Virtue & Moir Cap Off Comeback Season with Third World Title
By Isobel Moody
Virtue & Moir win despite losing free dance; Papadakis & Cizeron set new world record FD score while taking silver; Shibutanis squeak out bronze.
When the dust cleared at the final event of the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki, the ice dance podium was exactly as most predicted. That, however, was the only part of the competition that followed expectations. Before then, the short dance results threw everyone for a loop. And, sadly, the free dance was plagued with more errors than anyone wanted. Nor did the differences in scoring prove to be what was expected.
Virtue & Moir Win Despite Slip From Him
For the third time, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir faced off against Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron, who were supposed to be the next overlords of ice dance. And for the third short dance in a row, the French faltered before the Canadians. Poor Cizeron cut his hand while grabbing his skate blade during their opening twizzles. He had to perform the rest of the program with his hand bleeding, and they couldn’t get enough of their elements up to the highest level of difficulty. They barely took second. Meanwhile Virtue & Moir got straight level fours on their elements. They built a shocking near-six point lead. In most cases in ice dance, that sort of lead is insurmountable.
Virtue & Moir started their free dance off well, maxing out the possible score for their opening lift. But then, in their circular step sequence, Moir slipped, and nearly fell. They mostly managed to do the element, and went back to being perfect after that, but the damage was done. Meanwhile, the French fixed their levels enough to match the Canadians in their technical tariff. And they had a flawless skate, getting the audience on their feet with their intense and poetic free dance. They not only won the segment, they broke their own world record free dance score from last year. But Virtue & Moir managed to come in three points behind them, and took gold overall by two and a half points.
American Bronze Battle Derailed by Twizzles
Maybe even more shocking than the French being only a fraction of a point ahead of the field after the short dance was who was right behind them: Madison Hubbell & Zachary Donohue. The number three American team were the revelation of the short dance. They got the highest tariff after Virtue & Moir and skated very, very well. A hair behind them, Madison Chock & Evan Bates also skated well, but with a slightly lower tariff. Meanwhile, National Champions Maia & Alex Shibutanis took a huge hit to their tariff with a level two pattern step sequence, and were over a point behind their countrymen.
The Shibutanis ended up being fourth in the free dance. That, however, was only because they held their straight-line lift for too long. They got the same tariff as six of the top ten and were otherwise flawless in their execution. They were also the only team besides Virtue & Moir and Papadakis & Cizeron to get a 10 in their free dance presentation marks, from one judge for Performance. Still, it wasn’t nearly their highest score.
But passing the two Madisons and their partners proved no problem, because both men went wrong in their twizzles. Bates was bad enough, his leg going awry in the middle of the set. They perhaps didn’t perform at their highest level of energy even otherwise. They were eighth in the segment, and dropped to seventh. But Hubbell & Donohue were doing a brilliant rendition of their program when he slipped off his blade completely. They lost all value for the twizzles, and weren’t as good after that either. Tenth in the segment, they finished a heart-breaking ninth.
Close Margins Between Third and Sixth
While the Shibutanis thus didn’t lose the bronze to their fellow Americans, they did have to hold onto it against a few more teams. Although the numbers were so close and so fickle the fourth place team actually was sixth in both segments. Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Pojé matched Chock & Bates in the short dance tariff and had the sultriest blues, which helped them get a 10 for their Composition mark. But even with that they simply couldn’t quite score as high as even the Shibutanis. They performed a beautiful free dance with a strong mood, especially at the beginning. But they got no more 10s, and went from being fourth hundredths behind the Shibutanis to being nearly four tenths behind.
Coming in a little less than a point behind them were Ekaterina Bobrova & Dmitri Soloviev. They had the third place free dance, mostly due to superior execution of their technical elements. They would’ve liked to have won bronze, especially since it would’ve gotten Russia back up to three dance berths for the Olympic season. The other Russian team, Alexandra Stepanov & Ivan Bukin, were in tenth throughout the competition. But the two Russian teams had the lowest technical tariff of the top ten in the short. Bobrova & Soloviev had been down in eighth going into the free, and when they only beat the Shibutanis in the free by .22, they couldn’t begin to make the gap up.
They did inch ahead of Anna Cappellini & Luca Lanotte, who came .33 behind. The Italians had an excellent pair of programs, charming the audience especially with their free dance. But they just didn’t score high enough in the short dance to finish higher than sixth.
Third Canadians and Second Russians Fill Out the Top Ten
The same judge who gave Weaver & Pojé their 10 in the short dance (the Spanish judge) gave the third Canadian Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier a 10 too, for Interpretation of the Music/Timing. Only the Canadian teams got 10s there, though multiple judges gave them to Virtue & Moir. Gilles & Poirier did have a very solid pair of programs. They mostly matched the technical tariff of those above them, and had their entertaining short dance and well-choreographed and expressed tango free. Still they’re working on getting on everyone else’s level, and momentary unsteadiness in their free dance twizzles were a problem. They were looking at ninth, until the unfortunate Hubbell & Donohue tumbled behind them and left them in eighth instead.
But even the Americans’ misfortune couldn’t get Stepanova & Bukin ahead of them, even if it did get their free dance ranking up to nine. They skated more well than not, and the first half minute of their tango free dance might have been the hottest thing on the ice this week. But they’d suffered the same low tariff as Bobrova & Soloviev, and they didn’t do their elements as well as the others, or keep their energy level up as well in the free dance.
Final Distribution of Olympic Berths
19 of 24 Olympic ice dance berths went out at Worlds. Five remain in reserve for the Nebelhorn Trophy. Although this year, it looks like six will eventually go out there instead, possibly even seven.
Three: Canada, United States
Two: France, Russia, Italy
One: Israel, Denmark, Poland, Ukraine, China, Turkey, Spain
Next: O Canada! Medvedeva Joined on World Podium by Pair of Surprises
Denmark will almost certainly have to give their berth up. The team that earned it, Laurence Fournier Beaudry & Nikolaj Sorenson, cannot get her Danish citizenship, and they have no other ice dance teams. Israel’s berth is also complicated. The team that earned it, Isabella Tobias & Ilia Tkachenko, are trying to get him Israeli citizenship, but they may not succeed. Israel does have another team that can go. But they are at the mercy of the Israeli Olympic Committee, which often makes high demands of their athletes before they agree to send them to any Olympics. They don’t always, but if they do, it’ll likely end with Israel giving their spot up as well.