whisper
12th April 2008, 19:58
Care considerati ca este cea mai buna pereche?
Aliona/Robin? Dan/Hao? sau poate Dube/Davison:P
Best of the best in pairs skating this season
Savchenko and Szolkowy have break out year in pairs
By Mickey Brown, special to icenetwork.com
(04/02/2008) - The real intrigue in the world of pairs skating during the 2007-08 season was not at the very top, where Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy reside, but just beneath them, where several teams are jockeying for supremacy.
While Canadians Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison and Russians Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov made their presences felt, the veteran Chinese pairs teams of Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang and Qing Pang and Jian Tong remained relevant with strong finishes throughout the campaign. With Americans Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker eligible for world championships next year, they will throw their hats into the ring, making the competition in the 2008-09 season even fiercer.
Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy
Ten years after making their competitive debuts, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy have reached the summit of their sport. Persistence does, indeed, pay off.
Both skaters began competing in 1998 with different partners -- she with the Ukraine's Stanislav Morozov, he with Claudia Rauschenbach -- and over the next few years they met with mixed results.
It was not until their 2003 union that they started to produce a string of successes that culminated in the glorious 2007-08 season, in which they won all but one competition they entered, including the 2008 ISU World Figure Skating Championships.
In the grand scope, their victory in Gothenburg, Sweden, is of significantly greater consequence than just serving as the crowning achievement of their skating careers. It represented the first time a male skater of partial African descent -- his mother is German, his father Tanzanian -- won the world pairs title (American Tai Babilonia was the first of either sex).
In capturing the gold, they also put German pairs skating back on the map. The last German team to earn top honors at worlds was Mandy Wötzel and Ingo Steuer, in 1997, the same Ingo Steuer who serves as Savchenko and Szolkowy's coach and choreographer. The win serves as something of a statement to the German Skating Union, which cut nearly all the team's funding because of Steuer's purported ties to the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany.
The couple is striking looking; he with his swarthy, exotic appearance, and she with her classic Prussian look -- all blonde hair and blue eyes. Their significant size difference -- he's got nine inches and more than 50 pounds on her -- makes their lifts, twists and throws sights to behold and more than makes up for their inconsistent jumps.
After meeting little resistance in winning the Nebelhorn Trophy in September, Savchenko and Szolkowy rolled the competition at Skate Canada, beating eventual world bronze medalists Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison by more than 14 points. They hit their lone bump in the road of the season at the Cup of Russia, where they were out-skated by the Chinese pair of Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang. From that point on, they were untouchable, demolishing the field at the NHK Trophy, walking away with the ISU Grand Prix Final title, winning their fifth straight German championship, taking their first European championship crown in a cakewalk, and, finally, coming back from second in the short program to win worlds by a five-point margin.
Best: Tie: The execution of their Cirque du Soleil free skate at Europeans, which earned them a season-best score of 132.03, and their short program at the Grand Prix Final. Szolkowy's singling an intended triple Salchow in Zagreb was the only thing that kept them from setting the record for the highest free skate mark in history. One judge awarded them with an unheard-of 9.0 mark for interpretation. Despite Savchenko's two-footing their throw triple flip, the pair set a short program record in Turin with 72.14 points (Zhang and Zhang have since broken that record at worlds).
Worst: The Cup of Russia, when she missed her triple toe in the short program, and he fell on his triple Salchow and singled his Axel in the free skate.
Fast fact: Savchenko and Szolkowy's world championships score of 202.86 is the highest mark since Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin racked up 204.48 points en route to winning the gold at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang
Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang have been maddeningly consistent over the course of their career, and that's the problem.
Since its fifth-place finish at the 2005 Grand Prix Final, the team has medaled at all but one of the 13 international competitions it has entered, that being the 2007 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, where it came in fifth. During that time, Zhang and Zhang have won gold at three Grand Prix Series events as well as the 2007 Winter University Games, where the competition was less than formidable.
But the medal color they have received most often is silver. The reigning king and queen of Chinese pairs skating have been crowned runner-up at seven of those 13 events, and while there is no shame in being able to call yourself the "Second Best in the World" at anything, they have to be becoming increasingly frustrated with their recent lack of a significant title.
