http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/2009/09/ ... headi.html
September 14, 2009, Posted by Pj Kwong
Canada's the team to beat heading into the new season
Canada has established itself over the last two seasons as the No. 1 figure skating nation in the world.
With a medal in three of the four disciplines at both the 2008 and 2009 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, we are the nation to beat in the upcoming season.
This past week in Vancouver, Skate Canada has held its high performance training camp for the top 22 figure skaters in the country, including all four defending champions.
Among the activities planned for the athletes was a media scrum held after the practice sessions on the second day, where over 40 accredited members of the media got the chance to ask the questions they wanted of all the skaters.
Although the attention is clearly on the more well-known names, like Canadian men's champion Patrick Chan, it is clear that skating in general seems to be on the rise in popularity among the journalists, as evidenced by the number of questions for all of the skaters in the room.
Chan and Joannie Rochette, the Canadian women’s champion, were both silver medallists at the world championships in March.
This season, they are choosing to make their mark with superb free programs from choreographer Lori Nichol, showcasing their newfound maturity.
Patrick is skating to "The Phantom of The Opera" and Joannie to "Samson and Delilah." In each case, the skater is expressing the story from which the music is taken – using their interpretation and characterization to help frame their free programs.
Not an easy road
Despite the quality of the programs, it isn’t going to be an easy road this season as “comeback” seems to be the name of the game with a number of Olympic medallists returning to competition.
Earlier this year, American skater and 2006 Olympic silver medallist Sasha Cohen announced that she would be returning to competitive figure skating in the hopes of finally achieving gold in 2010.
She will have her work cut out for her with the 2008 world champion from Japan, Mao Asada, and defending world champion from Korea Yu-Na Kim already at the top of the heap both technically and artistically.
Also returning to the international scene are Russia's Evgeni Plushenko, the 2006 Olympic champion, and Swiss Stephane Lambiel, who won silver in Turin.
The defending world champion from the United States, Evan Lysacek, will be skating with a no-holds barred attitude, while Brian Joubert of France will no doubt be trying to vindicate himself after what he considered to be a disastrous bronze medal finish at the worlds in 2009.
A lot has changed in the last four years. The “comeback kids” are really going to have their work cut out for them if they are going to maximize the points under the judging system which has continued to evolve since the last Olympics.
Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison, Canada’s pair champions and world bronze medallists in 2008, have returned to a more romantic feel to their free program using music from “The Way We Were” soundtrack.
It is the sense of connection that they were going for in what Bryce calls a return to their “comfort zone.”
Sentimental favourites
China’s two-time Olympic bronze medallists from 2002 and 2006, Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao, will undoubtedly be sentimental favourites having announced their return to skating in time for this season. Many skaters have said that it is very hard to leave the sport if you didn’t get the chance to accomplish what you had hoped and this is the case with this Chinese team.
The two-time and defending world champions from Germany, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy are early favourites as a result of technical but not necessarily artistic prowess.
Ice dance Canadian champions and two-time world medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are both in excellent shape. Their bronze medal at the worlds last year is considered to be somewhat of a miracle considering that Tessa had spent the majority of the season off the ice due to surgery on her leg.
Their free dance in competition at the worlds was only the fifth time they had done their program. Having seen their free dance to music from Mahler’s "Fifth Symphony," it can be accurately described as a masterpiece.
The difficulty, the musicality, and the passion with which they skate the program will certainly give them an edge in heading for an Olympic podium finish.
There will no doubt be lots of competition from the 2009 world champions, Russia's Oksana Domnina and Maksim Shabalin, and Americans Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, who were the 2006 Olympic Silver medallists.
Only in the Olympic season does the competition get serious right off the bat and this one is no exception.
The Grand Prix series schedule has been altered this season so that the competition starts in France and ends in Canada. This means that the final spots for this year’s ISU Grand Prix final, which will be held in Tokyo in December, will not be decided until then.