Oh so innovative

Papadakis and Cizeron are innovative, ground-breaking, all modern things, at least that's what their fans claim. Reinventing the wheel whenever they take the ice with their very very very very modern way of ice dancing.

Here's 57 year-old Sergei Ponomarenko, whose son Anthony is an ice dancer. Sergei won the 1992 Olympic gold medal in ice dance (in Albertville) with his partner/spouse, Marina Klimova.

The Artiste today(ish). So his gold
medal-winning days are awhile back.

There's a whole lot of lead up to this exhibition, but the point will be clear when they begin skating.



Papadakis & Cizeron's so-called breakthrough program was based on Le Parc, a 1990s "Modern" ballet that is more representational than dynamic, just what you want for an ice dance program. Looking at old Klimova/Ponomarenko, I'm wondering if PC's team went back to the 1990s for more than just Le Parc. But it just kills me that this lyrical arms stuff is seen by ANYBODY as avant garde (which, google tells me, means new, experimental. It means unusual ideas, particularly in the arts). Skating aside, in all of figure skating, including ice dance, lyrical ballet-ish is common as mud and has been for over thirty years.  One reason ice dance established specific elements for the free, IMO, was that, since the 1980s, lyrical ballet was taking the "discipline", at least where the free dance was concerned, into amorphous mush, where the sport piece of it could hardly be located. There was later some encouragement, for one hot second, to bring ballroom back to the free for a needed re-set before ice dance found itself sliding into complete irrelevancy. Particularly as the compulsory dance (required pattern) portion of the competition was being cut. The compulsories are where these 1990s ice dancers like Klimova Ponomorenko established their "ice DANCE" bona fides before venting their inner Isadora Duncan, or borrowing myopically (but innovatively!) from indigineous dance traditions in the free. So no matter what this show program looks like (or their 1992 Olympic championship program looks like), we know Klimova and Ponomorenko had to skate in closed hold and show mastery of a number of pattern dances/steps and footwork, in order to place themselves into contention before the free. Which is not something Papadakis & Cizeron have ever had to do.

****

Wanted to do this gif of their gala Goose. The bad ass
way she puts her arm behind her head, and the even
badder ass way she steps off without an assist.
You can see Scott drop the mic with his facial
expression (that's how I choose to read it), even if
it looks so easy many people just don't get it.

More than how they execute the elements, which is superior, it's how Scott and Tessa transition into and out of them that sets them so far above every other ice dance team.

Followed the gala on Goldenskate, then watched videos later. When P/C skated, one fan said "The GLIDE."  They are on two feet 90% of that skate. Scott and Tessa's exhibition was lift-centric and position change-centric in lifts, yet they were on their edges far more.

Some speculation on the boards as to who can possibly challenge PC in the next quad. (Provided VM retire, and please please please.) Well, good luck, ice dance. The reaction to them, generally and IMO, this entire competition, was a yawn outside their fan base. If they win everything from now til 2022 nobody's going to be watching. I don't know if I can stand another "actual skaters versus non-skaters" rivalry - in fact, I pretty much couldn't stand it this last go round. Maybe they'll come up with another non-skating team to go against PC's non-skating. Going by the judges, the US has made its bid in the deal room, but it probably won't be the Shibs.

P.S. - a truly wonderful fan cam of Virtue and Moir's fd. Most fan cams flatten out the performance, but this one is visceral:

These are their good twizzles

I'm not kidding. These are decent twizzles. If you stop motion any set of twizzles, you're going to catch small out of sync moments where one partner is slightly ahead, and it's the same here. However, essentially, when they are mid-twizzle, when you stop-play, they are at the same point in the spin.

The trouble happens during transitions.

This happens (image above) because Gabriella and Guillame's free legs are held at different angles, which is typical for them. He opens out of twizzle before she does, and clearly so, in real time. She's quick enough to catch up by the time they finish the turn, and their free legs hit the ice at the same time. However, him opening up before she does is very obvious. It's not because they're out of sync during the spins. It happens during the transition - she's behind, and it's because their angles don't match. Whoever has the issue, the other one should be matching it, but nobody bothers. Why should they. It's 10.0, L4 and + 3 regardless.

OK, this is a little obvious, but only if you look.
They really do match most of the time
when they're spinning (in this performance). By "match" 
I mean where they are in the rotation, not how they align their
bodies. Because that never happens. She's got her way,
he's got his way, but as long as they're both limpid and
relaxed, who cares.

