Skate Canada 2008!

Held: October 30 - November 2, 2008
Where: Ottawa, ON (Venue: Scotiabank Place)

Official site: http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/events_results/events/sci08/
Official Entries/Results Page: http://www.isufs.org/results/gpcan08/

The Grand Prix Series continues with Skate Canada this week. Once again, our beloved Mao is not taking part (the wait is killing me ), but the competition will still be interesting. Especially the ladies!

The ladies is one huge toss-up, with Fumie, Nana, Carolina, Joannie, Alissa, Bebe and Caroline all having the possibility of medaling. I'm especially interested in how Carolina can bring herself to competitive form and whether the growth spurt has affected Caroline...and whether she worked on her jump technique and basic skating, which always bothered me because she has excellent presentation and posture. The men would probably be dominated by Evan, although his back-to-back competition might play a factor, as well as Pat Chan and/or Sergei Voronov possibly spoiling Evan yet again, just like Takahiko did in SA.

For pairs, I will personally be following Dube/Davison and Kawaguchi/Smirnov. I'm not sure I'll follow Ice Dancing since Virtue/Moir withdrew due to injury, but I probably would, anyway.

Good luck to all the skaters!

Yay, Fumie skated clean and is in 2nd place!

Poor nana and both Caros... It just wasn't their night.

Joannie in 1st with 64 points! That's an ENORMOUS score, considering she had no 3-3 and stepped out of triple in her 3-2 combo!

First things first...Kawaguchi and Smirnov in first place! Their short program was lovely. They have over a 4 pt. lead, so good luck to them in their FS!

As for the ladies...

Joannie skated a fantastic SP, IMO, although she did an extra turn between her 3 flip-2 toe combo. She also had the first straightline step sequence that WOWed me this season - very energetic, quick, fast turns, lots of pizazz. She landed a clean 3 flip - 3 toe during practice, so we'll see if she'll try it in her FS! Her SP score was 64, so even with the home advantage, it looks like the judges are going to be more liberal in the scores like in the '06-'07 season.

Fumie also did a good job. She skated to Summertime, which continues to be my favorite jazz standard to this day. She traveled a LOT on her upright spin though. Eek.

Caroline...fell. Looks like she removed the lutz from her program and replaced it with a loop to avoid the "e" deduction. Her basic skating/ice coverage is a bit better, although she still comes to a near-stop when she does her 2A.

Carolina's program was just bizarre. She started solid, with her 3 flip - 3 toe, but then she fell during regular stroking. To top it off, she falls again into her 2A, her last element...so when she did her finishing pose, it was right after a fall. Her technical score is surprisingly low as well, so I'm guessing her combo was DG.

The rest of the ladies was more or less a splatfest (although Jenna McCorkell and Bebe did pleasant SP's).

Here's me hoping the men's competition won't be as crazy.

clovera wrote:

The rest of the ladies was more or less a splatfest (although Jenna McCorkell and Bebe did pleasant SP's).

I admit I was wondering what is wrong with the ice...

I haven't watched pairs yet. I... totally forgot that Eurosport is broadcasting SP! I'm so used to not having any figure skating broadcasted except for Worlds and Euros that when they actually do, I missed half the competition... I'll have to watch it on Youtube.

I'm happy that K/S are in first, though! I liked their balletic style right from the start.

Oooh, thanks for the links! Loved K/S, fantastic soft style and lovely unison on the SBS spin!

Yuko and Sasha were adorable I love them, they're so soft. Ladies competition was rather boring, and sad Poor Carolina, I feel bad for her. Fumie was very good, glad to see her skating well!

Congratulations to Joannie and Fumie!

It's too bad that the ladies event was underwhelming on the whole. Hopefully the ladies will rebound in the long program.

I really enjoyed Yuko and Alexander! They really improved a lot, I'm impressed. They have always had a nice style, but because they were a new team they were lacking good timing and synchronization. Today, however, their timing was great!

...I loved Yuko's tutu.

Update on the men's SP:

1 Yannick PONSERO FRA 78.05 44.70 33.35 6.75 6.20 6.80 6.75 6.85 0.00 #8
2 Patrick CHAN CAN 77.47 41.42 36.05 7.40 7.00 7.30 7.20 7.15 0.00 #9
3 Ryan BRADLEY USA 72.50 42.70 29.80 5.95 5.45 6.25 6.10 6.05 0.00 #5
4 Evan LYSACEK USA 71.40 36.30 35.10 7.35 6.80 7.00 7.10 6.85 0.00 #11
5 Sergei VORONOV RUS 70.45 39.50 30.95 6.65 5.60 6.30 6.35 6.05 0.00 #7
6 Brandon MROZ USA 67.03 36.78 30.25 6.30 5.75 6.05 6.20 5.95 0.00 #10
7 Shawn SAWYER CAN 64.20 32.70 31.50 6.45 5.80 6.40 6.45 6.40 0.00 #6
8 Anton KOVALEVSKI UKR 64.06 36.26 27.80 5.75 5.20 5.70 5.65 5.50 0.00 #1
9 Yasuharu NANRI JPN 63.36 36.26 27.10 5.90 5.05 5.40 5.55 5.20 0.00 #2
10 Vladimir USPENSKI RUS 56.17 29.32 26.85 5.85 4.75 5.55 5.50 5.20 0.00 #3
11 Jeremy TEN CAN 50.93 25.18 26.75 5.65 5.25 5.15 5.40 5.30 1.00 #4