The second-place jinx was most prevalent this year, as, after winning both of their Grand Prix assignments, including a vanquishing of eventual world champions Savchenko and Szolkowy at the Cup of Russia, Zhang and Zhang reeled off three straight silver-medal finishes to close out the season.
The first came at the Grand Prix Final in Turin, Italy. Zhang and Zhang stood less than a point behind the Germans after the short program, but a mistake-filled free skate by the Chinese gave Savchenko and Szolkowy the crown.
After winning their second national championship, their next two competitions -- the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the world championships -- were even more exasperating than their experience in Italy, as Zhang and Zhang actually led after the short program only to see their lead slip away in the free skate. In both instances, the pairs that overtook them -- countrymates Pang and Tong (Four Continents) and Savchenko and Szolkowy (worlds) -- were teams they defeated at each of their Grand Prix assignments.
It's easy to forget that with all the success they've had, most notably the 2006 Olympic silver medal, Dan, 22, and Hao, 23, are still relatively young and have a lot of good years left in them. Their breakthrough season could be on the horizon.
Best: Their "Piano Fantasy" short program at world championships, in which they set the all-time scoring record with 74.36 points. They received positive Grades of Execution for all eight of their elements, including a ridiculous 2.29 GOE for their Group 5 Axel lasso lift.
Worst: Their free skate at Four Continents, for which they received a season-low score of 111.39. Dan doubled both her toe loop and her Salchow and stumbled on the final element, the backwards outside death spiral. In all, four of their elements received negative GOEs.
Fast Fact: In the last five years, Zhang and Zhang have won the gold medal at eight Grand Prix events (not including the Grand Prix Final), the most of any team over that time.
Qing Pang and Jian Tong
Qing Pang and Jian Tong have skated together for 15 years and have been considered an elite pairs skating team for the better part of a decade, so how is it that they're still a bit of a mystery?
The answer lies largely in the fact that while they've finished in the top five at each of the last seven world championships, including winning the world title in 2006, in all but one of those years they placed lower than a medal-winning Chinese team.
When you're trying to prove you're the best in the world and you can't even claim to be numero uno within your nation's borders, it's not easy to make a name for yourself.
Their 2007 Grand Prix season was their most successful to date. They entered three events, winning gold at one (Cup of China) and silver at the other two (Skate America , Trophée Eric Bompard). While they achieved the same placements in their three Grand Prix assignments in 2003, what set this year apart was the bronze medal they captured at the Grand Prix Final. At the 2003 event, they turned in a fifth-place performance.
For the first time since 2004, both Pang and Tong and Zhang and Zhang faced each other at the Chinese championships, and it proved to be no contest as the latter whipped the former by more than 10 points.
Pang and Tong's 2007-08 campaign hit its apex at Four Continents, which they won for the third time overall and the first time since 2004. Trailing Zhang and Zhang by 2.75 points after the short program, Pang and Tong performed their Romeo and Juliet free skate superbly, hitting a double Axel-double Axel sequence, a throw triple loop and a throw triple Salchow. Their segment score of 119.63 gave them a competition total of 187.33 points and garnered them the top prize over their longtime rivals.
Their experience at worlds was a microcosm of much of their career: they skated neither perfectly nor poorly, and other teams skated better. They missed the first element (triple toe) in their short program and their first two elements (triple toe, double Axel-double Axel sequence) in their free skate before recovering to skate the rest of their program cleanly both times. But against that caliber of competition, blunders as sizable as those become magnified, and they wound up in fifth, their first time off the world podium since 2005.
Pang and Tong's finishes at the world championships the last seven years look like this: fifth, fourth, third, fourth, first, second, fifth. Reversing the downward trend will not be easy as the Germans, Canadians, Russians and, of course, that other Chinese team don't figure to be going anywhere anytime soon. With their age becoming a possible factor (they both turn 29 later this year), time may be running out for the Energizer bunnies of pairs skating.
Best: Tough not to put their free skate at Four Continents here, but their free skate at Tropheé Eric Bompard actually netted them a season-best score of 122.61 points.
