The Skating World and Its Discontents

Ice dancer (and part-time P/C uber) Tim Koleto posted this polite but troubling request this afternoon.

Let’s enjoy this Olympic experience together with kindness and compassion, and supporting our friends and favs. Love you all ♥️ pic.twitter.com/r71Npfb0YD

— Tim Koleto 小嶺都帝夢 (@Timkoleto) January 20, 2018

Telling fans that it is not their place to criticize is getting very old. While there are indeed things such as gossip and pointless name calling that can go too far, it is not appropriate for skaters to be the ones putting limits on what fans can say. It is disingenuous to suggest that they don't have the means to mostly remove themselves from being exposed to fan comments. For example, if skaters feel like they can't escape fan criticism because their friends text it to them and they don't find it helpful to see, they can tell their friends to stop. They can unfollow people who like tweets criticizing them. They can use the mental fortitude they surely have as elite athletes, and not scroll on Facebook posts or Youtube comments. A lot of high-level skaters in fact seem far too invested, for either athletes or artists, in what fans think of them, or in being part of the cliquish unconstructive social media scene themselves. Putting the burden on fans to create a nice cheery environment for them, so that they don't need to create any healthy boundaries for themselves, or endure the thought someone thinks they're being scored too high, is not reasonable. 

"If the result is unfair, we already have our own opinion about that", Koleto says. It's hard to read that any other way but that lowly fans don't deserve a meaningful opinion of their own, when his concern is not fans who confront or try to convince skaters by tagging them (which for my own part is something that I don't think it is appropriate to do), but that fans simply put their blunt opinions out there where it could possibly be discovered by the skater being discussed. (It is never a good look, in my opinion, for a skater to engage with a critical fan, but at least Mirai Nagasu was tagged here.) Insisting that tweets that are harsh or that question outcomes should only be made on privatized accounts would be a ridiculous enough standard, but to suggest that not even that is allowable takes my breath away.

Yes, it's impressive how skaters have dedicated themselves to a challenging lifestyle, but it was their choice to put themselves out there. Criticism is part of what any athlete, any artist, any public figure signs up for, not something they can exempt themselves from by pointing to how hard they work. Lots of people work very hard in life, lots of people have difficult jobs - I wonder, can fans earn the right to criticize by how much effort they're putting into their own lives? Athletes are indeed inspirational, but they have also been blessed with talent, and even if they weren't born into monetary privilege (as many in skating are) and have had to make huge real-life sacrifices, they also had at least some good fortune to make it to the international stage. Lots of people's dreams don't come true, no matter how much merit or effort is involved. 

Simply appreciating the achievements of every Olympic athlete is a much easier proposition for the majority of sports where results speak for themselves. You can see who crosses a finish line first. You can see that the athlete that finishes last tried their best. It's not complicated by misdirection. There is no judge-splaining going on, convincing the audience that the 10th fastest is actually the best. The commentators explain things like disqualifications, but they don't mislead the audience about what is supposed to earn a victory.  A skating fan can realize that every skater at the Olympics is among the best in the world in a broad sense, that they have put a lot of work into being there, and that they tried to perform at their best, while at the same time think that the results were not accurate to a troubling extent. If that seems less fun, then that is on the sport of skating and the way it conducts itself by constant obfuscation - not on fans who voice their concerns if things seem shady. They have every right to do so - and in fact I think most are too polite, suggesting that the system is merely malfunctioning, somehow, rather than the sport being deeply corrupted.

Freely offering up encouragement and congratulations to favourite teams is great, but fans have no obligation to make skaters feel validated, even by silence, if the scoring system is being ignored. For quite a while, the ranking of teams has rarely been defendable, scores across the board have gotten completely out of whack with reality compared with criteria, and ice dance choreographers have been brushing aside what is outlined as truly necessary for highest difficulty and top scores, such as skating very close together and dance-specific elements. And many in the ice dance world make it perfectly clear that they're fine with ice dancing being an art instead of a sport (but somehow they still think Olympic medals should be part of the deal). It has all gotten so wildly out of hand that I feel the skaters themselves are indeed complicit. Some make it clear that they already know and don't care that the Code of Points has become nothing but a front for politicks, but I think every skater who participates should at least pay the price of being at risk of hearing that truth. And you know what?  There are some skaters who get trampled along the way, and maybe appreciate that someone notices that. You know what's not compassionate? The majority of the skating world gaslighting certain skaters, taking things they deserve and giving it to others that don't. For some of us, this is not and has never been about snark for snark's sake, but rather about fairness. Someone calling out an Olympic sport because they think it is corrupt has a lot more respect for the Olympics as a institution with the power to affect society positively than someone who just wants everything to be nice for nice's sake.

