What Happened...Part II

Ugh, I'm sorry that this is taking me forever to do.

Ice Dancing:
The big hype here was not actually the current reigning world champs, Delobel and Schoenfelder. It Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto--unless you've been living under a rock for awhile, you've probably heard that they switched coaches over the summer. Well, they still came in second, but I have to say that I think that they're headed in the right direction. The changes could really be spotted in the CD, where they looked cleaner and more comfortable. I wasn't a HUGE fan of their FD, skated to the music from the opera Tosca, mostly because Tanith looked kind of awkward, as though she didn't fit in with the character that she was supposed to be portraying. Ben, as always, still looked very strong, and that's what saved the program for me. I do think that a few more months with their new coaches will do quite a bit for them.

And because I talked about Belbin and Agosto for this whole post, and they didn't even win, I'll give you Delobel and Schoenfelder's OD. Please note Olivier Schoenfelder's new look:



Pairs:
There were no surprises in this round of the competition, except for the short program, where the Russians pulled off a minor upset by coming up ahead of the German World Champs Savchenko and Szolkowy. The world righted itself in the free skater, where the Germans came out on top once again. However, the real highlight for me of this competition was the young American team of Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker. I am SO SO happy that the US might have the medal prospects in the pairs division in the coming years. They were great! They skated to West Side Story, which is a little bit overused, but they pulled it off and made it seem fresh with their great choreography and a HUGE throw triple loop at the end (and not to mention that triple twist in the beginning). The best part was the look on Keauna's mother's face (she co-coaches them with Captain Blood herself, Dalilah Sapenfield) when they finished the program--she was in tears, which was so cute :-)

So if you're going to watch nothing else of the pairs competition, you need to watch the long. I can't find it on YouTube right now, so you'll have to do with the short in the meantime: