2012 Trophee Eric Bompard SD Thoughts

The roster of competitors at Trophee Eric Bompard is a little underwhelming this year. I'm already looking forward to NHK Trophy, which will have a crazy loaded field of men and a couple of my favorite pairs and dance teams. But we must get through Paris first! So, let's see how the Short Dance will play out....

Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier – Paul has a flying scarf a la Ian Lorello. Very cool and difficult-looking entrance into the twizzles. Glad the first part of the program is the instrumental version only (Mary Poppins). All the Mary Poppins programs should've stuck to instrumental and spared us the spoons full of sugar and supercalifragi-whatever. They look very fast on the Yankee Polka. Side thought - Paul/Islam didn't have a GP event this year? :( I really want to see P/I at Worlds.

Julia Zlobina/Alexei Sitnikov – Probably going to jinx everyone, but this year I’ve seen better twizzles from competitors than ever before. Voidy polka. It sounds like techno pop. I liked their FD last year. Not sold on this program, however. Wow they got a higher score than Gilles/Poirier.

Madison Hubbell/Zach Donohue – I’ve seen the “untied bowtie” look way too much this season. Another cool twizzle entry. I see they've gotten rid of the straight-leg twizzles (aka The Delaware Special) this year. Madi's skirt flaps around a lot. This isn't the actual jig music used in Titanic, is it? I really wish they hadn't included lyrics during the footwork sequence. It sounds too country. Nice dance overall, but they looked peeved at the score. Both Chock/Bates and Kriengkrairut/Giulietti-Schmitt scored higher at their GP events. Battle for the World Team at Nationals is going to be INTENSE.

Ekaterina Pushkash/Jonathan Guerreiro – Oh goodness, what is this mess? Only Nikolai could come up with these costumes. Oh, it’s Chock/Bates' polka music! I guess the costumes are supposed to be Cirque du Soleil then. Bad twizzles. I jinxed them.

Ekaterina Riazanova/Ilia Tkachenko – Here comes a superior Russian team to the previous one. They are very pink/lilac! They bring the pretty. Ekaterina is looking down at the ice during the Yankee Polka? Much improved speed over last year.

Pernelle Carron/Lloyd Jones – We can't go one week without lasso arms, can we? Still can’t get over the change in Lloyd Jones' appearance. From blah blond pup to brunette cutie. Sadly, the team's skating hasn’t made as drastic an improvement. Is Tennessee Waltz the ONLY country waltzy piece of music skaters know?! Look up some Tracy Lawrence! Some George Strait! There's hundreds more.

Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte – So stinkin’ cute these two. Little shaky on the twizzles. Bursting with personality. So happy to see them finally rising up and skating with supreme confidence.

Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat – The slowed-down Can Can is just weird. All I can think of when I hear Can Can is The Cutting Edge. Whoa, is Nathalie wearing underwear and not a leotard under her skirt? I thought I saw some skin when she shook her skirt. Fabian is ticked at the score. Sorry, bud, you’re not going to score higher than Davis/White and Virtue/Moir. And better watch out behind you because you know Russia's going to push one of their teams for bronze in Sochi. They managed to get a crippled Max Shabalin a medal in Vancouver, so anything can happen.

In other notes, Ashley Wagner was divine in the ladies short program! I hadn't seen her Red Violin program yet this season, and I love it. From what I saw of the men, it was pretty ugly. I'm lighting candles that Brian Joubert can stay healthy and make it to Worlds so I can see him and all his porniness up close one last time.