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STANDARD DISCLAIMER
These are my own opinions and observations. I may not always be
100% accurate and my ideas are certainly open to debate and criticism.
I prefer the Russian style of skating and may not be as enchanted with
the "popular favorites" in North America. I hope that these reports are
enjoyable to most readers, but I do not apologise for stating my own
feelings.
First up was Jayson Denommée of Canada, who skated a great new short program to slinky jazzy music in an all-black outfit with a speckly yellow and black tie. Triple axel-double toe good, triple lutz okay, jumps have good height. Deathdrop. Did a good job with the choreography; I like this kid. Same coach as Sébastien Britten. Next up was Aleksandr Abt of Russia, who did the same electronic tango music short program as he had in 1995, wearing another all-black costume, this with a bright yellow tie and much goop in his hair. Perfect, huge triple axel, but then only a single toe. Argh!! Triple lutz okay, beautiful change camel spin. Straightline footwork sequence interesting, a bit slow but interpreting the music well. Excellent style and very interesting choreography. Michael Chack of the US was next with another tango, wearing a gorgeous burgundy and black costume. A bit slow across the ice compared to some of the other men. Popped the triple axel. Did triple lutz and stuck a double toe on the end, a bit wobbly. Stuck in a flip, but it was only a double... I guess he was rearranging the program and calling the first jump the double axel. Oops. Nice style, good spinner.
Next to skate was Yevgeni Plyushchenko of Russia, who I had been dying to see in person, wearing a green matador-style costume and skating to Spanish music. He looks taller than last year and is a striking young skater with a lot of poise and maturity. Triple axel-triple toe very nice. Perfect triple lutz with arms folded in front. Footwork a bit weak, straightline sequence was better. Biellmann spin in combination - audience gasped! Very high second marks from the judges. Gabriel Monnier of France skated to "Euroweird" music becoming possibly Van Halen synth guitar music, wearing a faux leather type costume. Singled axel. Double axel. ?? some jump out of footwork that I totally missed. Not particularly impressive. Yevgeni Plyuta of Ukraine fell out of and put hand down on triple axel, stuck double toe on the end, turned out of the (doubled) lutz. Nice flow, extension. Singled the axel. Oy veh. Had looked pretty impressive in practice, but what a mess.
Jens Ter Laak of Germany is a small, dark-haired guy who skated to some Olympic theme music. Triple lutz-double toe okay, triple flip. Double axel very scary with "I don't want to go there!" Jodeyne Higgins/Nathalie Krieg entrance. Scott Davis of the US was next skating to blues music in the "Canadian male uniform" of tight black t-shirt with black pants. Triple axel on too much of a lean, fell, no combo. Music is "Sing, Sing, Sing." Fell out of triple lutz. Double axel okay. Nice style for him, same old Scott in terms of hitting the jumps. Todd Eldredge of the US skated last year's "Walk on the Wild Side" program in the black costume, good triple axel-triple toe, excellent triple lutz. Huge double axel, nice job. Had a lot of fun with the program and "sold it" very well. Next to skate was Stanick Jeannette of France, who I did not recognize from last year, when he looked like a surfer wastoid dude and was a sloppy skater with little in the way of style. This year he was a lot more polished and interesting as a skater, and also had practically no hair whatsoever. :-) Triple axel huge but fell on the landing. Triple lutz, fall, way off balance. Cool spins. Amusing disco make-out music. Double axel tilted but he landed it.
Takeshi Honda of Japan, who has grown much taller and looks like a MAN now, skated last year's "Tico Tico" short program in a new and rather more subdued costume, black pants and bronze lamé top. Single axel-triple toe, yikes. Triple lutz, fell, feet slid out from under him on the landing. Nice fast straightline footwork sequence. Double axel okay. Last to skate was Vyacheslav Zagorodniuk using last year's tango program and last year's nice black costume with a gold-trimmed vest. Triple axel- double toe a little wobbly but okay. Doubled the 'Tano lutz. Double axel nice. Zaggy did not look good in practices all week. The rink announcers did do a slightly better job with his name this time around. At no time was he introduced as "Baldeslab" or "Vulgaslob."
