Again, when I say "repeat" I mean another two seconds repeating the same footwork with the same quality and same out-of-dance-frame simultaneous turn followed by Charlie lunging to close the gap. If this is something anyone thinks elevates the quality of the program and shows Meryl and Charlie's superior quality, I'll gif it.
Oh, here's the 2 foot turn. I gifed it again because it leads to my favorite thing;
Again at the end - what IS that? (See gif two posts down for 'we were gonna do something big then didn't and just pretended we did').
Okay - what are they doing? What are they doing with their 'edges'? What are they doing with their free legs? What style dance is this? What's with the hot foot? Why are they kicking? Is there gum on their boots?
Somebody throw Charlie a $20.00.
The above leads to their twizzles. We know what they look like:
 |
| I'm sure the judges noticed they were more than 2 arm lengths apart. But the matching lines - divine. |
It was the brilliance of these two elements in a row that probably put them over the top.
Look at Charlie go. Lunge Charlie, lunge. Look at how neat the feet are, look at those edges, look at that tango quality.
Seriously, what the fuck are they doing in this part? It's like they're just desperately waving their feet in the direction of the ice or the air, and then Charlie hauls Meryl around, then it's time for a breather which = knee slide.
I don't know what this is. Charlie is on two feet a lot, he hoists Meryl off hers, there's a bunch of flinging and bam - another rest stop.
Out of the uber tango stationery posing, into the spin where Meryl does the first revolution on a flat. Charlie even helps her in by pulling her hips (as he always does). These are the pirhouettes discussed before.
But you know what sets it apart? The details. When they 'step out' of their little pose prior to the spin, they're doing the same step except Meryl's bent knee lifts her skate off the ice and Charlie doesn't bother.
Concluded next post.
OMG, I am laughing now. Priceless.
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of talking about D/W. I come to this blog to read about V/M. It reads like you're defining V/M in terms of D/W, when I don't think that is your intention.
ReplyDelete7:07 - We already know VM are sublime skaters, so it's fascinating to see what super-perfections their nearest rivals possess - so much they won the World gold medal this year. The judges certainly have been defining VM in terms of DW.
DeleteSorry, I'm interested in this.
DeleteOkay so let's assume there's some kind of "fix" in the judging (and who knows exactly what is going on in that department). What about all the TV commentators, the blog writers, others.... what is their excuse for never ripping apart these programs and actually calling things the way they are? They do that for all other skaters, but somehow DW make the whole of the imperfect parts look great and they get a pass from everyone.
ReplyDeleteThank you for doing all this work, oc.
It's the American media. That's the alpha and omega of it all. If you want to perfect storm it, Skate Canada's personnel are far more concerned with their personal security after Sochi - Debbi for sure, Thompson is gone, Benoit is rushing into the embrace of the ISU which facilitates this stuff. Tracy Wilson - who is informed - is under contract to an American network. Skate Canada's media people are both politicians and suck ups to whatever PTB exists - and their work ethic isn't the best either.
DeleteFor years the American media tried to throw shade on various Russian figure skaters who were obviously miles better than the US contenders in pairs and dance. They'd refrain only in the case of some uber adorable, darling Russian talent whom they figured probably wanted to be an American anyway (like how they fawned over 1988 Katia Gordeeva).
When I look at messsage boards now, I read some snarking about the manipulative crooked Canadian Fed almost all of it rooted in the S&P deal of 2002. The irony is the Canadian Fed had nothing to do with that second gold medal, no matter what they tell themselves. It was ALL the American media, Scott Hamilton and other TV personalities (including S&P's choreographer, Lori Nichols, who'd choreographed for MICHELLE KWAN. S&P were practically American and since the US had no contender in pairs, they adopted S&P and called them "North AMERICAN" more often than they mentioned they were Canadian.
If I were Virtue Moir I'd look at what the American media did on behalf of Sale & Pelletier in 2002 against Berezhnaya & Sikhuerlidze and understand that's exactly what the American media will do to them next season.
They get away with it because nobody knows anything about the fucking sport - not sportswriters, not a lot of the public, and skaters spend half their time promoting ignorance themselves. That's why DW can get a pass. People look at that frenzy and think that's what great skating is.
7:07, to elaborate on my perspective - the blog began focusing on the sham and then widened to look at everything around it and how did circumstances evolve to make it possible? What else is that mindset facilitating? Is there a downside to the energy put into something like the sham - do the skaters of Skate Canada suffer?
DeleteAt the moment I think Virtue Moir are a bit hoisted by their own petard in that the personalities who were only too happy to help them sham because they wanted to hitch a ride on the bandwagon are only too happy to throw them under the bus now that they don't think there's more they can personally gain from working in VM's interest (besides, a sham is a lazier and easier occupation than really supporting, promoting and defending you champions). SC's like Lavoie want to suck up to the ISU, not fight them. I'm sure Debbi and Barb feel the same.