I must say I'm quite surprised Ponsero is in 1st, although PatChan is in 2nd, so that's good. I wonder what happened to Evan.

Russian WebTV's feed died on me for the men's SP, so I'm counting on the Daum/icenetwork folks for the youtube vids. Or maybe it's just my WebTV feed that died and no one else's. haha...

what happened to Evan? ;(

SoMiTripleAxel wrote:

what happened to Evan? ;(

b/c triple axel cheated, step out and too many step in between combo jump

Kawaguchi/Smirnov wins GOLD!!!!!!!! Dubé/Davison won
silver too, so the pairs ended very nicely, at least for me.

Ladies' FS should be starting shortly as well. I'll update again
once I'm done watching.

Congrats to K/S!

ETA: WebTV won't work until Monday due to "technical problems!"
Why, WebTV, why?!

ETA2: Congrats Patrick on winning SC!

1 Patrick CHAN CAN 215.45 2 3
2 Ryan BRADLEY USA 212.75 3 2
3 Evan LYSACEK USA 209.27 4 4
4 Yannick PONSERO FRA 208.97 1 6
5 Shawn SAWYER CAN 206.56 7 1
6 Sergei VORONOV RUS 201.59 5 5
7 Brandon MROZ USA 192.23 6 7
8 Yasuharu NANRI JPN 177.84 9 9
9 Anton KOVALEVSKI UKR 170.61 8 10
10 Jeremy TEN CAN 169.79 11 8
11 Vladimir USPENSKI RUS 150.50 10 11

YES! K/S and Patrick won and Fumie finished second!!!

Must watch videos... now...

I'm very happy with the results.

This user has a lot of Skate Canada videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/theice2009

I really enjoyed Fumie's LP, too bad the sound in the video is "warbling", because I love "Otonal".

Hi everyone!!
I'm back from OTtawa! I had a wonderful time out there! It was so much fun!! I posted a few pictures on my website!!
http://maoasadafanwebsite.com/SkateCanada2008.html
take a look!
bye
bibi =D

That is good for you, bibi!!
I enjoyed the pictures, thank you so much
Ladies medalists looks so happy especially Alissa!!

coconut wrote:

That is good for you, bibi!!
I enjoyed the pictures, thank you so much
Ladies medalists looks so happy especially Alissa!!

Yes, and after the medal ceremony, she took pictures with everyone and signed autograph to everyone who wanted to have one.... she was the last to leave the ice!!!!! She left the ice about 30 minutes after the other medalists. She is so nice!! I think also that she was so happy to have a medal!!

Quote :

Yes, and after the medal ceremony, she took pictures with everyone and signed autograph to everyone who wanted to have one.... she was the last to leave the ice!!!!! She left the ice about 30 minutes after the other medalists.

Your report just makes me like her so much!!!!!!!
I wish I was there too...
How did the exhibition go???

coconut wrote:

Quote :

Yes, and after the medal ceremony, she took pictures with everyone and signed autograph to everyone who wanted to have one.... she was the last to leave the ice!!!!! She left the ice about 30 minutes after the other medalists.

Your report just makes me like her so much!!!!!!!
I wish I was there too...
How did the exhibition go???

For Alissa? It went pretty well !!
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNM4jfacISA

bibi wrote:

For Alissa? It went pretty well !!
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNM4jfacISA

I was wondering how all the skaters did in exhibition since they didn't broadcast it on Japanese TV Thanks for the video!!! this person from youtube has all the videos!!! I loved fumie's performance.

coconut wrote:

bibi wrote:

For Alissa? It went pretty well !!
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNM4jfacISA

I was wondering how all the skaters did in exhibition since they didn't broadcast it on Japanese TV Thanks for the video!!! this person from youtube has all the videos!!! I loved fumie's performance.

Haha!! But the funniest part was the Final with all the skaters!! They were all mixed up in their choreography since the dance teams didn't get to practice it the morning because they still had the freeskate to do! It was tooo funny I wish I could find it somewhere!

Thanks a lot for the link, bibi! The photos are great!