This tweet of mine from yesterday did not come out of nowhere. There has been a long history of skaters inappropriately admonishing fans for criticizing. Famous athletes are the ones in a position of power, they are not helpless victims without the ability to just focus on their jobs. The original idea for this post came after Gabriella Papadakis made a similar plea on Instagram at the beginning of the 2016-17 season. I tweeted about it and further defended my position, but it was part of an extremely troubling pattern and seemed worthy of further comment. After a year off the job here, however, my notes are rather disorganized, and I'll leave a detailed discussion of previous events for a later post.

(Feb 2/18 edited to add:)

PS: This exchange is pathetic. Again, these skaters were not tagged. Skating, the only sport in which the athletes harass the fans more than the other way around? STOP criticizing fans for having critical opinions. STOP shutting them down because you don't share their views. STOP seeking out fan discussion if you can't help confronting fans rather than acting with the maturity and class that should be expected from celebrities of your standing. Scimeca Knierim is certainly kinder here in a further reply, whereas Duhamel has a history as perhaps the most aggressive of all skaters in shaming fans for having opinions, but it's the same principle. Skaters are welcome to feel frustrated at the skating establishment if they feel they are being undervalued, and to appreciate encouragement from fans who wish to give it, but requesting that all fans keep their negative feelings to themselves, so that skaters never feel discouraged if they happen to read what's out there, is simply out of line.

Shame on Danny O'Shea, Ashley Cain and Kaitlin Hawayek for "liking" that Duhamel is intimidating a fan yet again.  And shame on Ice-Dance.com for doing the same, continuing a pattern of always backing up skaters when they pull this crap, yet again showing that they are not sports journalists, but merely the equivalent of talk show hosts.

Tech Analysis: P/C Fudging the Ravensburger Waltz (Part 2)

This piece is long overdue, so sorry! You may have gathered by now that I have a weakness for starting new projects before I finish old ones. It definitely doesn't help that the pace at which ice dance churns out blatant corruption keeps accelerating.

source

So having realized how unsustainable it is at the moment to try to keep up with coverage of everything, I'm aiming the next few weeks to complete more stuff, and have decided that for the time being my coverage of the NHK showdown between Virtue/Moir and Papadakis/Cizeron will be limited.  I can publish more things by not letting work I've already done go to waste, but more importantly, I think focusing on the battles that don't involve V/M can be more fruitful in the end. If discussions of corruption revolve mostly around V/M's superiority, it can leave the mistaken impression, like happened to some extent with the Davis/White situation, that V/M are a special case and that the teams that unfairly beat them are otherwise deserving. But by explaining the principles behind why the Shibutanis (and others) are stronger than P/C, or why Paul/Islam (and others) are stronger than Gilles/Poirier, it becomes all the more obvious why Virtue/Moir have the strongest technique and why being challenged by the likes of P/C and G/P is so outrageous.

Previous Entries:
Part 1: Versus the Shibutanis, Steps #1-6

Part 2: Versus the Shibutanis, Steps #7-19

This entry will examine the steps of the remainder of the Section 1 element. I'm going to recopy the following passage quoted in Part 1 in every subsequent post, as a reminder of how clearly and explicitly proper technique is defined in International Skating Union materials.

The following excerpts from the "General requirements" section of the Handbook for Officials for Pattern Dances [1], which is used to judge international novice competitions, gives a good idea of what one should be looking for in good compulsory skating. Pay particular attention to the part about Skating Skills - emphasis is mine.

"a) Accuracy – The steps, edges, elements/movements and dance holds must be in accordance with the dance description and the Rules. Subject to general conformity with the basic requirements, some latitude is given to allow a Couple to demonstrate their own individual style. This is usually accomplished by the use of a variety of arm and/or leg movements. Movements or positions of arms and/or hands, which differ from those specified in the descriptions of the required dance holds are permitted, provided that the Leading Hand of the Man remains in the prescribed position for the hold"

"c) Skating Skills – Good basic skating quality is required: Deep edges should be skated with speed, flow and easy glide in an effortless manner. Cleanness and sureness of steps, edges and lobe transitions should be evident. The Skater must carry the weight over the skating foot. Footwork must be neat and precise. Two-footed skating must be avoided except where it is required. Good and equal technical ability are required for both partners. The knee of the skating leg should be flexible with a rhythmic rise and fall.  On Chassés and Progressives the the feet should be lifted a small distance from the ice"

