Skate Canada 2007-08

official
http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/events_results/events/sci07/

Discuss about Skate Canada or bibi's reports
I feel excited already!!!!

Mao-chan ganbatte~

I am looking forword to see your wonderful skating

Hello Everyone,
In Quebec city, we're now 20h40. I heard that she has arrived this morning along with her coach and her mother at 9h00. Also, I'm going to see her practice tomorrow morning at 8h00 (CANT WAIT!!! ) and I'll stay there for all day long to see other practices and to patch the holes!!
bye bye
bibi

bibi wrote:

Also, I'm going to see her practice tomorrow morning at 8h00 (CANT WAIT!!! )

Me neither!!!!! :bounce:
Please report just EVERYTHING you can!
And have fun!

bibi, we are all with you in our thoughts!
And since you have an access to the Holy Lands (where figure skaters walk)... stick Joubert's skates together with a chewed chewing gum, so that Jeff could win the event, ok?
Well, just joking.
Have a nice time, bibi!

And, of course...
MAO-CHAN, GOOD LUCK!!!
Oh... I already feel myself a bit nervous.

Before bibi the reporter tells us more about the practices, I found this clip on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MvBEpOx6Es

That's simply awsome!!!!!
And she's using the piano version!

Wow, amazing! So much passion and power - I didn't expect that from Mao, I always thought her to be a very soft, lyrical skater. Great to see that she can be so versatile!

And she has definitely the best step sequences of all ladies now.

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had a W O N D E R F U L day!!!!
first, there was the ladies practises at 8:00 and Mao skated in the second group along with Yukari Nakano, Nana Takeda, Leslie Hawker, Joannie Rochette and Cynthia Phaneuf. When she came on the ice, I put Aero Chan on my knee so she could see it ( we were really near the ice!). She did awesome in practice. She practiced a lot of edges and then she did jumps. She didn't fell on any jumps. They were so light. She did beautiful triple flip triple loop and also triple flip triple toe (some were 2 footed) combinations. I really like her new free program. Also, it seems like she is going to attempt only one triple axel with brackets(the same as last year) although she did do any jump in her program. She's really elegant and musical, I like it a lot!! Then she practiced triple axels, She 2 footed some of them but I remember seeing one clean!
When the practice finished said to Mao to come to see me and I asked her is she could sign my skate (I was shacking because I was so nervous). She responded "Sure" with a little voice. That was really nice. We took a picture together and then she was about to leave and my mother said to me that I forgot to give her the gift I bought for her (2 little skates with "quebec" written on it and a picture with the address of my website on it). She was very happy she said to me many time "thank you so much"... I was shacking... I couldn't believe it!!
After, we went where all the skaters leave the backstage and we waited for more autograph. Skaters after Skaters, we saw many of them and got a lot of autograph...and finally Mao appeared with a lot of camera all around her and she was smiling as always. This time she signed my aero chan on his skate and I think she was really happy to see that a canadian has it! All the journalist from japan were also impressed they were like "ohh Aero!!" and they filmed me so maybe you'll find a video of me on youtube
Here is a list of the skaters who gave me autographs: Mao, Yukari Nakano, Nana Takeda, Joannie Rochette, Cynthia Phaneuf, Vaugh Chipper, Cristopher Mabee and Jeffrey Buttle.

Hope you enjoyed my report!!
bibi

Great report, thank you so much bibi!

You are so lucky to get Mao's autograph! (And the other skaters' too...)

Great to hear Mao was doing well in the practice. I hope there will be some more videos available on YouTube later...

Good luck, Mao!

Thank you bibi!
GREAT reports!

Quote :

Before bibi the reporter tells us more about the practices, I found this clip on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MvBEpOx6Es

That's simply awsome!!!!! WOW! Love
And she's using the piano version!

Could someone translate it please? I would like to know what Mao thinks of Skate CanadA!!

another video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9ILl1dEwk
translation please?!

bibi wrote:

Could someone translate it please? I would like to know what Mao thinks of Skate CanadA!!

I'll translate since you gave us such a great report! Keep'em coming, OK?

Interviewer: How do you feel?

Mao: The rink (i think she means the ice) felt very nice and i didn't feel too tired. So, I'm feeling that maaaaybe i will do well in the free program.

It was cute the way she said 'maaaybe.'
According to the book "Asada Mao - Sixteen," Mao goes through quite a bit of mental struggle before important competitions, so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for her. This is a very compelling book for Mao fans, so I can translate excerpts from it if you guys are interested.

By the way, in other interviews, she said Canada and France are fortunate places. (Because the former is the first place she won jr World and the later is the first place she won GPS.)

Thank you so much CalieBlus and Popon! I'm sure Mao will do well!
By the way, could someone translate the interview on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9ILl1dEwk

bibi wrote:

Thank you so much CalieBlus and Popon! I'm sure Mao will do well!
By the way, could someone translate the interview on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9ILl1dEwk

Just a quicky translation:

About Mao's LP program:
Interviewer: Do you skate with an awareness that Shizuka Arakawa used the same music for her SP at the Olympics?

Mao: I think different skaters can express/perform it very differently. I skate to the piano version, not the orchestrated version, so I hope to perform it differently.

Mao: Being the first competition of the season, it's important. I hope to execute what I can do at this point in time.

Thanks sooo much for the report, bibi! How wonderful for you!
Many thanks to our great translators too.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping Mao shows us everything she's capable of doing!

What is her FP spiral like, bibi? Is it different from the SP one?

kawaiimao wrote:

What is her FP spiral like, bibi? Is it different from the SP one?

I'm interested to know that as well.

That 3A in the practice was gorgeous! And what a great flexibility on the "Y" spin (looks more like a side "I" spin ).

Mao

Another clip has just been posted on youtube. Right at the end there's a small clip of her doing a traditional spiral position so maybe the spiral sequence will be different?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ip5Nt4z8JE

Mao ganbatte!!!!

Thanks for the link, floskate.

What a gorgeous position!

Thanks for posting, I'm happy to see that!
I think she has a great arabesque spiral and that we should see it more often from her.
I was surprised that quite a number of ladies at Skate America had exactly the same spiral sq in both of their programs.
Good that Mao is not one of them.

kawaiimao wrote:

Thanks for posting, I'm happy to see that!
I think she has a great arabesque spiral and that we should see it more often from her.

I agree!

Quote :

I was surprised that quite a number of ladies at Skate America had exactly the same spiral sq in both of their programs.

I think the new rule concerning spirals made them very difficult. Not every skater is able to perform a spiral with change of edge and position at the same time and do it in a creative way.
To say the truth, there's a few spiral sequences this season that I really liked - only super flexible girls like Mao, Caroline and Mirai are able to do nice and original spirals under the new rule. Hopefully the spirals will improve with time.

For Mao Spiral,
She is doing a biellman and then, when she changes edge, she's doing an arabesque. After that, she's doing another biellman when she is skating back. That's wonderful!

bibi wrote:

For Mao Spiral,
She is doing a biellman and then, when she changes edge, she's doing an arabesque. After that, she's doing another biellman when she is skating back. That's wonderful!

Sounds difficult! I thougt arabesque would be a separate position. It's difficult to keep the leg up and not wobble after the Biellman position.

Can't wait to see more!