helsinkibaby | Entries tagged with 100things

Ekaterina Gordeeva, A Celebration of a Life, March 1996

After Sergei passed, Katia forged a career as a solo skater. This is her first solo performance, at the night dedicated to Sergei's life and memory.

Warning. Requires tissues.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

For the day that's in it....

Seventeen years ago today, 20th November 1995, Olympic champion Sergei Grinkov passed away of a heart attack, on the ice in Lake Placid, in the arms of his wife and skating partner, Ekaterina Gordeeva. He was 28 years old.

This is one of their best - The Rodin number.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

In honour of his return to competition at the Cup of Russia this weekend (how it finished notwithstanding), I bring you Johnny Weir's short program from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. It's to Prince's I Love You, I Hate You which nicely sums up my history with Johnny Weir... around 2003/4/5, I loved him. 2006, I thought his diva streak came through a bit too much, particularly during the 2006 World Championships where after a particularly lacklustre short program he said in the press conference, words to the effect of "I don't care, I didn't even want to come here." All I could think of was the alternate for worlds, Michael Weiss, who had missed out on the Olympic/World team in a big upset to Matt Savoie who was at the end of his career and would have doubtless loved to be there... and if you know anything about how I feel about Michael Weiss, let me just point out that Johnny's behaviour made me feel sorry for a skater I absolutely cannot stand.

My thinking at the time was that the boy just needed to shut up and skate and post 2006, that's just what he did. He changed coaches to Galina Zemievskaya, (I have just butchered that spelling), was the lone USA medallist at 2008 Worlds ( I cheered), had an awful 2009 and didn't make worlds and then...

Then there was this.

Let me just tell you, there is a point in the midline step where you can all but see him flipping off the judges and the whole skate is glorious. Personally, I was in quite the dark place at the time of these games; this is one program that made me smile. Love him!

<--eschewing the 100 Things icon for Johnny.

Because this deserves to be seen again and again and again, in glorious HD... Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir winning the Olympic gold medal to Mahler's Symphony No 5 Adagietto. First gold medal at the Olympics in ice dance from a North American team and it is just gorgeous.

OK, it's a skating moment that only happened last week and as such might be too young to be a classic.

But.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skating to "Carmen" at Skate Canada this year.

Slip up aside? Katarina wants her DNA back.

For me, the greatest pairs team ever will always be Gordeeva and Grinkov. (Oh there will be many posts about them). The second greatest pair ever? (Or if greatest is a stretch, limited as they were by the time in which they skated) my second favourite pair is Barb Underhill and Paul Martini of Canada. World Champions in 1984 (and that will be the subject of my next 100 things post I think!) they retired from skating with an event called "One Last Time" in May of 1998. There were many, many tears.

The fact that they skated together for so long, had been through so much, meant that they were completely in sync on the ice. The difference in height made some of the tricks that they did look spectacular. And if you don't gasp at the "leap of faith" there's not much I can do for you.

This is a program they did from their last ever season; it would be the last ever piece of music that they skated to at "One Last Time." It's "Not a Day Goes By" sung by Mandy Patinkin.

Pass the tissues.

Virtue and Moir, Umbrellas of Cherbourg free dance, Worlds 2008

This was going to be something else but since I've been caught up reading about all the draaaaa-mah going on in Canton at the moment, you get this. In a nutshell, the two coaches who have worked together to bring home 7 of the last 9 world ice dance medals, who coached Virtue and Moir to Olympic gold and David and White to Olympic silver, seem to have had some sort of falling out, we know not what, though there is plenty of speculation and conflicting reports. Rink bosses have said that the skaters didn't want him there, so Shpilband has been fired from the rink, Zoueva is staying and according to her, the top three dance teams will stay there. D/W and the Shibs have confirmed this in a USFSA statement, no word from V/M as yet.

This is going to be a story that runs and runs.

