World Championships Results -
Women's Freeskating Event - A Level Qualifying Round Placements

The first qualifying round for World's ended a short time ago.  More news as to how they skated when I get it. Placements are as follows.

6:56:23 PM    

The Skating Diva Speaks:  Marie-Reine Le Gougne's and ISU President Cinquanta are Back in the News-- Again
[Worlds News is below-- scroll down]

Max Miller, attorney for former Olympic Pairs Judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne, (left) is talking to the press again, during the World Championships in order to garner more public media attention and expose a few of the ISU's warts in public. While Miller doesn't have one of the more popular people in the skating world as a client, he is still claiming that Referee Pfenning and ISU Technical Chairmen Stapleford "exercised undue influence'' over Le Gougne and made false accusations.

At least Max is keeping his story straight. It might be nice if he reminded his client to keep her mouth shut, because everytime she opens her mouth, it's not helping her case.

However as much as you might not care for Max Miller, he does have one major valid complaint.

Since the ISU has announced a hearing date for April 29-30th, they have yet to provide Miller with one shred of the evidence from the investigation against his client, despite the ISU's promises to provide the copies to Miller in a message he received on or about March 16th. Miller has publicly stated he feels like he's being ambushed.  I'm not surprised.

On the other side of things Ottavio "Speedy" Cinquanta, ISU President is telling USA Today that Le Gougne "or any individual involved or concerned, will receive in due time, and of course before the hearing, the adequate number of documents related to the hearing in order to put these people in the position to defend themselves.''

Well Speedy the major questions is WHEN? And what is an ADEQUATE NUMBER OF DOCUMENTS? Ut Oh... Speedy's in over his head, again.

I am very sure the ISU Executive Counsel is well aware the court of public opinion is not smiling on the ISU or its governance of Figure Skating. I'm heard the USFSA isn't thrilled either. It stands to lose big time if this isn't resolved soon. [in Red Box] But Cinquanta's dragging his feet again. The last time we had to get to the heart of the judging problem and resolve the issue, it took Skating Diva Reports: IOC President, Dr. Jack Rogge pushing Cinquanta to do the right thing with a cattleprod. May be we need to get Dick Pound, IOC Rep. from Canada on board with the ISU to explain how "due process" works?

Personally I'd vote for Dick Pound. He's a take-no-BS lawyer (and a good one at that,) who's played in this type of arena. I'm quite sure Pound would be able to assist ISU Vice President, Gerhard Zimmerman, who heading the investigation. (I believe Zimmerman is an lawyer.) Between Pound and Zimmerman, they would have no problem through a fair investigation and insuring a fair hearing would take place getting that would stand the test of public scrutiny.

But I'd venture to guess Speedy Cinquanta would give birth to a cat on the spot, if that were suggested.

Why? It is rumored that the ISU President has more than one skeleton and dirty deal in his closet, which would come out in any investigation. Cinquanta's backroom deals and attitude of entitlement are rumored that if they ever saw the light of day, would put the IOC-SLC kickback investigation to shame. Cinquanta's treatment of the figure skaters and the demanding "grand prix" competitions for world class elite skaters is well known and hated by all the skaters. This Grand Prix Tour has virtually stripped the skaters of their earning power, completely killed the professional-amateur competitions we saw after the Nagano and Norway Olympics. Why? Because Cinquanta and the ISU gets a cut of the money from every Grand Prix event. And the ISU refuses to allow the amateurs to compete in the pro-ams on weeks the Grand Prix events take place, in order to line the ISU and Speedy's pockets with new money.

In reality everyone involved in the SLC Olympic Pairs Judging scandal needs to be heard in a open manner in which everyone who's involved with this judging problem gets fair and an equal opportunity to see all the facts from all the people interviewed PRIOR TO THE HEARING and WITH ADEQUATE TIME TO REVIEW THE MATERIAL. Anything less would be unethical for the sport.

And... Yes, and that includes Marie-Reine Le Gougne and her attorney Max Miller.

5:32:13 PM    

Note: Unlike the Olympics where the number of skaters per nation are limited by a specific formula based on previous national and individual world ranking, the World Championships has an additional qualifying round that splits the 39 skaters into two groups by draw. (They are referred to as the A & B Groups.) These two qualifying round ranks the skaters and reduces the field to the top 30 skaters in the world for the short program by taking the top 15 in each group. The skaters perform their short programs. The groups are then combined for the short program and after the short program is scored, the group is again reduced to allow only the top 24 skaters in the world to skate the final free skating event.