Even some of their fans are calling on them to do
a different sort of program, as if they have genius
versatility they've been holding out on us. But I
really don't care. I just want them to quit this shit.
This is their go to move. I think it's over 50% of their
choreography. Squat, squat, squat (which is, of course,
a two-footed move. But they are two-footed "skaters")

Ok, look at the angle of her working blade look at his.
Look at her arms, look at his. Look at her free leg, look at his.
Look at his carriage, look at hers. No wonder they're
extolled for their unison. (And not to mention, what
magnificent deep edges from both, am I right?)

More twizzling. Here's what happens. He
obviously catches his foot before she does.
She doesn't catch her foot until she's rotated, so she
pre-rotates this twizzle, not adding the feature until
she's half rotated, but who's paying attention, right? These
are their good twizzles. If VM had done these, it would
have been yellow boxes for days. As I said, once they're
spinning in this particular performance, they are as in 
sync as any other good team executing a strong twizzle 
pass, and she usually gets where she needs to be when the 
twizzle is underway, and when it ends. But transitioning? 
This keeps happening. But it's them, so let them set a WR.

A squat, plie or crouch also, of course, lowers the center of balance, and center of gravity, and the very wide foot stance makes their gravitational centers enormous, which everyone knows is a defining attribute of quality skating skills and top notch athleticism. It's a favorite stance of the supposedly sublime Cizeron. He loves to go low.

It pretty much takes any high level skill out of the equation, particularly using an inside edge, as they both do in the image further up. I once saw a grandfather on a train instructing his small granddaughter to plant her feet far apart when she wanted to stand.

Just looking at this performance called to mind Madison Hubbell saying that Virtue and Moir make "lots of little bobbles." Jesus, gaslighting is just a way of life these days, I guess, because her French friends have made a whole bunch of little bobbles their calling card.

Didn't you have a reality show?

Inserting this here: Beverly Smith breaks it down

This is interesting, although she fawns over Cizeron, who, IMO, is as fake a skater as ever faked (stroke stroke SQUAT. Stroke Stroke GET LOW. Stroke Stroke - TWIZZLE, then do something other than change direction or use your blades to arrest momentum. If he can change direction using his blades without some external support or non-skating assist, I haven't seen it). She doesn't address that not only do P/C's extensions not match, their angles don't match. She sees them as limited, though, and Virtue and Moir as superior, and seems to find P/C inferior mostly due to Papadakis not matching Cizeron.

BUT, then she goes deeper, and reports where the judges placed the rest of the field. It's a tire fire. One judge places a team third, the other places them ninth. It is like this all over the field, not just with placements, but GOE. Are judges even trained anymore, or is it out in the open that the skating is irrelevant when it's all about deal making? It seems to me that the belief the judges get together and review anyone who scores far outside the rest of the panel is myth. Everybody is doing what they want outside the podium, there is no standard, there's nothing.

Uh huh.

One of the most characteristic facets of Scott and Tessa's endless are they or aren't they games with the media is how they just whisk their own elaborate webs of bullshit straight to the curb whenever they feel like it. It's so rude. They spend all this effort ordering fans to buy into their latest re-written crap version of their history or relationship; while fans work overtime letting them know: "Yes, we believe you. That's such a great story." Virtue and Moir address "fan suspicions" that they're together, when these suspicions are, objectively, invisible outside one solitary, insane corner of a google blogspot, and most fans tsk tsk and decry the few crazy fans that make the rest of them look bad.

Why are they taking a niche blog run by a crazy person as representative of the fan base? If I were a regular fan on the forums, I'd be insulted. I actually believe Virtue Moir/their media buddies would pretend fans doubt them even if this blog weren't around, but it sure is convenient for everyone that it is.

Did I imagine they did a 2014 reality show that Scott insisted was a documentary,? Why is he sitting there at a press conference acting like he and Tessa have kept their personal lives in a vault this whole time.

Where is the media getting the idea that fans think they're together when all fans deny they're together, and why is Scott saying he and Tessa might be able to open up their private lives if they retire, when we all saw him having his post-coital coffee at Cassandra's house, and when he told the world he was bringing two condoms to Sochi?

I think they're getting it from Scott and Tessa, who, despite their denials, obviously want fans to think they're together. They can climb down from the cross about it any time now.

Finally, please please please Scott and Tessa, RETIRE. Just for me. I don't care if you "open it up a little bit" or not. I don't care if you remain official platonic best friends for the rest of your lives. I just can't handle 2022 when it's gonna be Papadakis & Cizeron's "turn" to win gold even when you blow them out of the arena. Alternatively, I can't handle watching Tiffany Zahorski and Jonathan Guerreiro (13th place ice dance finishers in Pyeongchang) crowned world champions in 2019 after a year in Gadbois unearths the world's most superior skating skills that were heretofore invisible to the judges until Marie-France discovered how to package them. This is the first time in nearly a year I can visit my own blog w/out getting agita. Yet even though they won, I still get nauseous watching that brilliant Olympic free skate come in second to Papadakis Cizeron's load of crap - in fucking TES. I love that they won gold but the feeling is relief. It would be more joyous if the scoring weren't as sour grapes as it gets.