So today's skating moment comes from a simpler time. It's Tessa and Scott's free dance from Worlds 2008. Their second words and they win the silver medal. I can't remember a time that that happened before, especially to a North American team.

Kurt Browning skates to "Singing in the Rain"

This is from Kurt's special You Must Remember This, which really is a skating moment all on its own but I'm trying to pick one. The reason I'm linking this (and I hope I am, my YouTube flash plugin is being floopy tonight) is that aside from the fact that Kurt Browning is one of the best skaters on the planet (Skate God for Life, according to Scott Hamilton!) and one of my favourites, he's also one of the best who never won an Olympic medal of any colour. (If not the best. I'm blanking on any others who never got a medal; the Michelle Kwans of this world did, just not the gold.) For all that, he was beloved among skating fans and this is one of the reasons why -- there will be more in the hundred!

If you've seen the film Singing in the Rain (and if you haven't, I may YouTube the scene in question) you'll know how closely this resembles the original. It's dance on ice at its finest, and Gene Kelly would be proud!

Brian Orser has been my favourite skater since I remember, literally since I was about seven years old. Can't even tell you why I love him so much, I just do. One world championship, umpteen silver medals (84,85,86,88), two Olympic silver medals, the second of which had me *hating* Brian Boitano for a full six years. (He lost by one tenth of a point and I was ten. You're allowed do these things when you're ten!) Not the first person to land a triple axel, he was the second, third and fourth (possibly more than that) and the one who made it de rigeur in men's competition. (Irony? He only did one triple axel in the Olympic free program in '88, had he done a second, he may well have edged Boitano for the gold.) He was as much an artist as he was an athlete and remains to be so.

Good as he is on the ice, he's a stand -up guy off the ice as well. He's got every reason in the world to hate the Christmas season - one year his brother died of a heart attack, the following year his mother died around the same time, and the third year, he was outed by an ex-lover with a palimony lawsuit. The backlash from some areas of the press hit hard (people called him a liar for not admitting his sexuality; he maintained that he'd never mentioned girlfriends or boyfriends at any point in his career. Like so many other people, he'd just avoided the subject). His main worry was for his nieces and nephews who were at the age where people would tease them in school, that the backlash would be that much worse having their uncle go from a hero to a "liar". Skating fans, however, rallied around him, as did the whole skating family.

Lately, he's been involved in coaching, bringing Yu-Na Kim to Olympic gold in 2010. But my favourite moment from Vancouver involving Brian is a little seen moment, right in the corner of the rink as Yu-Na (I think?) skates out to get her medal. Brian sees Manon Perron, who had just coached Joannie Rochette of Canada to a bronze medal in the face of Joannie's horrible personal tragedy (her mum died the night before the short program; trust me, that's another post) . The two of them look at one another, the biggest grins ever on both their faces, and rush to give one another a huge hug.

This program of Brian's that I've picked is one of my many favourites, possibly because I saw him skate it live. *sigh* He did it at the 88 Olympics in the Gala, and in 1998 he reprised it because it was his mum's favourite. Both versions are here, one from him skating outdoor, and also one that I've not seen before from 2007 CSOI which marries it with another song, Happy Endings.

And yes. I still cry.

I hadn't even got this one on my list until Brian Boitano mentioned it on twitter as his favourite skating memory earlier on.

I could go into a million reasons about why this is amazing but the only ones that matter are that it's Brian Boitano in 1988, fresh off an Olympic win (which it took me six years to get over but that's another issue) skating on top of a glacier in Alaska.

ON A GLACIER.

Do you really need more reasons to watch it?

Continuing the theme of Olympic Moments with a capital M...

Silvia Fontana's Long Program at the 2006 Olympics

I'll have to be honest here, I have long had a love for Silvia Fontana. I find her sweet and charming, so sweet and charming in fact that I can overlook her wrapped free leg that I would normally find horrendous and a deal breaker. She is married to the ever so lovely John Zimmerman, and I heartily recommend to anyone who hasn't seen his ep of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy that you hunt it down. So much adorable between the two of them, I simply cannot cope.