And there's also the irony that the DW push is using the exact same tactics VM used to promote the sham. Say the opposite of whatever is true. That's the main one and they're getting more and more aggressive with it.
As far as the romantic sham goes we are on the post-Worlds lull. Customarily there's some postmortem articles on the season just ended where Virtue and Moir salt their quotes with separate vacation plans and then social media photos sooner or later surface. When that occurs it won't be neglected.
P.S. - I (typically) conflated Bernard Lavoie's first and last names into "Lavoie" but he's who I meant.
Delete"As far as the romantic sham goes we are on the post-Worlds lull. Customarily there's some postmortem articles on the season just ended where Virtue and Moir salt their quotes with separate vacation plans and then social media photos sooner or later surface. When that occurs it won't be neglected."
DeleteI noticed someone tried to insert a teaser about this in a comment a few posts below.
I so wouldn't be surprised it's one of Moirville's own, making sure the fans get in some kind of uproar about Scott and whoever the current sham lover happens to be.
Eh - most people are on to them, and furthermore, don't give a rip. I think if the fans ignore their attempts for too long they themselves get more aggressive about making sure any sham moves become as public as possible.
I know I speak for MANY - I'm so over their pretend romantic crap. They can do whatever the hell they want. They are the pitiful idiots, not the fans.
Sorry about the rant - I'm done. I'm ready to get back to these great gifs and what they're showing about the skating.
Anon at 8:00 pm - good post. As usual, it appears that private accounts are becoming visible again...but like you said - I think real fans of V/M couldn't care less about the personal lives at this point. As it has been indicated previously, it's the skating that we care about...oc canada..continue with the skating analysis...cuz it's positive not only for V/M fans but fans of other ice dance teams...
Delete"If I were Virtue Moir I'd look at what the American media did on behalf of Sale & Pelletier in 2002 against Berezhnaya & Sikhuerlidze and understand that's exactly what the American media will do to them next season."
DeleteThis. It's coming, and it may be even worse than what they didn to B/S. It's like they're not merely content to steal the titles for D/W. They want to break V/M completely.
All the media leading into Worlds was groundwork. The message will be VM couldn't quite hack Carmen while DW grew and are now a magnificent complete team not just technically but "artistically" and VM have had to go back to their tried and true.
DeleteYeah, that's definitely going to be the narrative next season. It makes me sick. It's not simply enough to steal and bully the title away; they have to go attack and put down Carmen as well. JFC.
DeleteThe "Compulsory Dances" V/M news blog did a pair of commentary posts on worlds that are required reading for V/M and ice dance fans. It's got me to thinking about the media's role in all of this again. This part has particularly stuck with me:
"so, no, i'm not going to link to articles that tried to ease the shock, the silent one that the throbbed in the cold budweiser gardens. i'm not going to lend a sense of legitimacy to a consorted effort to spin how damning those marks were and make them seem less devastating and outrageous. imagine if all the canadian sports pages ran with stories like this one [a link back to your first post on worlds], which systematically explained how this should not have happened. imagine how different the mood on saturday would have been? imagine the indignation, the sense of outrage, the scandal . . .
you don't have to rack your imagination too hard, really. a year ago at nationals, tracy wilson was absolutely indignant with how the judges were marking tessa and scott and brought it up every moment she could. even though they won, you could tell tracy was furious with how the judges were systematically diminishing the asbolute mastery that tessa and scott demonstrate on the ice because the scores were far too low. on saturday, after reading from the current hymnal, she smiled and joined the refrain, telling us that these marks were a-okay. instead of giving a voice of reason to the shock, these articles, the official commentary from so-called experts, preemptively shut the complaints down and wrote the most insincere narrative to describe what happened."
All of this is only going to get worse the closer we get to Sochi. The media is out for blood, and they want V/M destroyed. It is vicious and it is cruel--both the attacks and the fact that no one is stepping up to defend V/M.
There have been a lot of events (I'm trying to break myself from calling the competitions at this point--competition no longer seems and appropriate word given the judging) over the year where I wasn't happy with the results or judging. However, by the time this many days had passed, I'd started to get over it or I was over it. In this case, my anger and sadness over this situation grows more with each passing day.
This should be one of the biggest scandals ever in this sport, and no one is saying anything. It's just infuriating.
I know the general press is grossly lacking in knowledge, but what about the people inside the sport--not necessarily the media like Tracy Wilson--but the coaches, etc.? You'd think if you've devoted your entire professional life to ice dancing (thinking about the ones who were competitors to begin with and now are involved in some other way), you'd respect it enough to honor it with correct judging and fair sportsmanship. You would celebrate the rare talent, not try to diminish and tear at down at every opportunity.
I love Charlie flinging wide his arms, throwing back his head, and Meryl rushing toward him (to an awesome lift, right?) - to nothing!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha
He even braces himself! That whole thing kills me!
DeleteWell, I'll certainly never see this FD the same way again. How did I ever sit through it without the giggles? It's hilarious.
Delete