She's enjoying herself. She's loving every second out there. I never even knew Madison Chock liked to figure skate. Who could tell?

What a shame that of all their programs, this one that is actually semi-warm blooded literally crashed at the Olympics.

I've always hated both Chock and Bates' skating and their aggressively frozen performance mode. Enough with the face skating. However, Madison's face after her and Evans' fall had a quality to it that was more than sorrow - there was a naturalness to it I hadn't seen in her since her previous partnership. So I went to watch a clean version of "Imagine". Cup of China.

It *is* their best program since they teamed up, a direction they should have taken ages ago, instead of the S&M-y, dominatrix-y, we're-so-humorlessly-sexy stuff it seems they did over and over. That hard as nails shit made such an impression it feels as if that's all they ever did, although that can't be true.

Madison spends more time off her feet than I think should be permitted in ice dance, but it's the most fluid skating, and the most actual skating - well, at least the most fluid movement -  they've done in forever. And what a relief not to watch Evan try to be hot.

What strikes me most is how into it she is, how much apparent joy she is taking in simply moving to that music. Every part of her body is animated to the very end of her extension with a natural flowing, confident energy. Apparently the real her was locked inside Drama Chock all this time. Why didn't they break out of it until now? Most teams make some type of contribution, have an input into their programs. I am guessing they knew they were more of a manufactured Davis White type of deal versus exceptional talents, so they went hard - so to speak - into packaging, just as Davis White did.

Noticed this also:

This is familiar. Not as high scoring as
the L4, dumbed down, four-handed
clutch job we see from the French however.

I never thought I'd ever use Chock Bates as the positive example in a comparison.

Side thoughts: if VM's return put any kind of glitch into the Kaitlyn Weaver/Tessa Virtue bff-ness, it certainly turned out to be irrelevant.

Have I missed where Papadakis and Cizeron praise VM's skating, their skills, their musicality? Or is it mostly lip service to their resume and competitive drive? I'm just curious if we've got another one way street situation where Virtue Moir prop up their inferior competition, loading them up with praise, while the competition is like, "They're very nice people. Tessa is so stylish."

Thank God

ETA

I enjoyed Scott Hamilton, Leslie Jones,
and Adam Rippon commentary on the heat in the
VM SD. "Are they dating?! Cause you have to
have kissed at least once to do that!'
Hamilton. "I don't knooooooooow."
He knows.

The score for the French was obscene.

The French were indifferent in the free, and worse in the short. Scott and Tessa had to spike the ball, and I think the crowd helped.

Thank fucking God. Two gold medals, one short of what they deserve. A fake epic battle. Well, a fake epic SKATING battle. A battle where they had zero room for error (despite Madison Hubbell's bullshit) and the French just had to stay standing to get scores a razor's margin from perfect. Virtue Moir cleared the hurdle. I can't even express how important it is, how huge it is, in my heart, and for me, for them to have two golds. I mean, obviously, every VM fan and true skating fan out there feels the same.  They should have more, but I'll take it. 20 and 22, gold medal. 28 and 30, gold medal. That'll do it. Should be three.

I can't quite believe it, but they're clutch. At least this time it was possible for them to win, no matter how absurd the standard. A tiny difference between 2018 and 2014, in view of the revolting double standards, but at least the possibility existed, where there was no possibility in 2014. VM, if you are beyond the beyond, we will give you the opportunity to defeat a French team with indifferent skating skills, a French team with careless bodies that are indifferent to what's happening at blade level, even though we'll call that talent.

Congrats too to the Shibs. I had extra incentive to root for them after reading about Madison Hubbell's verbal antics (also didn't want Gadbois to sweep).

My twitter timeline is trending with both Virtue Moir and ShibSibs. I don't do a lot of searching or hashtag following for either, so I'll take it as genuine. I don't see Papadakis Cizeron there at all. Every four years, the civilians can tell who deserves it.

PS  - good for VM for going back to the old lift. Bullshit is bullshit, and I'm glad they thumbed their nose at the pandering.

Still absolutely insane that P/C had such a mess of an Olympics and still won the free. This sport needs to be booted out of the Olympics - it's not a sport.

