as what we've seen
from the other tops teams. Perhaps even more
because of the "magic"./s*

 

Lord have mercy I think Gilles & Poirier's short is better than Papadakis & Cizeron's. And theirs isn't great.

No, it isn't

I know fans on skating forums hate having their screen names dragged onto this blog, but I'm using MarieM as a representative example. This kind of shit typifies a forum post. "I look at their technique and it's pristine." They just say that, no hesitation. But no, it's not top notch. You've been on a fan board for 20 years or something, and you still have no idea what top notch ice dance technique looks like. You are fine with the standards you've made up in your head, which are about how you understand music, and about the movement style you prefer. You've standards using no objective criteria for excellent skating, and yet you think your assessment of skating is as valid as anyone who actually knows what they're talking about.

Anybody who deconstructed Papadakis & Cizeron's skating per the standards and criteria that define superior skating skills would find flaws at every turn.

Some other poster rhapsodized about how their arms intertwined. Well, because emphasizing the arms distracts from the distance between their bodies and their skates, not to mention the continual misalignment of their skates and their lack of unison, not just in body line but in timing.

How is it that everybody who knows nothing about skating but loves to talk about music cuts, acting, costuming, arms and facial expressions sticks around and grows old on skating forums, but people who do know about skating disappear? I guess because the know nothing "side" is winning - not the argument, but the results. Hard to argue with those, as the saying goes, even if the results have nothing to do with what was skated. Nothing brought that home more than the scores PC got in their early outings, no matter what happens down the line. If Virtue Moir were not back in competition, PC's scores would still be simultaneously outrageous and pathetic.*

*Was reading about an official who wants to change the rules, scoring, and the nature of the programs competed even more. He's thinking about TV ratings. Figure skating is reality TV, it's not a sport. The rules facilitate reality TV, not competition, not sport. I don't think dumbing down figure skating will make it more popular. I think the opposite will accomplish that. But you can't tell that to officials whose baseline worldview is they're smart and most people who aren't them are dumb.

Imagine their names aren't Papadakis & Cizeron

tWhat would this have scored if it were, say, Gilles Poirier (who, btw, have better unison, which is not a compliment in either direction). What about those teensy choctaws?

That's something I will try to gif later - all the choctaws we've seen so far.

Oops.

A reminder that according to the rulebook, this thing:

Is every bit as difficult as this:

Screen caps:

I could do this all day.

Swapped music

Thanks to anon 2:29PM previous post for the links:

Papadakis Cizeron Moonlight Sonata with 2016 program music.


Papadakis/Cizeron - 2017/2018 fd with 2016/2017 music from Amy Elizabeth on Vimeo.
Credit, "Amy Elizabeth" at vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/236866684

^Link (don't want to mess up her  view count. Or maybe an embed here counts towards vimeo views. Hope so.).

The reverse:


Papadakis/Cizeron - 2017/2018 fd overlay from Amy Erskine on Vimeo.


Uncanny. Their skating is pretty generic, so actually almost any calm-ish lyrical-ish piece would fit any program they did, but, more than that, they have only one rhythm and one way of phrasing: dadadada hold. Da da da da hold. Da da da da applause.

Hardly working

This post is for some rudimentary straightline / stationery list comparisons between Papadakis Cizeron's lift in their Moonlight Sonata free, and those done by other ice dance teams going back to 2014.

But before I begin, the "lift" that really gets me is this:

Level 4. Totally legit.

Not only is she kneeling on him, she's sitting on her own heels as well. Their centers of gravity are pasted together. She briefly lifts her arms perpendicular to his body line in the familiar "ta da" gesture of inferior ice dancers.*  But never mind, they slop around on two feet a few times once she's out of the lift, so this is perfectly competitive with anything Virtue Moir, the Shibutanis, Hubbell & Donohue, Capellini & Lanotte - anyone - do/does. It's just as difficult, per the gods of skating. This is how far they've dumbed this down. This is what's happened to this "sport" in order to pretend there's actually competition.

By the way:

2005.

Here's some straight line lift comparisons among four teams executing stationery lifts of equal difficulty.

VM Canadian National Championships 2014

How vulgar to do so much. How vulgar to make this spectacle of one's abilities. Virtue and Moir merely skate. Papadakis Cizeron danse.

I mean even these two:

He's trying. She's trying. They're not "We can't do
it so let's not try. Let's instead say what we do is better, without
ever saying what it is we're actually doing."

Shibs:

2015. The wait for their new programs is killing me.

This is Kirsten Moore-Towers/Michael Marinaro
circa 2015 levels of strain and awkward, but the
far apart, rudimentary "holds" and empty skating parts
notwithstanding, this isn't pairs, so it's ok. It's Danse.

 

Oh, let's just take a look at the Canadian juniors anon 4:05PM brought to our attention in the comments section of the post below:

Olivia McIsaac / Elliott Graham FD
2017 Ontario Summer Junior

At this stage I think ice dance should just come full circle and return to compulsories. Not compulsory dances or pattern dances, but something like the compulsories singles skaters did in the 1980s and before. A sort of pre-competition to get the skating part of this discipline out of the way before the glamorous bits. Teams will trace edges and patterns on the ice in front of judges who will examine the tracings and place skaters accordingly. Well, not edges and patterns, plural. AN edge. Just go out there and hold an edge for - let's say three seconds. Then all the teams go out on the ice in turn and do whatever the hell they want. They just have to do something in the "style" of figure skating, which is about what we have now - not actual skating. All the skating stuff was really unfair to the athletes who couldn't do it well, and unreasonable to expect from figure skaters.

*Patented by Meryl Davis.