Sochi by Two #12: The Short Dance!

by Adelaide Ponte Usdin and Wendy Ponte

February 16, 2014

Today has been a good day!

Two good things have happened: a new hotel and Ice Dancing! What more could a person need?

This morning we moved to the Radisson Blu for our last two nights. Wow, we hate to sound like rank materialists, but it sure is nice to be taken care of and be comfortable! The hotel is brand new, luxurious, and everyone who works there speaks at least a workable amount of English. There is a spa, fantastic fitness center and a private beach. Our room has a balcony that looks over the Black Sea.

If we didn’t miss our dogs so much, we could settle in here! (Of course they are booked solid until the Closing Ceremony, so we wouldn’t be able to anyway).

The Ice Dancing is what we have been waiting for all of this time, of course. Our eyes were glued to the ice for every second of the warm-ups and the routines. Wendy observes that it would so amazing if Adelaide was this intently focused on her school work! She doesn’t miss a thing when it comes to the dance.

The results tonight were not unexpected, but the dramas in the middle were the real draw tonight.

Chris and Cathy Reed were the first to go. We actually thought that this was the best we have seen of this program, so we were quite disappointed when they scored below their Season’s Best! They work really hard but did not even qualify to go on to the Free Dance. This is their second Olympics and it takes a lot to get here even once, never mind twice. Our hearts broke for them and we did feel they were underscored.

Pernelle Carron and Lloyd Jones beat their SB by over 2 points. Adelaide loves this team. One thing we observe is that their large height difference really contributes to the acrobatic look of their lifts!

Russia’s Victoria Sinitsina and Ruslan Zhiganshin were great and full of personality! The huge crowd support probably helped some, but this team has a good energy, good twizzles and Adelaide loved the entrance into their lift, which was an unusual upside down entrance via the knee. He is Nelli Zhiganshina’s younger brother, who is skating for Germany at these games!

Another fun team to watch were the Turkish team of Alper Ucar and Alisa Agafonova. They did well and looked very happy with their work. They were a crowd favorite, even amongst the Russian fans, to the point that their surprisingly low score (we thought) elicited some major booing!

Isabella Tobias and Deividas Stagniunas of Lithuania have a great Marilyn Monroe-inspired short dance with loads of personality. Their split lift is amazing because she is holding the opposite leg to most split lifts. This puts all her weight on the outside, which is harder for her partner, and it is harder to hold the split position.

The U.S. team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates beat their SB and looked pleased with their results. Adelaide loves their ballroom style.

We happen to love the team of Nelli Zhiganshina and Alexander Gazsi because we think they are true artists. They tell a great story this season, combining the short and long dances into one tale. We know they aren’t up to the technical ability of other teams, but we love them anyway! They had clean turns tonight, although their Finnstep wasn’t up to parr with everyone else. And oh, that new dress of hers! It is the perfect foil to his dorkiness in this dance!

Every muscle in our bodies was tensed when Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir came on! Would they hold on to their high scores in this dance, considering things haven’t gone as well as they could have this season. They did not disappoint and Scott’s excitement at the end was a joy to see. We did think they should have been scored slightly higher, though.

Elena Iliynkh and Nikita Katsalapov looked amazing tonight. There lines matched beautifully and they were really, really polished looking. Look out for these two because they are creeping up in the ranks! They scored 73.04, just 3 points below the Canadians and ended up in 3rd place. The French team of Pechalat and Bourzat were close behind and beat their SB.

What to say about Meryl Davis and Charlie White? They beat their SB and set a new world record at 78.89. They were amazing as always. What will we ever do without them in the future?

We are guessing that the Gold and Silver are no-brainers for tomorrow night. The only question is that 3rd place….