Euros 2011

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Euros 2011

Figure Skating and Ice Dance European Championship 2011:

French miracle in Bern

Tears for fears, happiness and mistakes – that was the Euros last week in Bern, which took place at the coldest ice rink of the continent. Amodio simply won his first european gold, but Joubert after his thursday fiasko found his hidden fighting spirit and with a perfect free program finished on the second place. In Ice Dance Nathalie and Fabian won their first gold too, as Sarah Meier did at ladies event. In pairs the germans earned their fourth first place.

Joubert arrived to defend his gold from 2004-2007-2009, after his bad season start, but he did major mistakes in his flamenco short program: three-turned-out from his quad, so he did only a negative scored combination and he fell on his triple lutz after a very bad jumping up. He got only 70.44 points which took him only the 7th place. His biggest rivals were: his french mate, Florent Amodio, Tomás Verner and Michal Brezina from Czech Republic, Arthur Gachinsky from Russia, the italian Samuel Contesti and Kevin van der Perren, Belgie. Saturday seemed a day of big miracles and biggest failures. Except Joubert and van der Perren everyone has one or more big mistakes in the last two groups. Joubert skated for the 9th Symphony of Beethoven (coreographed by Wilson) which was almost flawless with one quad toe, two triple axels (one of them in combo) and very nice triple lutzes. However his free is simply boring and doesn’t like his masculan style, it conviced the judges and he got 152.57. Means he won the free program (especially in techniques), but he was too far from Amodio to won the gold too. Amodio performed a very fast and dancing free program for some mixed music (Timbaland, MJ). Tomás won the bronze with his MJ program, but he made some mistakes in his jumps too. I think Kevin was better like him, so in my imagined list he got the bronze.

Ladies have an interesting competition. Three time champion Carolina Kostner was similar to Joubert: bad SP, waiting for the free from the 6th place, but finally she won the free and finished on the second place – however she didn’t preformed as well as Joubert did. Swiss Sarah Meier arrived to compete after a major injury in his leg, but after her third place in short program she skated the most amazing free program of the year with five triples (two of them in combo). Biggest dissapointment was Marchei and Korpi. I think they are very strong in short program, but after it unable to skate a second flawless program . However Korpi finished on third place, I think she didn’t deserved it, Makarova were much better. Leonova fell in pieces in her short (after it she finished on the fifth place). Gedevanishvili was tragically bad.

Pairs didn’t make big surprises, Savchenko and Solkowy after a nice short program skated quite well in free too, but Aliona has a serious and funny mistake: she tilted out from a spin-combo and was unable to continue it, so just stopped smiling and waited for Robin to finish it. But they got a huge ovation and 133.89 points. However Kavaguti-Smirnov were better in the free program, they had not enough credits to win the gold. Bronze went to the young russians, Vera Bazarova-Yuri Larionov.

Charlie Chaplin was very popular this year. Two pairs used it for their free dance but Nathalie Péchalat-Fabian Bourzat, who are training in Moscow with Zhulin and Volkov, danced better and earned their first european gold with convincing technical elements and flawless performance. Bobrova-Soloviev were very closed to them, but I think there were veeery overestimated. Last year they were around the 10th place and now they get much more better points for the same performance? It’s hilarious. But russians need an overestimated pair on the podium – after Domnina-Shabalin they are. However the young russians, Ilinykh-Katasalapov and Riazanova-Tkachenko were so so so much better. Finally they finished on the fourth and the sixth place. Biggest loosers of the event were the italian Faiella-Scali. They came to win, earned 7th place in the short dance and they corrected it a little bit, but it was enough only for the fifth place. Bronze medal went to the scotch brothers: Sinead and John Kerr.

Hungary wasn’t too lucky in Bern. One of our ice dancing pair and two of our singles had to skate preliminary and no one qualified for the short program. Viktoria Pavuk was a direct entry, she skated 42.18 in her short, 70.52 in her free and finally finished on the 19th place. It caused next year Hungary will have only one spot in ladies competition. Nora Hoffmann and Maxim Zavozin were worth waiting for, they skated both of their programs very clean (golden waltz SD and “Nagyidai Cigányok” FD), but judges didn’t favourized them too much, so they got less points as they deserved. They finished on the 8th place, which is not too bad, but they wanted to be in the top five. But europeans is not a fairy tale: Russia has a strong lobby before Sochi and ISU sacrificed them.