Silvia retired before the 2006 Olympics (I want to say after 2003 worlds but I may be wrong on that.) but since the Olympics that year were held in Torino, Italy, she decided to come back. After the short, it may have been not the right decision; she was in tears in kiss and cry, barely qualified for the free and skated first that night.

And it was magic.

No, the jumps weren't all there, but what she did, she did. The crowd, knowing her, knowing her story, were behind her a million percent. And at the end? They erupted.

Not a dry eye in the house, or here.

And, just in case you thought it was just me, the text from an article written at the time that I linked in my LJ...( For Love of Country )

Paul Wylie wins the Olympic silver in Albertville 1992

So to put this in its context, I was fourteen years old during the Albertville Olympics and this was way before the internet era. I didn't know too much about Paul Wylie; I certainly didn't know anything about the whole fact of Todd Eldredge (reigning two time US Champion and world bronze medallist in 91) not being able to compete at Nationals due to a wonky back, and Paul Wylie winning the silver at nationals but a lot of people thinking Mark Mitchell, who won bronze, deserved a shot at the Olympics with Todd and Christopher Bowman. (Ah, Christopher. You are a post unto yourself. Probably more than one.) I knew nothing of how one journalist had the audacity to ask Paul at an Olympics press conference, "Paul, what are you doing here?" and of how Paul was selected to go to Olympics but Mark would go to Worlds.

I knew nothing about any of that. I just knew about the skating.

In any Olympics, there is always a moment. A moment where the placement ceases to matter, where the reaction of the crowd, the reaction of the performer, the performance itself becomes almost a living entity. This is that moment.

In these four and a half minutes of skating, Paul Wylie moved from a journeyman into a legend, and forever cemented his place in my heart. There are those who will argue that Paul was robbed of the gold medal, that Viktor Petrenko, who won, should have been no worse than fourth in the long. I'm one of those people - I'm in good company. Brian Orser is quoted in Christine Brennan's Inside Edge as saying that, "The men's gold medallist had the worst performance since 1948. Paul Wylie should've won." Whatever you feel about that, you can't deny the magic of this.

Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, World Championships 2012 Free Dance, Je Suis Malade

Since the last couple of posts have been on an ice dance theme, I'm keeping going with my favourite free dance of the worlds this year. Yes, more than Scott and Tessa, more than Meryl and Charlie.

Kaitlyn and Andrew are a Canadian team that have been doing better and better over the last couple of seasons and I can't wait to see where they go from here... their coaching team consists of Shae Lynn Bourne, Pasquale Camerlengo and Angelika Krylova, who can be seen at the end of this video with tears rolling down her cheeks. And she wasn't the only one either - in an age where ice dance is being more and more technical, where people are complaining that it's all about the tricks and ladies pretzeling themselves and the dances are all looking the same and where is the creativity.... in an era where all those things are being levelled at ice dance, this program is a thing of beauty. It's technical, sure, but it's got heart and soul and it's just breath-taking... Kaitlyn looks fabulous in her so-simple red dress and Andrew presents her beautifully.

This program brought the French crowd to their feet, and Simon and Chris from Eurosport were convinced, as was I, that they would take home the bronze medal.

Until the French team of Nathalie Pechelat and Fabian Bourzat came out to skate; training partners of Weaver and Poje and with Nathalie skating with a broken nose. They were in third after the short dance; Kaitlyn and Andrew were in fourth, and after the French skated, that is the order in which they remained.

And how did Kaitlyn react to losing a bronze medal?

She ran into kiss and cry before the marks even came up and gave Nathalie Pechelat the biggest hug ever.

Classy.

So I was going to do some

au_bigbang writing, maybe meitheal some stuff on possible ideas for

het_bigbang while Himself is on a night shift, and then write up a long post about one of my favourite skating moments and then I saw the news about Junior Seau and my heart just isn't in it.

