Canada’s Weaver, Poje in deep hole at worlds
BOSTON— Strip away the sequins and the bugle beads and the chiffon — and ice dancing can be a really bitchy sport.
Cut-throat behind the frozen grins, conniving beneath the clownish rouge and batting false eye lashes. The dreamy façade of it all. Arcane, incomprehensibly judged. Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje aimed to spin sugar in their short dance performance at the world figure skating championships, a concoction of froth and fantasy.
“Our little story is that I’m the princess waiting for the prince to come back from war,” explained Weaver of their Blue Danube by Strauss interpretation, with its Prussian leitmotif; Poje in tailcoat and cummerbund and paste medal, his partner wreathed in faux pearls and ashes of rose. “And he surprises me at the ball.” Which war? That throws Weaver off for a splitsecond.
“A hypothetical war. One that he won. And he comes back victorious. With a medal of honour. And then it’s just champagne and celebration from there on out.”
Perhaps only in figure skating — more specifically the ice dance division — are such fairy tales still tendered with a straight face. Judged, too. But that was the witchy part of Wednesday’s competition for Canada’s two-time and reigning champions, who arrived in Boston as at least co-favourites to win their first global title.
That goal seems far away and pretty much unattainable following a fourthplace finish in the short dance, in a skating genre where, historically, placements barely nudge from short to long unless a duo goes SPLAT on a twizzle or arse-over-teakettle on a piece of dramatic draping.
Their smiles remained firmly affixed, however much their insides may have been roiling, when the duo clomped into the mixed zone area following a Strauss which had been modestly rewarded, with only Level 3 marks obtained in two required sections — the first half of the Ravensburger and a concluding partial step sequence.
The same sequences which have scored Level 4 marks throughout this past season for Weaver and Poje. Whatever was wrong on this afternoon was not visible to the human eye — only to the beady robo eye of the judging panel.
And, given that this is ice dancing, with its treacherous background; and given that this is Boston, where now two American ice dance teams are sitting silver and bronze; well, it is to wonder, you know?
“I think it was one of our strongest short dances to date,” said Weaver, of their classically pretty program. “Where the disconnect was between that and our score, I’m not sure.”
Disconnect: An interesting way to phrase it.
To drop a level — behind the sibling duo of Maia and Alex Shibutani (really, parents who put their sons and daughters into ice dancing as a couple should be investigated by child welfare agencies) and fellow Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates — indicates a serious flaw at this elite level.
Weaver and Poje profess cluelessness.
“We’ve only tried to make it stronger,’’ argues Weaver, though it should be stressed she wasn’t actually arguing over the marks, which would be competitively suicidal in this sport. There were teensy bits added in the last five weeks, since a disappointing third-place finish at Four Continents.
“Every caller (technical judge) is looking for something different,” Weaver continues. “It’s not very standardized so it’s all about the details. There must have been something that we overlooked I guess, somehow.”
What you should know about these Canadians: They’ve won gold in all but two events over the last two years — the aforementioned Four Continents and the 2015 worlds, where they had to settle for bronze when likewise favoured for gold. They were silver in 2014. They are current Grand Prix champions.
It’s as if they’re snake-bit at worlds, or judge-bit.
Or perhaps all that career gold over the past two seasons was a bit of the fool’s stuff?
“That was the first time in our career we were enjoying the benefits of our hard work in terms of result,” Weaver counters, a tad defensively. “We never really won anything before and then we came out of the blue in a way and started acquiring these gold medals.
“It was good for our confidence. We needed to believe that we could be champions and not always in the shadows. And that’s where we believe we belong. I expected nothing less, really, at that time. I felt it was our time to be the best and that’s what we worked so hard for. We’re not going to be okay with not being at the top.’’
With a score of 71.83, they are nowhere near the top heading into the free dance. France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, 2015 world champions, were divine on Wednesday and lead with a score of 76.29. Canada has two other dance teams in the competition: Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were over the moon with their fifth placing at 70.70; the young team of Elizabeth Paradis and FrancoisXavier are 23rd.
One might wonder, though, if Weaver and Poje have been a tad rattled by the recent announcement from Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, 2010 Olympic champions, silver in Sochi, that they’re returning to competition next season, girding up for the 2016 Winter Games. Weaver and Poje have four times been silver runners-up to Virtue and Moir at nationals. That’s the real shadow Weaver was talking about. They were here Wednesday at TD Garden, Virtue and Moir, trying to keep a low profile, up in the media seats. A commenting gig for the CBC.
“I don’t even want to look at the athletes or have them see us,” said Moir.
“We thought we could hide up here,” laughed Virtue.
Their ice dance descendants were asked yet again, the other day, about Virtue and Moir back in the mix. Weaver, doubtless annoyed with the over-and-over query, responded rather snippily: “I think we’ve filed that for the future — if that. “It’s all about us right now.” Ooh. Bitchy.
Whatever was wrong on this afternoon was not visible to the human eye — only to the beady robo eye of the judging panel