Belbin and Agosto Win Second Consecutive World Medal
by Laura Fawcett |
| Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto Photo by Michelle Harvath |
2006 World Championships News and Photos
(3/24/06) - A lot of interesting things happened Friday night during the 2006 World Championships free dance at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, Canada.
The Bulgarian team of Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski won the first-ever World title in any discipline for their country. Canada's Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon pumped up the home crowd by winning the free dance and the silver medal. The United States once again guaranteed itself three spots in next year's World Championships.
And Olympic silver medalists Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto won their second consecutive World medal, this time a bronze. They join a handful of U.S. ice dancing teams who have won multiple World medals - Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert (1983-85); Colleen O'Connor and Jim Millns (1975-76); Judy Schwomeyer and James Sladky (1969-72);Lorna Dyer and John Carrell (1965-67); Andree Anderson and Donald Jacoby (1958-59); and Carol Peters and Daniel Ryan (1952-53).
Despite having won silver in the last two major international competitions (2005 Worlds and the Olympics), Belbin and Agosto were not a lock to medal again. They were fourth heading into the free dance, and the new volatile nature of ice dancing scores meant that anything could happen, and it did.
France's Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, third after the original dance, dropped to fifth overall. Lithuanians Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas, who won a bronze in this event way back in 2000, finished second in the free dance and fourth overall. The winners, Denkova and Staviski, actually placed third in the free dance, while the Canadian favorites won the free dance with their heartfelt “Somewhere in Time” program.
Yes, it's ice dancing like you've never seen before.
“I'm not disappointed that there's movement in ice dancing,” Belbin said. “Sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't, but I'm not disappointed that there's movement. I think that everybody was complaining when the placements didn't move. Now they're moving, so don't complain. This is an exciting time. This is a great sport to be a part of. We're honored to be a part of this ice dancing momentum.”
Belbin and Agosto's flamenco free dance was technically more solid than it was in Torino, with the only significant mistake a bobble by Agosto right before the final rotational lift.
“You mean that little flourish that I decided to add spontaneously?” Agosto laughed. “I guess you could say the spirit of flamenco got the best of me." With all but one element receiving level four, they had the third highest technical score of the night but only the fifth-best program components score. Coach Marina Zoueva, who works alongside Igor Shpilband, said they know what to work on next.
“The technical ability is the best,” she said. “They can improve [feeling], expression, the man and woman connection.”
Despite not medaling, Drobiazko and Vanagas were thrilled with their “Phantom of the Opera” performance and the crowd reaction. The couple returned to the ice this season after a four-year competitive layoff.
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| Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski Photo by Michelle Harvath |
Vanagas added that he and Drobiazko will return to touring next year and not compete.
Melissa Gregory & Denis Petukhov helped secure three spots for next year's Worlds by finishing ninth. It's four places higher than their Olympic finish, and two spots higher than last year's World finish.
“We have three wonderful coaches we're working with – Nikoli (Morozov), Shae-Lynn (Bourne) and Walter Rizzo,” Gregory said. “This combination for us seems to really click, and we just want to keep working harder and harder on everything. We want to improve 100 percent again next year. We want to come out with another bang.”
Morgan Matthews & Maxim Zavozin have been using every moment of their first senior World Championships to prepare for the future. They just missed out on an Olympic spot by finishing fourth at the State Farm U.S. Championships, but they were ready when Jamie Silverstein and Ryan O'Meara withdrew from Worlds two weeks.
Although they finished second to Belbin and Agosto at January's Four Continents Championships, this is the first time the duo has really been up against all the big guns at one time.
“It's so exciting to be on this ice with all of these great competitors,” Matthews said. “It was time we could really prove something to ourselves because we didn't expect to go to this competition, and we could learn a lot about our skating here. It was great.”
After dropping a spot in the original dance, Matthews and Zavozin moved back up to 16th after a free dance set to the “Tango de Roxane” from the soundtrack to “Moulin Rouge.”