"e) Style - Carriage should be upright but not stiff with the head held up. All actions should be easy and flowing and performed in an elegant manner. The Dance Holds (see Rule 605), should be firm and the fingers neither spread nor clenched. There should be no apparent struggle for speed and speed should not be obtained at the expense of good style. The free leg should be extended, the foot turned out and pointed down;

f) Unison - The Couple should skate as close together as possible keeping a constant distance between them. All movements such as leg swings, knee bends and lean should be equal and well coordinated and their performance should be balanced.  The partners should move as one. The Man should show his ability to lead and the Lady to follow"

Steps #7-8
At the end of Part 1, the teams were in the middle of step #6 [2], with the man on a LFO and the lady on a RBO, facing each other in Waltz Hold. They will hold these edges for a 2nd beat, and then perform Chassés in unison on beat 3, stepping onto a RFI for the man and a LBI for the lady.  They complete the Chassés by stepping back to the LFO and RBO respectively, and they will skate a 6-beat swing roll on these edges.

Steps #7-8 (.5x)

Hawayek/Baker and the Problem of Fraudulent Feedback

Part 2 of my series on Papadakis/Cizeron's issues with the Ravensburger Waltz is still high on my priority list, but this article was published yesterday and is a great reminder of how this sport, which flaunts its corrupt practices at every turn, doesn't deserve to be taken seriously by anyone. What needs to be said is too lengthy for a Twitter essay, so I’ll put it here.

The topic of the article, published by the official media arm of the United States Figure Skating Association, focuses on how Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker had "regressed" to finish fifth at the 2016 US Nationals, and details what feedback they were given as to what needed to change to be placed on the podium this season.

"After nationals, we talked to officials and got their straightforward feedback on why we were fifth, when we were fourth the year before and when we were aiming to be third," Hawayek said. "It's a lot easier going into a season knowing exactly what they want to see from you rather than have it be a guessing game." 

The International Skating Union has published literally hundreds of pages of guidelines as to what is expected of teams, and the national federations use the same material to judge their qualifying competitions. Think about what it means that teams are left feeling it’s just a “guessing game” as to what judges want to see from them.  They don’t know which parts of the Code of Points are going to be actually applied this season and which ignored? They don’t know what artistic packaging will touch the hearts of judges the most, with the CoP being just mere suggestions that the judges might want to consider, kinda sorta maybe, but only if they are really inspired to do so?  Or maybe each team has a special classified file including rules, limitations and stylistic goals that apply only to them?

There is no possible interpretation of this quote that makes sense if officials actually use the judging system, the requirements of which were brought into existence so that the ISU and feds could claim transparency and accuracy in how they give out scores.  "Exactly what they want to see from you" would be a fitting subtitle for the handbooks - unless, of course, panels don't follow the regulations or apply the codified standards consistently and in their entirety when assessing teams. If officials instead resort to backroom tweaking of the rules away from the eyes of public, the media and, one would hope, Olympic officials that could keep it accountable, that would explain why some teams feel like they're not in the loop.

"There were certain things we were focusing on last year we did not need to focus on. This season, we're focusing on the basics… [The criticism] didn't hurt at all," Baker said. "We were thankful [officials] were able to say that to us."

There is nothing wrong for a team at H/B's stage of development to scale things back and drill basics.  There is nothing suspicious in itself with a team being advised to work on improving their skills with regards to their own potential or in order to catch up with superior teams. There is also nothing wrong for a team generally to veer towards simplicity (only to a point, of course, as I’m sure my audience has gotten the message by now that I think the “Gadbois style” has gone too far) in order to showcase “pure skating" (as Kaitlin explained elsewhere), and by doing so, challenge themselves to more fully develop their glide and power. After watching H/B's recent outing of their Liebesträume Free Dance a few times, I've come to feel that it’s a really gorgeous vehicle and maybe the right decision for them after all, despite the initial disappointment I felt (comparing it to the brilliantly authentic contemporary of last season's) when it was unveiled in August. In both of their new programs, you can see that their off-season focus on skating skill is paying off in improvement.

But H/B were told to “focus on the basics” in the context of where they placed at last season's Nats. And the truth is they were placed fifth instead of third there entirely because the quality of skating (and everything else that is supposed to carry significant weight when calculating the placements of teams, such as difficulty, dance technique and musicality) were completely disregarded.  So there are two very troubling scenarios. Either the feedback they received was primarily skating-based and gaslighted them into believing or at least publicly implying that their skating was of lesser value than Chock/Bates and Cannuscio/McManus when it was not. Or it blamed their placement inappropriately on their packaging, and everyone involved pretended that was a valid reason to ignore that they skated better than two teams that ranked above them in January.  Perhaps it was a mix of both, but both the reference to it being a mystery what the judges wish to see, and the following quote (emphasis mine) certainly suggest that vehicle was a large part of the criticism.