I was very under the weather the entire week of Skate America and was basically totally useless by the time of the men's final. Could barely talk, could barely move, hadn't eaten in a couple of days, and since Sasha Abt is one of my favorite skaters, was also totally stressed out about the men's long. The Todd incident was just the thing to make the entire event enter the realm of the surreal. Well, first group first. The first skater was Stanick Jeannette, who skated to "The Mission," "Fish Called Wanda," etc., sort of a bizarre potpourri. Fell on an underrotated quadruple toe loop. Triple axel-double toe okay. Double lutz only, very close to the boards. Doubled the flip. Nice camel-sit-back sit. Spreadeagle into only a single axel. Doubled the loop. Flying camel with neat inverted position. Doubled the sal. Flying sit, another interesting position. Too bad he totally freaked out on the jumps. I think this guy really does have potential. Next to skate was Jens Ter Laak of Germany, who began with a solid triple lutz-double toe, fall on the triple axel, was way underrotated. Triple sal low, bent at the waist, but landed. Triple flip good. Not much in the way of in-betweens. Double axel. Doubled the loop, overrotated, fell out of the landing. Triple toe-double toe. Triple sal, also not in combination.
Next up was Michael Chack of the US skating to "Masada" and "Out of Africa" in a beige top and black pants. Began with a double axel with no speed into it... meant to be his triple axel, but I don't know if he intentionally doubled it. Triple lutz-double toe, triple flip, layover flying camel nice. Straightline footwork, good expression. Another double axel, camel-sit-faux layback. A lot of stops in the program, a bit ponderous with the music. Triple toe. Spiral into triple loop, may have touched down with the free foot. Triple lutz maybe two-footed. Lovely extension. Triple sal-double toe, turned out of the landing. Very enjoyable to see him skate (basically) clean, but does not look to have the technical "artillery" to make any moves at US Nationals. I wasn't totally wild about the program, but he's a gorgeous skater. Takeshi Honda was next skating to "El Cid" in a navy blue costume. Triple toe very tight in the air, probably meant to be quad. Triple axel on a bit of a lean but okay. Triple loop, great height, wonky landing. Camel okay. More graceful and smooth than last year, I felt he carried out the choreography very well. Camel-sit-back camel-back sit. Reaching out to the audience more this year, more natural and expressive with the music. Triple axel on a lean, pause, wonky double toe. Triple flip, death drop, good footwork sequence, triple sal-double toe.
Next skater was Yevgeni Plyuta of Ukraine, a bit white-blond guy in a tan and gold costume with dramatic music I didn't recognize. Triple flip was huge. Triple axel low but okay. Lutz was triple, overrotated, turned out of landing. This was undoubtedly a quad lutz attempt, as he had been working on them in practice. I never saw any that were totally clean, but I was also not entirely riveted to his skating during the practices. Triple loop nice. Triple lutz-double toe. Catch-foot layback variant a la Zagorodniuk, good speed. Popped sal to single. Triple sal, 2 turns, triple toe. No personality on the ice. Fluid and powerful skater, though. Gabriel Monnier of France skated to "JFK" in an ugly black outfit. Triple axel good, popped some jump to a double - maybe a toe loop (sorry). Triple flip okay, scrapey, double loop only, triple sal-double toe good. Poor posture, not good choreographic choice for him, turned out of triple loop, triple toe (?). Blah. Following this mostly unimpressive first group was the infamous warm-up. Maybe 30 seconds after getting on the ice, Todd caught an edge or toepick (apparently there was some chunk of ice sticking out near the boards) and took one of those "silly" quick falls that hurt like a b**** and tend to give you very impressive bruises, but don't usually cause you much worse than embarrassment. (Anyone who skates knows what those totally unexpected falls, often forwards, are like!) Todd slammed right into the boards and screamed out in pain, very disturbing to hear. This all happened right in front of me, but I chose not to leap up and stare at him over the boards. A camera man appeared and began snapping pictures of Todd over the boards, while a woman sitting beneath him proceeded to scream at him and tell him he was scum. Another woman was screaming for a medic and waving her arms around madly. Richard came walking on to the ice in his street shoes right away and a couple of other officials came out. I just sat there shocked, growing increasingly concerned that Todd hadn't gotten up yet. The other skaters were obviously thrown off by this but had to resume skating their warm-up. What kept running through my mind was the story of a young hockey player from the Boston area who had been body-checked into the boards, hit his head and was instantly paralyzed from the neck down. Finally, Todd was helped up and limped slowly off the ice, grimacing and looking ashen.