Worst: It was early in the season, and they had to deal with a travel mishap, but their free skate at Skate America was uncharacteristic. They both singled their planned double Axel-double toe loop combination, Pang fell on the throw triple loop, and they received no credit for their last pairs spin.
Fast fact: Pang and Tong have won more medals at Four Continents (six) than any other pairs team. Zhang and Zhang are second with five.
Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison
That went a bit smoother, didn't it?
After experiencing a nightmarish, injury-plagued 2006-07, one that included her having to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery in September that forced the team to skip the Grand Prix Series and then the famous face-slashing incident at the 2007 Four Continents Championships, Dubé and Davison were in dire need of a drama-free season.
And that's just what they got -- little drama, lots of medals.
The pair wasted little time in boldly pronouncing it was ready to move into the world's elite, upending reigning world silver medalists Pang and Tong at Skate America in Reading, Pa. The following week, skating in front of their home fans at Skate Canada in Quebec City, Dubé and Davison grabbed the silver, finishing behind eventual world champions Savchenko and Szolkowy.
Those placements earned them a spot in the Grand Prix Final. A third Grand Prix assignment, at the NHK Trophy in Sendai, Japan, produced a sub-par result of 160.21 points, but they still earned their third Grand Prix medal of the season, a bronze.
The slide continued in their next two competitions. Although just qualifying for the Grand Prix Final was a major achievement in itself, they made major mistakes in both segments there and came in a distant fourth.
Then the unthinkable happened. Dubé and Davison, who sprung an upset at the 2007 Canadian championships over then reigning three-time national champions Valerie Marcoux and Craig Buntin, skated a short program they'd soon like to forget. Three major errors left them with a score of 54.32 and put them in a shocking fifth place.
A dazzling free skate, marred only by a fall on the throw triple Lutz, nearly brought them all the way back, but they had to settle for the silver, a mere .15 points behind winners Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay. The team opted to stay home and train for the world championships instead of competing at the Four Continents Championships in South Korea, a decision that paid off in spades. Fourth after the short program, Dubé and Davison unleashed a career-best free skate, one that was deemed the second best of the competition and elevated them into third overall.
Along with Meagan Duhamel and Craig Buntin (sixth at worlds) and Langlois and Hay (eighth at worlds), Dubé and Davison's emergence signals to China and Russia that a third country has entered the discussion of "World's Best Breeding Ground for Pairs Skating."
Best: Their "The Blower's Daughter" free skate at worlds, for which they earned 124.12 points, the highest score ever for a team not representing China, Russia or Germany. Seven of their elements earned Level 4, and only one (throw triple Lutz) was dinged with a negative GOE.
Worst: Their short program at the Canadian championships. Dubé had her planned triple Salchow downgraded to a double, fell on the throw triple loop and stumbled in the program-ending footwork, and their straight line step sequence was graded a Level 1. They posted the highest components score of the segment and still sat in fifth.
Fast fact: Dubé finished sixth in senior ladies at the 2008 Canadian Championships.
Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov
Carrying the expectations of a country is not easy, especially when that country is not your own.
But that is the position Yuko Kawaguchi is in.
Kawaguchi, a citizen of Japan, and Alexander Smirnov have been a team for a mere two years, but the growth and improvement they have shown in that time have the Figure Skating Federation of Russia pegging them as its best hope for an Olympic pairs medal in 2010.
Why is that so important? It may have something to do with the fact that at every Olympic Games since 1964, a team from some incarnation of the country currently known as Russia has won the Olympic pairs gold medal.
There is one problem: she is not a Russian citizen, which she would have to become in order to represent that country in the Olympics. For that to happen, she would need to renounce her Japanese citizenship, something she understandably is reluctant to do.
Those are the off-ice issues facing this team. When it comes to skating, there are much fewer question marks.
Kawaguchi and Smirnov won the bronze at both of their Grand Prix assignments (Skate Canada, Cup of Russia) in the fall. Those placements qualified them for the Grand Prix Final, where they finished fifth. At the Cup of Russia, they became just the second pairs team in history to land a throw quad Salchow. (Americans Tiffany Vise and Derek Trent were the first, accomplishing the feat at the Trophée Eric Bompard, one week before Kawaguchi and Smirnov did it).