"One of the big things people told us last season was that our free dance (set to the soundtrack from The Theory of Everything) was theatrical," Hawayek said. "Which is fine, we loved it. People that understood it loved it as well, but the ones who didn't understand it said we were so invested in it ourselves, (that) it was an internal piece. This year, we wanted something people could appreciate as art rather than try so hard to grasp a concept or story."

Hawayek only specifies "people", and not officials like in her first quote, but in the context of the article, there is no indication that this criticism was not part of the clear and detailed feedback that H/B so appreciated.  So assuming that was the case… where in heaven’s name does it say in CoP that specific genres, themes or approaches are of more worth than others and that judges can validly expect teams to do one type over the other? How does the requirement that choreography be judged "according to the principles of proportion, unity, space, pattern, structure, phrasing” [1] not demand that judges grade, objectively as possible, the quality of the content with regards to the fundamentals of dance (and necessarily, the choreography’s use of the blades as a medium)?  The Choreography/ Composition category (changed this season to just Composition, but with very little change in wording) is clearly not meant to be a test of subjective aesthetic taste. A judge should be able to simultaneously dislike something or find it not particularly entertaining, and still recognize if the movement and overall design are substantive and demonstrate the characteristics quoted above. Of course, the judges may differ in opinion on what the level of quality is, but it should be analogous to the differences of perception when rating the execution of an element, and not a personal judgement of what they liked or wanted to see, whether generally or from specific teams.

There is no official reason that “internal” programs should be scored lower, as “inwards” projection is explicitly allowed – or even demanded – if the program requires it [2].  And there is absolutely no evidence that a program is supposed to be punished for being “theatrical”, as long as it relies on bladework and movement instead of gesticulating and pulling faces. In fact, plenty of weaker teams have been highly rewarded for using the style as an excuse to do the latter, so I think we can assume that the ISU hasn’t simply forgotten to release to the public an across-the-board ruling against the genre itself (the only way this would be a valid criticism of a genre that an ice dance team chose to skate to). I do, however, find "theatrical" to be an odd descriptor for a program that was rather abstract, despite the intention to tell a story and the strength of H/B’s acting skills. Skating's most dance-literate and dance-focused media outlet, Two for the Ice, had similar thoughts when including the FD in its Top 5 ice dance programs of 2015-16:

"Superficially, the program could be viewed as one set to a pretty film score with a generally overarching romantic theme. This would be to ignore the challenge actually faced — and conquered — in this sophisticated free dance from coaches Anjelika Krylova and Pasquale Camerlengo. Presenting the story of Stephen and Jane Hawking and the former’s battle with ALS could spell gimmickry; instead, it’s a tale told through dance, not theatricality. Mirrored moments and contracted motions spell out the duo’s romance, tragedy and a subtle shift in roles, those harsher, more grounded moments drawing in the contemporary dance influence."

And maybe that was the cardinal sin – if you’re going to tell a story, do it as facilely as possible with no complicated symbolism to figure out. The keywords that keep appearing in the guidelines such as "symmetry", "space", "innovative" and "concept" [1,2] would suggest that movement tending towards the abstract and original instead of the literal and commonplace should be more highly regarded in whatever style of dance is picked by the team, but programs are indeed supposed to be “clearly understandable” [2]. But what was so confusing about what H/B were doing? If judges couldn’t simultaneously hold “film score from a movie about ALS” and “contemporary vocabulary” in their head long enough to interpret the piece, they are absolutely not qualified to be judging anything related to dance.  But further, that guideline exists only in one of the five component categories, and is one thing to consider out of many within that category. It gives absolutely no excuse to refuse to appropriately score the dozens of other, more important facets of a team’s execution of a program.

