Belbin and Agosto Medal at Grand Prix Final
by Sal Zanca, Special to U.S. Figure Skating Online |
| Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto Photo by Michelle Harvath |
(12/18/04) — Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto are moving up in the world.
The American champions placed third last year when they became the first U.S. team to gain a medal at the Grand Prix Final. This time they finished second behind world champions Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov with a second-place performance in the free dance.
The Russian World champions took the title with a dramatic routine to the opera classic "Tosca" full of intricate spins and lifts.
"It wasn't yet 100 percent, but I am glad that the program is getting closer to what it should be," Navka said. "This was the best free dance we've done this season."
Belbin and Agosto used the same Gypsy dance routine that helped them win at Skate America and the Cup of China.
"The whole season we feel we have been really pushing ourselves, pushing our skating," Agosto said. "I think this season we have been moving up and hopefully this will continue to the World Championships."
After all the points were tallied, Navka and Kostomarov scored 180.23 points and Belbin and Agosto had 170.53. And in the free dance, Belbin and Agosto scored higher than one of the teams considered to be a favorite coming into the competition, beating Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviyski of Bulgaria 108.16 to 107.89.
Belbin thinks the new scoring system helped.
"That is one of the great things about the system, it can change," Belbin said. "I think that it is a good thing. We are just not used to seeing these changes but they are justified."
Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovsky dropped from third after the original dance to fourth.
Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon of Canadian finished in fifth.
Ladies
Slutskaya is back.
After making a fashion statement in the short program, with pants, black boot covers and a pierced navel, Irina Slutskaya made another kind of statement in her free skate, this time about her competitive spirit. The Russian skater made minor mistakes on two of her jumps, but landed five triple jumps to pull away from the rest of the field and win the gold medal.
"Yes, Irina Slutskaya is back," she said. "I am a strong competitor and I think I can compete with all the girls, all the best girls in the world."
Slutskaya was sidelined most of last season with an inflammation around the lining of her heart. She managed to enter the World Championships but was out of shape and finished ninth.
Now, with three wins in the Grand Prix series and a pro-am victory at the 2004 Marshalls World Cup of Figure Skating, which also featured Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen, Slutskaya is looking forward to the World Championships in March in her hometown of Moscow.
"On one hand it will be fun," Slutskaya said. "But on the other side there will be a big pressure because everyone will be expecting my best performance. It will be a good fight."
Japan's Shizuka Arakawa had a poor skate with one fall and several errors but managed to hold onto second.
"My feeling was not so good," Arakawa said. "My skate was not so good before the competition. I was very worried."
Canadian Joannie Rochette was the big surprise of the ladies competition. After making a coaching change just two months ago, Rochette wasn't even supposed to be the best Canadian in the field, much less a medal contender. But pulling off six triple jumps changes things.
"I was a bit slow and shaky but I was very happy about being able to do jumps even if I made some mistakes," Rochette said. "It's harder to skate when you make mistakes, so I'm very proud of that tonight."
Japan's Miki Ando and Yoshie Onda finished in fourth and fifth place, respectively, while Cynthia Phanuef, last year's Canadian champion, finished sixth.
Men
Probably the last place Evgeny Plushenko figured to be on a Saturday in December was in Beijing.
But when Grand Prix Series leader, Johnny Weir, landed awkwardly in his exhibition skate at the Cup of Russia, injuring his right foot and forcing him to withdraw from the Grand Prix Final, Plushenko was in.
And once in, he far outdistanced the field.
Plushenko scored 251.75 points, well ahead of silver medalist Jeff Buttle's 216.65. Chengjiang Li of China finished third with a program that included two different quad jumps.
Plushenko started with a quad-triple-double combination, then added a triple-triple and a triple Axel-double. In all, he did one quadruple toe and eight triples. It was Plushenko's fourth overall Grand Prix title, and still he says he can do better.
"I did today what I needed to do," said Plushenko. "For the moment it was OK. I have all titles but I don't have an Olympic Games title. I look forward to Torino (site of the 2006 Olympics), to skate there like I skated here."
Buttle, who was forced to withdraw from last year's Grand Prix Final due to food poisoning, fell on a triple Axel but finished with seven triples, including a triple-double sequence in the final minute. Instead of returning home seven pounds lighter, as he did last year, Buttle will return home with a silver medal this time around.
"I'll take this, that's for sure," Buttle said. "Overall, I'm very happy with today's performance. I was happy to be able to overcome the first mistake."
Li, meanwhile, delighted the home crowd with a routine that included a quadruple toe and a quadruple Salchow.
"I'm very pleased to perform at home," he said. "The fans were very warm and they gave me much confidence."
Defending champion Emanuel Sandhu had a miserable time, falling twice, but managed fourth overall thanks to two poor skates by European champion Brian Joubert.
Ryan Jahnke, the only American singles' representative, finished sixth.
"I really love to skate, but it is hard to get the body to do what I want it to do if I am not feeling normal," Jahnke said. "I haven't been able to sleep well since I've been here. I have had just a few hours sleep each night. That makes me feel funny."
Pairs
Again a mistake on the triple Lutz opening proved the downfall for Rena Inoue and John Baldwin. The duo demonstrated their resiliency though, and continued on after the early error with a good overall skate.
"We're pretty happy with the long program tonight," Baldwin said. "We're trying to do that Lutz. It will happen."
However they still finished sixth as the other five couples were not missing much.
Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China were nearly flawless in a program to music from "The Soong Sisters," a popular movie in Asia, and were able to defend the title they won last year. Their total score was 206.54, beating their previous personal best total score of 196.08 points, which they achieved when they won the Grand Prix Final in Colorado Springs.
"I think that we gave a very strong performance because the audience supported us so well," Zhao said. "That gave us extra confidence, so we could skate better and better during the competition."
Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov finished second, skating for the second year to "The Circus Princess." They executed a triple toe and tried triple Salchows, but lost some points when Tikhonov was forced to put his hand down.
"We tried the side by side triple Salchow for the first time in competition, and it wasn't bad," Tikhonov said. "I should have done it clean as it was a good jump, but maybe it was just nerves because we did it for the first time."
Qing Pang and Jian Tong overcame a couple of errors, Pang doubled a toe jump in a sequence and also stepped out of the landing of the throw triple loop, two earn the bronze medal.
Though Russians Julia Obertas and Sergei Slavnov finished fourth, they pulled off a dramatic quadruple twist, a jump only three other couples are known to have landed in major competition, including two-time Olympic champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, who did it early in their career.
"I find it harder to do a triple now because I don't know when to come out of it," Obertas said. "Here you need a bit more form and strength."