They then turned in arguably their most meaningful performance of the season at the Russian championships, registering a 10-point win over reigning champions Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov (they took the title in 2007 relatively uncontested after Kawaguchi and Smirnov withdrew because of a broken ankle she suffered in December 2006).
The tables turned at the European championships as Mukhortova and Trankov eked out the silver medal over their countrymates, who took the bronze. Kawaguchi again landed the throw quad, this time much cleaner than she did at the Cup of Russia (-0.6 Grade of Execution compared to -1.4).
The real heartbreak came at the world championships. After skating their best short program of the season, the team found itself in third place, almost three points ahead of Dubé and Davison. Kawaguchi again landed the throw quad to start out their Love Story free skate, but several mistakes followed, and they were passed for the bronze by the Canadians.
In their first full season together (they also missed the Europeans in 2007 because of Kawaguchi's broken ankle), Kawaguchi and Smirnow proved they can skate with the best in the world. They have been down this road before, as they both competed with multiple partners before teaming up with each other, albeit with nowhere near the success they've enjoyed together. If this pairing proves to have staying power, and if their citizenship issues get worked out, they have a chance to keep Russia's streak alive.
Best: Their "Rondo Capriccioso" short program at world championships, for which they received a personal-best score of 71.42, including a technical elements score of 42.28, the second-highest mark of the segment. Both of their spins and their lift were given Level 4, and their opening side-by-side triple toes had a GOE of 1.86.
Worst: Their short program at the Grand Prix Final, which put them in last place. They did one too many turns on their lift, a gaffe which caused not only a score of zero points points for the element but also a two-point deduction for an illegal element.
Fast fact: Kawaguchi and Smirnov are coached by the legendary Tamara Moskvina, who tutored 1984 Olympic champions Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev, 1992 Olympic champions Artur Dmitriev and Natalia Mishkutenok, Dmitriev with new partner Oksana Kazakova in 1998, and 2002 Olympic champions Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
Aliona/Robin? Dan/Hao? sau poate Dube/Davison:P
Best of the best in pairs skating this season
Savchenko and Szolkowy have break out year in pairs
By Mickey Brown, special to icenetwork.com
(04/02/2008) - The real intrigue in the world of pairs skating during the 2007-08 season was not at the very top, where Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy reside, but just beneath them, where several teams are jockeying for supremacy.
While Canadians Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison and Russians Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov made their presences felt, the veteran Chinese pairs teams of Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang and Qing Pang and Jian Tong remained relevant with strong finishes throughout the campaign. With Americans Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker eligible for world championships next year, they will throw their hats into the ring, making the competition in the 2008-09 season even fiercer.
Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy
Ten years after making their competitive debuts, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy have reached the summit of their sport. Persistence does, indeed, pay off.
Both skaters began competing in 1998 with different partners -- she with the Ukraine's Stanislav Morozov, he with Claudia Rauschenbach -- and over the next few years they met with mixed results.
It was not until their 2003 union that they started to produce a string of successes that culminated in the glorious 2007-08 season, in which they won all but one competition they entered, including the 2008 ISU World Figure Skating Championships.
In the grand scope, their victory in Gothenburg, Sweden, is of significantly greater consequence than just serving as the crowning achievement of their skating careers. It represented the first time a male skater of partial African descent -- his mother is German, his father Tanzanian -- won the world pairs title (American Tai Babilonia was the first of either sex).
In capturing the gold, they also put German pairs skating back on the map. The last German team to earn top honors at worlds was Mandy Wötzel and Ingo Steuer, in 1997, the same Ingo Steuer who serves as Savchenko and Szolkowy's coach and choreographer. The win serves as something of a statement to the German Skating Union, which cut nearly all the team's funding because of Steuer's purported ties to the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany.
The couple is striking looking; he with his swarthy, exotic appearance, and she with her classic Prussian look -- all blonde hair and blue eyes. Their significant size difference -- he's got nine inches and more than 50 pounds on her -- makes their lifts, twists and throws sights to behold and more than makes up for their inconsistent jumps.