So instead of all that, here is a skating moment where words become superfluous. A sequel of sorts to post number 4, here are Torvill and Dean at the Winter Olympics 1984 Gala, skating to "I Won't Send Roses"

Torvill and Dean, Mack and Mabel

OK, so when people think of T&D, they think of many things, most notably Bolero. But for my money, Mack and Mabel is just as good a routine, and a heck of a lot more upbeat and fun. (And it's got the train in it!) But as Chris Dean says in the intro to this video, it was a breakthrough routine for them - yes, they may have won worlds the season beforehand, but this program was the first time that they'd ever taken one piece of music and used it for the full four minutes; it was a new and unusual departure in the world of ice dancing, though it's de rigeur now. (The season before, their program was four difference pieces of music, only two of which I remember off the top of my head; Red Sails in the Sunset and Hot Lunch Jam from the movie Fame) This is a program that literally changed the face of ice dance as we know it.

Plus? Jayne's skirt? Ostrich feathers dyed gold!

Sinead and John Kerr, Original Dance 2008, Scottish traditional

So I could go into a whole discourse about how they are a brother and sister team that make you forget they are brother and sister and don't even consider trying a romantic thing. (Danielle and Steve Hartsell skating to Romeo and Juliet, I am looking at you) I could mention that they are fun and vivacious and sexy and they always try to do something different. I could mention that they sometimes didn't get the marks that they deserved and that they're two time European bronze medallists. And I could do without mentioning the sheer hell that was knowing a twizzle sequence was coming up and watching John with bated breath... Chris Howarth and Nicky Slater on Eurosport (Nicky's mum used to be their coach before Evgeny Platov) were known to utter the phrase, "Come on, John" through clenched teeth when he was twizzling; I, on my sofa, used to mutter the same thing into the cushion I'd be gripping for dear life.

I could mention all that but it's the first week back after Easter, Nimoy is doing the whole terrible two thing and the class is not getting any better, sucking the veritable life out of me. And Confirmation is next week so I'm run ragged.

So all I'll say is it's John Kerr in a kilt. What more do you need to know?

Hopefully I'll be able to post an embedded link later on but I'm not on the computer at the moment and I wanted to get another one done!

Shen and Zhao win 2003 Worlds

I wouldn't say I was a huge fan of Shen and Zhao at the time but since I'd seen them at 1996 Worlds in Edmonton where they just blew me away, I'd kept an eye on them and watched them grow and mature. I'd stood in an arena and watched boos ring down as they lost 99 Worlds to a program with mistakes from Bereshnaia and Sikharulidze, watched them think they'd done enough to win 2002 Olympics, not having known what had gone on previously. And I'd seen them win worlds the previous year, post Olympics in a year where no-one, including them, skated well.

True story - Simon Reed, commentating for Eurosport, mentioned that Shen and Zhao were skating last and that after Totmianina and Marinin they would need to repeat what they did last year. My response, shouted at the tv was that I remembered how they skated last year and they'd need to skate a hell of a lot better.

And they did.

It was known at the time that Xue Shen was injured, and in fact she had a painkilling injection prior to taking the ice - she couldn't feel one leg. And yet, they skated the performance of their lives - watch for near the end when they go into the final lift, the crowd, already screaming, stand, and by the end, no one is in their seat.

Afterwards, Hongbao Zhao said that he wished he could make his medal smaller so that hers would be bigger...and I may have cried a little more.

So after seeing it everywhere on my friends list, there is this.

{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

And in a fit of insanity (and also thinking of a topic I could blog about and coming up with a list of 50 without breaking much of a sweat) I'm signing up for it.

I'm going to be blogging about 100 Skating Moments That Everyone Should See, Good Bad and Absolutely Gawd-Awful, though I'm going in with the caveat that these are based only on my opinion and your mileage may, as always, vary. YouTube links will be provided where I can find them!

That being said, post number one had to be about this --

Rudy Galindo wins 1996 US Nationals
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