Canadians primed to defend pairs gold
BOSTON— A few years ago, Maxim Trankov warned figure skating had lost its aesthetic appeal and was turning into a bore.
That’s the male half of the reigning Olympic pairs champions talking.
The Russian knows whereof he speaks.
Some of the sport’s more difficult moves, Trankov opined “look, to put it mildly, not very good.”
The altered scoring system, he said, put too much emphasis on complex, high-difficulty maneuvers over elegance and skating quality, particularly in pairs — which is also the riskiest of the figure skating disciplines, resulting in throwing and twisting injuries.
“I’d actually like it if we went in the direction of choreography, devoting a lot more attention than we do now, so that pairs skating was more like a show.”
So strenuous have the big, bold tricks become — essentially marvels of technique and athleticism — that Trankov no longer attempts any quad throws, specifically because he doesn’t want to endanger his partner (and wife) Tatiana Volosozhar.
The couple is sitting third after Friday’s pairs short competition, one slender point behind Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, the defending world champions, with 78.18. China’s Wenjing Sui and Cong Han, silver medallists in Sochi, lead the 22 teams here with a score of 80.85.
Trankov and the missus sat out last season so he could recover from shoulder surgery. They haven’t contested at the world figure skating championships since winning in 2013 but have finished first in all three events they entered this season. Compatriots Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov only got back on the ice three weeks ago, Klimov unable to lift his right arm above the shoulder due to an injury suffered at the Grand Prix final in December, where the team upstaged Duhamel and Radford. China’s Sui has severed four ligaments.
Young Canadian duo Julianne Seguin and Charlie Bilodeau had to withdraw from worlds because of injury in a practice fall. Summoned as replacements were Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro, themselves barely recovered from a nasty fall whilst attempt a triple twist in the short program at nationals in January — Marinaro launching Moore-Towers into the air while slipping to the ice, landing flat on his chest, his partner crash- ing hard on her left hip with nobody there to catch her. Though continuing with the program, they were more seriously hurt than anyone had realized — displaced ribs, body misalignment, off the ice for a month.
“I was definitely thinking of nationals a little bit so I’m glad I was able to smarten up and we were ready to put out a performance like that,” Moore-Towers said Friday, of their 10th place (66.06) short routine effort. “We did lose two levels” — on the death spiral and footwork —“which was sucky because it would have been a better score than that.”
The tricks get more demanding but perhaps less enthralling; in the short program due primarily to the required elements (no quad throws or twists permitted) that must be squeezed into two minutes and 40 seconds. There’s no time to incorporate signature artistic movements that once defined such a sublime team as Ekaterina Gordeeva and the late Sergei Grinkov, two-time Olympic golden.
“I think if they would give a little more freedom into the rules, because there’s still a lot of rules about what they’re allowed and what they’re not allowed,’’ said Bruno Marcotte, who coaches Duhamel and Radford and is also Duhamel’s husband. “That would definitely help. But they’re actually talking about doing the opposite. It’s a point game now which is was not back in the day — getting those levels and those transitions before every element.”
Only three clean throw quad Salchows have been landed this past season — once by Sui and Han, twice by Duhamel and Radford. The Canadians have ditched a second quad throw in their free skate because it was messing up their quad Salchow timing — a dynamic move that only the Chinese have included as well in their free program.
Marcotte let the cat out of the bag after his skaters had pulled down a season-best 78.18 score (and standing ovation) with their Your Song routine: They’ve got a quad Axel in the works for next season.
Yes, Duhamel is a fly-through-theair wonder, a deftness she attributes to her compact, muscular body. (This stubby beer bottle.) Dwarftossing, some of us call it.
Marcotte indicated the duo would absolutely include a throw quad in their short program if the rules allowed. They secured a world title last year on the mark-boost of a splendid free skate quad throw Salchow.
Wow-inducing, no doubt, but not necessarily ooh provoking, in the way pairs — once upon a time arguably the most spine-tingling of the skating disciplines — used to be.
In any event, Duhamel and Radford have lined themselves up perfectly for a bid at repeat-gold, with the free always their strength.
“We’re really happy. We’ve been getting sick of finishing that short program and feeling frustrated,” said Duhamel, referring both to the Grand Prix final in which they slipped back to silver — a rare fall on their throw triple Lutz in the short — halting their win streak at nine straight international competitions, and the recent Four Continents where the team withdrew because she was ill. “It was kind of like ‘Enough is enough.’ We were coming here today and I didn’t care if I was upside down on my triple Lutz, I was landing it. That was the end of the story.
“We were really determined and focused today.”
Between Duhamel and Radford, and Moore-Towers and Marinaro in eighth place — with a score of 68.17 — is the third Canadian team of Lubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch, who was previously Moore-Towers’ partner.
Iliushechkina sings to herself during the skate. Actually, she sings out loud.
Crazy Russian-cum-Canuck.