After meeting little resistance in winning the Nebelhorn Trophy in September, Savchenko and Szolkowy rolled the competition at Skate Canada, beating eventual world bronze medalists Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison by more than 14 points. They hit their lone bump in the road of the season at the Cup of Russia, where they were out-skated by the Chinese pair of Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang. From that point on, they were untouchable, demolishing the field at the NHK Trophy, walking away with the ISU Grand Prix Final title, winning their fifth straight German championship, taking their first European championship crown in a cakewalk, and, finally, coming back from second in the short program to win worlds by a five-point margin.
Best: Tie: The execution of their Cirque du Soleil free skate at Europeans, which earned them a season-best score of 132.03, and their short program at the Grand Prix Final. Szolkowy's singling an intended triple Salchow in Zagreb was the only thing that kept them from setting the record for the highest free skate mark in history. One judge awarded them with an unheard-of 9.0 mark for interpretation. Despite Savchenko's two-footing their throw triple flip, the pair set a short program record in Turin with 72.14 points (Zhang and Zhang have since broken that record at worlds).
Worst: The Cup of Russia, when she missed her triple toe in the short program, and he fell on his triple Salchow and singled his Axel in the free skate.
Fast fact: Savchenko and Szolkowy's world championships score of 202.86 is the highest mark since Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin racked up 204.48 points en route to winning the gold at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang
Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang have been maddeningly consistent over the course of their career, and that's the problem.
Since its fifth-place finish at the 2005 Grand Prix Final, the team has medaled at all but one of the 13 international competitions it has entered, that being the 2007 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, where it came in fifth. During that time, Zhang and Zhang have won gold at three Grand Prix Series events as well as the 2007 Winter University Games, where the competition was less than formidable.
But the medal color they have received most often is silver. The reigning king and queen of Chinese pairs skating have been crowned runner-up at seven of those 13 events, and while there is no shame in being able to call yourself the "Second Best in the World" at anything, they have to be becoming increasingly frustrated with their recent lack of a significant title.
The second-place jinx was most prevalent this year, as, after winning both of their Grand Prix assignments, including a vanquishing of eventual world champions Savchenko and Szolkowy at the Cup of Russia, Zhang and Zhang reeled off three straight silver-medal finishes to close out the season.
The first came at the Grand Prix Final in Turin, Italy. Zhang and Zhang stood less than a point behind the Germans after the short program, but a mistake-filled free skate by the Chinese gave Savchenko and Szolkowy the crown.
After winning their second national championship, their next two competitions -- the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the world championships -- were even more exasperating than their experience in Italy, as Zhang and Zhang actually led after the short program only to see their lead slip away in the free skate. In both instances, the pairs that overtook them -- countrymates Pang and Tong (Four Continents) and Savchenko and Szolkowy (worlds) -- were teams they defeated at each of their Grand Prix assignments.
It's easy to forget that with all the success they've had, most notably the 2006 Olympic silver medal, Dan, 22, and Hao, 23, are still relatively young and have a lot of good years left in them. Their breakthrough season could be on the horizon.
Best: Their "Piano Fantasy" short program at world championships, in which they set the all-time scoring record with 74.36 points. They received positive Grades of Execution for all eight of their elements, including a ridiculous 2.29 GOE for their Group 5 Axel lasso lift.
Worst: Their free skate at Four Continents, for which they received a season-low score of 111.39. Dan doubled both her toe loop and her Salchow and stumbled on the final element, the backwards outside death spiral. In all, four of their elements received negative GOEs.
Fast Fact: In the last five years, Zhang and Zhang have won the gold medal at eight Grand Prix events (not including the Grand Prix Final), the most of any team over that time.
Qing Pang and Jian Tong
Qing Pang and Jian Tong have skated together for 15 years and have been considered an elite pairs skating team for the better part of a decade, so how is it that they're still a bit of a mystery?
The answer lies largely in the fact that while they've finished in the top five at each of the last seven world championships, including winning the world title in 2006, in all but one of those years they placed lower than a medal-winning Chinese team.