I must say, the faces on Papadakis Cizeron got on my nerves. Dudes, you don't deserve to be anywhere near the medal ceremony. At least I always thought Davis White understood that. Sure, they wanked it that "hard work", all the effort friends, family, country, blah blah blah put into things worked to kind of make them justify it, but I always got the idea that Charlie, at least, understood it was not about who skated the best. So P/C - suck it up. VM are leagues better than you are. Have a little shame.

Finally, it's nice to see Tessa's face. Part of me wonders if her face and eyes during Sochi isn't why they were here. She's as well bred as they come, but she knew they were fucked over in Sochi, and maybe it's harder for her to swallow than Scott. Scott was probably not feeling the greatest in Sochi either, but during the medal ceremony and elsewhere he was dialed in to the expression in her eyes and seemingly distracting her to the utmost. Here, I didn't get the "OMG, we won the Olympics!" vibe we saw in Vancouver. It was much more subdued. I often think winning is like that - real winning, when you deserve to win, or are a megaton better than your rivals. It's what's supposed to happen. It feels natural. Things are right. No need to punch out walls or jump through the rafters. The real problem is when you deserve to win, and don't. It rankles. I feel Tessa has always felt it. If she fucked up, she'd be the first to think she didn't deserve it, even if someone else's skate was inferior in the fundamentals. However, she's not an idiot, and she knows if she and Scott skate their best, they're better than everyone else and should win. So since 2014 she hasn't felt right. Now she feels right.

So do I.

Epic Crap from PJ Kwong

ETA:

PCs fucked up twizzles

Gif of P/C's truly hot mess twizzles. This is not glitchy, not need a discerning eye, this is fucked up the element. +3s.


I have a pit in my stomach, and not that "secretly know it will all come right in the end but don't want to jinx it" kind.

Read this this morning from PJ Kwong

Garbage

Excerpt:

Mother of God.

So far:

This was very nice.

Sui Han and Tarasova Morasov were more than capable of blowing their long programs. The miracle is Savchenko/Massot skating clean and racking up enough points to catch up.  Fourth to gold doesn't happen often. Savchenko seems to me to be a better "pure" skater now than she was before. She has more speed, more run of blade on her throw landings.  More true difficulty in the lifts, more flow in and out, even if the final lift was glacial. And, putting in a word for Bruno Massot - he's about as stiff in the torso as many other male pairs skaters, but he's more than the warm body escorting her through these Olympics. He does not pop up when he throws her, for one. While not quite sustaining a Grinkov-esque glide, he is a very strong skater and pairs man.

And of course have to put in a word for Meghan Duhamel who has really shown her maturity, decency and humanity in a big way.

This guy:

Did not want to win Olympic gold. He didn't choke
For two Olympic cycles he has been an epic
instance of willful, maybe even conscious, self-sabotage.

So this time around VM's presumptive biggest rivals weren't in the team competition, so we're left to understand Virtue and Moir are a bit lacking in the tech department, since they're getting docked for imaginary missed key points and nonexistent edge imprecision. That will really be the ultimate planned humiliation - to pretend Gabriella Doesn't-Even Bother-To-Care-About-Steps-And-Footwork Papadakis is more precise on pattern dances, chocktaws and footwork than Tessa Virtue. We know it's coming.

The team win and Virtue and Moir's placement is pointless absent the French, since we can't see if the tech controller scrupulousness over invented edge placement issues in VM will be extended to scrupulousness over the standard slop presented by the French, or if we're going to see ceiling shattering "That's how it's done!" scoring in TES. It would figure, though. Davis White were defeating Virtue & Moir in pcs while the public relations were telling us Virtue and Moir were struggling technically. If Papadakis & Cizeron win, the media relations will say their ineffable, undefinable, ethereal floaty magic carried the day, while a scan of the protocols will reveal that the judges decided one of the sloppiest teams ever to stand on a podium were technically more precise than the greatest technical skaters to ever step onto a rink.

I wonder if we'll ever get instant replay on a key point or choctaw transition. Nobody's gotten around to it - wonder why.

I was white knuckling it through the start of the team event in figure skating, not having seen that Papadakis & Cizeron decided to give it a miss. So we don't know if the tech caller who decided Virtue and Moir's pattern was L2 would have rated P/C's unmatched, shallow edges, broken lines and sloppy transitions a 3 - or 4. Why not just go for broke.

It's very difficult to read the tea leaves when VM's nearest competitors are ice dance's other punching bags, the Shibutanis.

P.S. re skating forums - describing a tech caller as "strict" or "brutal" suggests exacting standards, no benefit of the doubt. I think many fans don't understand that there actually needs to be something to be exact about for the "strictness" to be justified. Without that, "strict" isn't the word for what's happening.