events

Belbin and Agosto Keep Pace With the Best in Original Dance

Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto perform their Original Dance at the 2005 World Championships, photo by Michelle Wojdyla

Event Results, News and Photos

(3/17/05) — Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto bid farewell to an old friend on Thursday — their lively original dance to the music from “Cabaret” and “New York, New York” — which they performed for the last time in competition Thursday at the 2005 World Championships in Moscow.

The dance continued to bring them success, as they held on to their second-place spot to move a bit closer to the first U.S. World medal in ice dancing since 1985.

“We are sorry to say goodbye to this program because obviously we have had a lot of fun with it,” Belbin said. “It is really a style that suits our personalities, and we always have a lot of fun with it.”

The fun showed in the playful program, highlighted by great twizzle work. They showed they have improved in this portion of the event. At the Grand Prix Final in December, Russian reigning World champions Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov beat Belbin and Agosto by almost three points in the original dance.

This time it was closer, 68.67-67.54. The combined totals now have Navka and Kostomarov with 114.64 and Belbin and Agosto with 109.72. Ukraine's Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov have 104.47.

Even though they are out of the running for next year's Olympics due to Belbin's citizenship issues, Belbin and Agosto prefer to talk of the positive aspects.

“Our whole careers have been focused on each competition,” Agosto said. “Now even more so. We are looking at the task at hand and tomorrow is the free dance. Next season we will be looking at each competition we do and finally at the World Championships.”

Belbin agreed.

“I think we can prove our placement in the world of dance by being here,” she said. “We have made our presence felt. We know we are not going anywhere. We are going to keep pushing forward, and I don't think we are going to be forgotten.”

However a high placement by Belbin and Agosto, combined with the placement of teammates Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, could give the United States three Olympic places in ice dancing for the first time since 1984. The combined total of the two placements must be 13 or less.

“If U.S. dance can benefit from our success, it's all the better,” Belbin said. “So any contribution we can make, we are happy to do so.”

The chance to gain a World medal is almost as good. How do they feel about it?

“Won-der-ful,” Agosto emphasized.

“Dance has changed a lot in the last 20 years,” Belbin added. “We feel so great that we can be seen as the front runners of a new generation, and we are going to carry it on for many, many more years.

Gregory & Petukhov were 12th in the original dance and remain in 11th overall with an unsteady presentation to the musical “Chicago.”

“We had a couple of mistakes, but it's all a part of the winning process,” Gregory said. “It's only our second World Championships, so we hope we have many, many more to go. We'll move up. We're pushing ourselves to do better and better.”