When you're trying to prove you're the best in the world and you can't even claim to be numero uno within your nation's borders, it's not easy to make a name for yourself.
Their 2007 Grand Prix season was their most successful to date. They entered three events, winning gold at one (Cup of China) and silver at the other two (Skate America , Trophée Eric Bompard). While they achieved the same placements in their three Grand Prix assignments in 2003, what set this year apart was the bronze medal they captured at the Grand Prix Final. At the 2003 event, they turned in a fifth-place performance.
For the first time since 2004, both Pang and Tong and Zhang and Zhang faced each other at the Chinese championships, and it proved to be no contest as the latter whipped the former by more than 10 points.
Pang and Tong's 2007-08 campaign hit its apex at Four Continents, which they won for the third time overall and the first time since 2004. Trailing Zhang and Zhang by 2.75 points after the short program, Pang and Tong performed their Romeo and Juliet free skate superbly, hitting a double Axel-double Axel sequence, a throw triple loop and a throw triple Salchow. Their segment score of 119.63 gave them a competition total of 187.33 points and garnered them the top prize over their longtime rivals.
Their experience at worlds was a microcosm of much of their career: they skated neither perfectly nor poorly, and other teams skated better. They missed the first element (triple toe) in their short program and their first two elements (triple toe, double Axel-double Axel sequence) in their free skate before recovering to skate the rest of their program cleanly both times. But against that caliber of competition, blunders as sizable as those become magnified, and they wound up in fifth, their first time off the world podium since 2005.
Pang and Tong's finishes at the world championships the last seven years look like this: fifth, fourth, third, fourth, first, second, fifth. Reversing the downward trend will not be easy as the Germans, Canadians, Russians and, of course, that other Chinese team don't figure to be going anywhere anytime soon. With their age becoming a possible factor (they both turn 29 later this year), time may be running out for the Energizer bunnies of pairs skating.
Best: Tough not to put their free skate at Four Continents here, but their free skate at Tropheé Eric Bompard actually netted them a season-best score of 122.61 points.
Worst: It was early in the season, and they had to deal with a travel mishap, but their free skate at Skate America was uncharacteristic. They both singled their planned double Axel-double toe loop combination, Pang fell on the throw triple loop, and they received no credit for their last pairs spin.
Fast fact: Pang and Tong have won more medals at Four Continents (six) than any other pairs team. Zhang and Zhang are second with five.
Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison
That went a bit smoother, didn't it?
After experiencing a nightmarish, injury-plagued 2006-07, one that included her having to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery in September that forced the team to skip the Grand Prix Series and then the famous face-slashing incident at the 2007 Four Continents Championships, Dubé and Davison were in dire need of a drama-free season.
And that's just what they got -- little drama, lots of medals.
The pair wasted little time in boldly pronouncing it was ready to move into the world's elite, upending reigning world silver medalists Pang and Tong at Skate America in Reading, Pa. The following week, skating in front of their home fans at Skate Canada in Quebec City, Dubé and Davison grabbed the silver, finishing behind eventual world champions Savchenko and Szolkowy.
Those placements earned them a spot in the Grand Prix Final. A third Grand Prix assignment, at the NHK Trophy in Sendai, Japan, produced a sub-par result of 160.21 points, but they still earned their third Grand Prix medal of the season, a bronze.
The slide continued in their next two competitions. Although just qualifying for the Grand Prix Final was a major achievement in itself, they made major mistakes in both segments there and came in a distant fourth.
Then the unthinkable happened. Dubé and Davison, who sprung an upset at the 2007 Canadian championships over then reigning three-time national champions Valerie Marcoux and Craig Buntin, skated a short program they'd soon like to forget. Three major errors left them with a score of 54.32 and put them in a shocking fifth place.
A dazzling free skate, marred only by a fall on the throw triple Lutz, nearly brought them all the way back, but they had to settle for the silver, a mere .15 points behind winners Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay. The team opted to stay home and train for the world championships instead of competing at the Four Continents Championships in South Korea, a decision that paid off in spades. Fourth after the short program, Dubé and Davison unleashed a career-best free skate, one that was deemed the second best of the competition and elevated them into third overall.