First to skate after this very upsetting incident was the youngest guy at the competition, Yevgeni Plyushchenko. He skated to electronic music by Jean-Michel Jarré and wore a silver "space boy" costume with arm bands and black pants. He began with a quad toe loop that he didn't check out of, just slid right out and took a seat on the landing, and then did huge triple axel-triple toe, but fell out of the triple toe which looked underrotated. I was afraid that his nerves were shot. Triple loop, excellent fast change sit spin, low to the ice, and then popped the next triple axel. He began to come back with a triple lutz-triple toe which looked disgustingly easy, flying camel into the Oksana "donut" spin, nice stretch in his back. Excellent presentation for his age, jump landings tend to break at the waist. Triple flip solid, and then another triple axel, perfect, right in front of the judges. Biellmann spin. Good speed across the ice. Triple sal. Combo spin with Biellmann position. Good comeback from a shaky start and just an amazing talent. Mishin must go to bed every night and sleep like a baby. Then, to everyone's surprise, Todd Eldredge came out and did a few doubles, holding his shoulder and looking tight but determined. I was very surprised that he decided to skate. Program was Gettysburg redux, costume typical Todd, black outfit with white collar and sleeves. Triple toe at the beginning (quad planned), triple axel-double toe okay. Nice change camel. Triple flip-double toe, walley into triple lutz. Doubled loop. Perfect second triple axel, I was holding my breath watching him set this one up, as I'm sure everyone in the audience was, just dreading a possible fall. Doubled the sal. My overall take on the program was that since Todd has basically been doing the same long program for four years, it has become very refined, with all the best bits magnified and skated sumptuously. However, it's not a program I find particularly interesting or inspiring. I give him full credit for skating through his pain, although I personally think it was the wrong decision.
Next to skate was Scott Davis, in a nice blue outfit skating to "Henry V." I enjoyed this program and felt it was a good combination of Scott's own style and a more balletic approach. Singled the axel, triple lutz-double toe, triple flip, death drop. Second triple axel was two-footed. Flying camel! Since when has Scott Davis done a flying camel? Triple flip(?). Doubled the loop. Triple sal. Triple toe. Double axel, fell out of the landing a little. Nice fast spins and I'm glad to see him picking up (I mean perfecting and incorporating, of course) new "tricks" at this point in his career. Next up was Aleksandr Abt of Russia, skating to a medley of Middle Eastern music including the "Egyptian Dance" that Maria Butyrskaya used for her short program last year. Costume was ornate and beautiful, a top composed of a gold short cropped "vest" over sheer aqua chiffon, with purple velvet pants. Sasha has also highlighted his hair a few shades lighter. I wrote down the jumps after the program, so they are not in order (I was too nervous to write during his skate). Triple axel-double toe, solo triple axel excellent, triple loop, triple sal, triple toe, triple lutz, triple flip, double axel a bit wonky and landed up on the toe. Spins a bit messy. "Tighter" than in practice, but still a very sensuous, charming, rich performance with lots of character and original style. There are probably too many stops in the program that bring down his technical mark, so he will need triple-triples to compensate. Incredible whole-body movement in "belly dancing" moves, crowd just loved him.
Vyacheslav Zagorodniuk of Ukraine was next, new costume (beautiful burgundy and white), same program to "Aleksandr Nevski" by Prokofiev. Triple axel-double toe, triple flip, combo spin, fall on second triple axel. Popped flip, doubled loop, doubled the 'Tano lutz. Triple sal was underrotated and two-footed. Just a terrible performance for him. Jayson Denommée of Canada skated last with the unfortunate musical choice of "Gettysburg." It's a nice program for him, but it was a bit much to follow Todd's. I'm sure the poor kid had no idea he was going to go back to an old program! Costume was plain, a white top and black pants. Triple axel, good height, double toe. Triple flip almost fell over but saved the landing. Triple lutz landed on his toe, double toe also up on the toe. Ina Bauer into triple loop nice. Spiral section (aww). Hand down on second triple axel, but hey, this is a Canadian male skater whose name is not Elvis who is DOING TRIPLE AXELS! Nice softness to his skating, still a bit awkward and "junior"-y. Double toe. Nice Russian splits. A bit slow over the ice. Death drop to finish. Jayson needed to finish in the top 6 to qualify for an Olympic spot and unfortunately was outskated by some stronger guys who had blown it in the short. But a very promising skater. I sure hope he doesn't become another Canadian head case.
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