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Trophee Eric Bompard offers some surprises

October 18, 2009 02:09 PM | Posted by   Pj Kwong  

The Trophee Eric Bompard wrapped up in Paris over the weekend setting the stage for some new world championship and Olympic podium possibilities.

The season debut of defending world champion Yu-Na Kim of Korea confirmed that she is the competition this season. Skating to Gershwin and in a regal shade of blue, I have heard her compared to the legendary American Michelle Kwan although, in my mind, there is one notable difference; Kwan was mesmerizing with her unapologetic passion for the sport whereas Kim’s magic comes from her massive talent coupled with a subtle exhibitionism that makes you unable to taker your eyes off her skating.

Kim missed her world record personal best in the short program by four one-hundredths of a point. In the free skate, despite not performing a planned triple flip jump, she set new personal and world best scores (133.95) and overall points totals (210.03) and captured the title.

2009 Four Continents bronze medallist, Mao Asada of Japan, won the silver medal and the bronze went to teammate, Yukari Nakano.

In ice dance, there were no surprises with Canada's champions and two-time world medallists, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, taking the lead in all three segments of the competition and earning the gold.

Their international free dance debut to music from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony delivered on all counts from concept to choreography to execution.

The French team of Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat took the silver with a free dance using the theme of "time" demonstrating improved speed and unison.

The bronze medallists were Great Britain's brother and sister team of Sinead and John Kerr. Always "pushing the envelope" creatively, their free dance told the story of support of a woman for a man in recovery from drug addiction. Hats off to them for trying to express this difficult subject to music but the rough and ragged quality of the program may end up backfiring on the bigger stage of world ice dancing.

The men's event saw a renewed Nobunari Oda of Japan, the 2006 world junior champion, come from second in the short program to take the title with a charming Charlie Chaplin-inspired free program which capitalizes on Oda's inherent musicality and charm.

The Czech Republic's Tomas Verner dropped from first to second overall failing to maintain his energy through to the end of his Godfather soundtrack free program. Two-time world junior champion, American Adam Rippon, continues to benefit from his change of coaching to Canadian Brian Orser, rounding out the podium with a bronze, his first Grand Prix medal.

Where was 2007 world champion Brian Joubert from France in all this? Finishing in sixth place after the short program, he was only mediocre in his free skate and ended up fourth, which has to mean it's time for Team Joubert to regroup if it hopes to contend for an Olympic medal in February in Vancouver.

Russian pairs Maria Murkhortova and Maxim Trankov skated their way to the top of the podium for the title. Surprisingly, they have chosen Love Story for their long program as a bit of a tribute to Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the 2002 Olympic champions. Maria said that she loved the Canadians' program and thought it would be a great choice for the Olympics in Canada.

The silver medal went to Canadian champions Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison. The international debut of their "The Way We Were" program demonstrated the power of their emotional connection to each other and their music and the potential of this program to evolve over the course of the season.

The two-time defending world champions from Germany, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, held a strong lead after the short program but collapsed in their free.

It all came unraveled when Aliona fell unexpectedly during the spiral sequence after which, they seemed unable to re-group and continued to make numerous mistakes throughout the rest of the program.

There is no doubt about their prowess technically but this experience also exposes them to be just as vulnerable to skating disaster as anyone else in the pair field.

Figure skating coverage continues next weekend with the second of six Grand Prix events, The Rostelecom Cup, from Moscow Russia.

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