Along with Meagan Duhamel and Craig Buntin (sixth at worlds) and Langlois and Hay (eighth at worlds), Dubé and Davison's emergence signals to China and Russia that a third country has entered the discussion of "World's Best Breeding Ground for Pairs Skating."
Best: Their "The Blower's Daughter" free skate at worlds, for which they earned 124.12 points, the highest score ever for a team not representing China, Russia or Germany. Seven of their elements earned Level 4, and only one (throw triple Lutz) was dinged with a negative GOE.
Worst: Their short program at the Canadian championships. Dubé had her planned triple Salchow downgraded to a double, fell on the throw triple loop and stumbled in the program-ending footwork, and their straight line step sequence was graded a Level 1. They posted the highest components score of the segment and still sat in fifth.
Fast fact: Dubé finished sixth in senior ladies at the 2008 Canadian Championships.
Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov
Carrying the expectations of a country is not easy, especially when that country is not your own.
But that is the position Yuko Kawaguchi is in.
Kawaguchi, a citizen of Japan, and Alexander Smirnov have been a team for a mere two years, but the growth and improvement they have shown in that time have the Figure Skating Federation of Russia pegging them as its best hope for an Olympic pairs medal in 2010.
Why is that so important? It may have something to do with the fact that at every Olympic Games since 1964, a team from some incarnation of the country currently known as Russia has won the Olympic pairs gold medal.
There is one problem: she is not a Russian citizen, which she would have to become in order to represent that country in the Olympics. For that to happen, she would need to renounce her Japanese citizenship, something she understandably is reluctant to do.
Those are the off-ice issues facing this team. When it comes to skating, there are much fewer question marks.
Kawaguchi and Smirnov won the bronze at both of their Grand Prix assignments (Skate Canada, Cup of Russia) in the fall. Those placements qualified them for the Grand Prix Final, where they finished fifth. At the Cup of Russia, they became just the second pairs team in history to land a throw quad Salchow. (Americans Tiffany Vise and Derek Trent were the first, accomplishing the feat at the Trophée Eric Bompard, one week before Kawaguchi and Smirnov did it).
They then turned in arguably their most meaningful performance of the season at the Russian championships, registering a 10-point win over reigning champions Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov (they took the title in 2007 relatively uncontested after Kawaguchi and Smirnov withdrew because of a broken ankle she suffered in December 2006).
The tables turned at the European championships as Mukhortova and Trankov eked out the silver medal over their countrymates, who took the bronze. Kawaguchi again landed the throw quad, this time much cleaner than she did at the Cup of Russia (-0.6 Grade of Execution compared to -1.4).
The real heartbreak came at the world championships. After skating their best short program of the season, the team found itself in third place, almost three points ahead of Dubé and Davison. Kawaguchi again landed the throw quad to start out their Love Story free skate, but several mistakes followed, and they were passed for the bronze by the Canadians.
In their first full season together (they also missed the Europeans in 2007 because of Kawaguchi's broken ankle), Kawaguchi and Smirnow proved they can skate with the best in the world. They have been down this road before, as they both competed with multiple partners before teaming up with each other, albeit with nowhere near the success they've enjoyed together. If this pairing proves to have staying power, and if their citizenship issues get worked out, they have a chance to keep Russia's streak alive.
Best: Their "Rondo Capriccioso" short program at world championships, for which they received a personal-best score of 71.42, including a technical elements score of 42.28, the second-highest mark of the segment. Both of their spins and their lift were given Level 4, and their opening side-by-side triple toes had a GOE of 1.86.
Worst: Their short program at the Grand Prix Final, which put them in last place. They did one too many turns on their lift, a gaffe which caused not only a score of zero points points for the element but also a two-point deduction for an illegal element.
Fast fact: Kawaguchi and Smirnov are coached by the legendary Tamara Moskvina, who tutored 1984 Olympic champions Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev, 1992 Olympic champions Artur Dmitriev and Natalia Mishkutenok, Dmitriev with new partner Oksana Kazakova in 1998, and 2002 Olympic champions Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.