Yag's Nails FIVE 6.0 in Short Program

6 Cheng Jiang Li - China

7 Jeff Buttle - Canada

8  Brian Joubert - France

9  Kevin VanDer Perren - Belgium

10 Frederic Dambier - France

11 Anthony Liu - Australia

12 Andrejs Vlascenko - Germany

13 Min Zhang - China

14 - Matt Savoie - USA

 

For the complete results you can bypass the slug-slow World' Championship site and go directly to Scorers Program tabulating the results in live-time at www.Icecacl.com.

 

Pairs Short Program Results and Comments

 

Monday was also the start of the Pairs Event. Olympic Co-Gold Medallists Sale and Pelletier of Canada and Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia not competing, only 20 teams were registered to skate so no qualifying rounds were required. So the judging began with the Short Program.

 

It's reported by former skater Judy Blumberg, that the top five world ranked teams put on a good show. Judy further said:

 

"Olympic Bronze Medallists, Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China, performed aggressively and opened with a huge throw triple loop, solid side by side triple toes, and a split double twist that has more air time than Michael Jordan." 

 

 

Shen and Zhao are in first place at the end of the short. (left)

Results of the top skaters went:

2. Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin - Russia

3. Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman - USA (right)

4. Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov - Russia

5. Pang and Tong - China (left)

 

 

For the complete results you can bypass the slug-slow World' Championship site and go directly to Scorers Program tabulating the results in live-time at www.Icecal.com.

 

 

Compulsory Dance - Oh Bouy!

 

With the absence of Olympic Gold medallists, Anisina and Peizerat, and Bronze medallists, Fusar-Poli and Margalio, the normal buzz was lacking in the air of the arena when the compulsory dance event started. However the tension build up as time to start drew closer because the first dance to be skated was The Golden Waltz. This dance made up by former Olympic Gold Medallists Klimova and Ponamarenko, who are known for the intricate footwork. It is a truly beautiful waltz. But to say they created a dance with Murphy in mind would be an understatement. Honestly I love it! It adds a little challenge to the event.

 

To you non-skaters this means if something could go wrong-- it could and it did!

 

For those of you who skate dance, this dance lent itself to the serious potential for a fall pool. Say $5? The list of error, falls, missteps and bumbles read like a who's who in international ice dance world . Read on...

 

Even Canadian Skater Shae-Lynn Bourne had a major costume failure, exposing a little more of her top than planned. But to have it replayed on the in-house Jumbotron while sitting in the "Kiss 'n Cry" area was both embarrassing and uncalled for! However Shae Lynn took the embarrassment in stride by saying, "I tried to not be cautious even though I knew I was revealing a little bit too much of myself. I think a lot of girls, at least in ice dancing, do experience it at some point in your career. It doesn't feel so good when it happens."  No lie.

 

Needless to say, once this dance was over everyone, including the judges were happy they'd survived that round.

 

The second compulsory dance was the Quickstep.

 

It's been reported that everyone was thrilled to be doing the QS. However reports from other dancers in attendance, I know said, "The entire group couldn't skate a good Quickstep to save their butts! It's time to go back, take out the Dance Book and review the steps with everyone who skated it!"  The Choctaw, which is a major element in the dance, was never done correctly and consistently by any of the teams. While the dancers could present a good dance, they could not skate the required steps on the proper edge or timing. It is pity that Senior Elite Dancers of this level can not translate a simple, powerful dance onto the ice.

 

Hopefully the Optional Set Pattern Dance scheduled for Thursday will get the skaters back on track and next year the teams will learn the dances as written.

 

The current results are: 

1. Lobacheva and Averbukh - Russia (left)

2. Bourne and Kraatz  - Canada (right)

3. Drobiazko and Vanagas - Lithuania.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lang and Tchernyshev of the USA are in 7th place. 

 

For the complete results you can bypass the slug-slow World' Championship site and go directly to Scorers Program tabulating the results in live-time at www.Icecal.com.

 

More as we know what's cooking in Nagano...

 

 

 

One more thing: Can we get a decent website online for worlds?

 

Figure Skating is one of the most plugged in sports in the world. However the creators of the 2002 World Championship Website, never once learned a damn thing from Jakob Neilsen. I highly doubt they've even seen his books. But I'd highly recommend someone reads one.

 

The Problem: Because of the time shift in Japan to the rest of the world, and lack of real time coverage outside Japan to the rest of the world, the World Championship 2002 website has been hit hard by many people around the world who are interested in keeping track of the standings from the official source. 

 

However, the ISU site and the 2002 Worlds site are some of the best examples of Worst Practices in usability.  Flash screens, Java Scripts, frames, and remote data half a world away makes the users experience a real trauma to experience. With all the wonderful computer people who are within the skating community and others who love the sport-- you'd think the ISU would get a clue.

2:41:20 PM