The "feedback" system has always seemed very sketchy to me.  The logistics of it are always murky when it comes up, and if things were judged properly a team and their coaching staff should be able to look at the protocols to know what they need to work on. Examples: "I think your Grade of Execution on this element was lower than expected because you have a tendency to do this”, “to take your GOE from +2 to +3, this is the one aspect that could be improved even further”, “your transitions could use a few more changes of direction and that’s probably what’s keeping your score for that component down”etc.  I can also see how getting additional insights from federal consultants, who have judging expertise but do not actually work on panels (thus avoiding the opportunity for bias by developing personal relationships with skaters and then giving them scores) would make sense in theory. Getting the opinions of someone with a fresh eye and who knows what watching from the judges’ bench is like could indeed be beneficial.  Maybe if the whole process was transparent, I wouldn't find it troubling for the the judges to give written explanations as to why they marked things a certain way, for the skaters and their teams to consider on their own. (Perhaps they do? I would appreciate it if anyone could point me in the direction of official guidelines as to how judges give feedback, if they exist.) But that feedback should be based on explaining the protocols for what a team might be missing with regards to CoP.  There should be no puzzle as to what unofficial rules or trends they might need to follow, and no judge should be speaking with them about what they personally found lacking with their presentation. 

Of course, the protocols are all crap and so it’s a moot point.  Feedback can be nothing but sketchy when officials have to explain special unwritten ways to obtain the points that a team already deserved, or the alchemical methods by which a team will be allowed to place ahead of the teams they were already outskating.  Consider for a moment that the very people who corruptly ranked H/B below two weaker teams are the very ones giving them this feedback. (And minor detail, but who was it that advised them to make the bizarre change away from the period costumes that helped give context to "the story" at Nats?) Baker also notes that sometimes officials “beat around the bush and say, 'Maybe this, maybe that' rather than be upfront”.  Even aside from the obvious problems with H/B's specific feedback, I don't know how anyone could defend this inconsistent, casual approach as being of the ethical standard required for an Olympic sport.

H/B interpreted whatever they were told in conversations with officials as a suggestion that a more basic approach would showcase them in a more deserving light. But it is not – or certainly should not be, at any rate – the role of judges to assign the type of programs a team should skate to.  Their job is to primarily grade the quality and difficulty of the skating, as well as the dance skills (which also demonstrate the strength of skating by showing what else a team can do while skating).  Composition is a small minority of the score in the first place, and much of the category can only be rated by how the team executes (eg. phrasing, use of the ice).  When assigning the very small portion arguably based more directly on “artistry”, the requirements are very defined based on whether the content has or doesn’t have certain qualities.  Judges’ overall consideration of the program is clearly meant to be how the team used the choreography to show their skating, and not the other way around.

Certainly some programs can do better at highlighting a team’s strongest assets than others, and some types of choreography can get in the way of a team, either because they aren’t capable of it or because it’s shoddily put together.  I don’t believe any of those scenarios were the case with H/B’s FD last season, but more importantly, in those cases, judges should not be excused if they don’t accurately evaluate how the team skated. Judges should be educated enough to tell the skating and choreography apart, be focused enough to evaluate the strengths of the team as shown without reference to what else they could be doing instead, and to be professional enough to not let their own inclinations distract them from rating the team’s skills fairly.  If judges are preoccupying themselves with what they think would suit a team, or – probably nearer the mark – what they would enjoy watching, that is a clear violation of their role as outlined.  What they should be looking for is in CoP. There should be nothing complicated about that.

But further, when ice dance judging has for many years had a mainstream reputation of being a bit shady, how can anyone justify judges telling teams on an individual basis different things they should or should not consider doing? How is that not a perfect recipe for sabotage and favouritism? If safeguards – such as the recent decision to remove anonymous judging – are needed because judges have motivation to score in a biased way, how do they not have equal motivation to give feedback with ulterior motives?  Coaches and choreographers, providing they are competent, and in conjunction with what should be unbiased federation oversight, are the ones who should be deciding if a team is capable of doing more, or would be better off for now with doing less.  They best know how their skaters need to develop, and are best able to judge their ability for growth. They are the ones whose prerogative it is to think strategically of how to make a team standout and show them off to best advantage. (As an aside, although "strategy" also encompasses the task of finding the right balance between showing a team's strengths and helping them to grow further, the context in which the word is often used these days - to make the judges "notice" a team - is somewhat problematic. It could in theory still be valid, I suppose, to counteract an understandable and unintentional level of human error displayed by judges, but the very emphasis currently placed on it is itself an indicator of the incompetency and corruption seen among panels. Judges should assess what they see on the ice each time and score accordingly, rather than judge by reputation or withhold points out of boredom.)

The whole organization of ice dance is run by blatantly ignoring the very phrases and formulas they insist competitions are judged by.  Teams like H/B get convinced that they missed out on what they deserved (in this case, two additional competitions and a bronze medal) because of something they did wrong, and they’re supposed to just be grateful that someone let them in on the secret.  Scores are explained away by the packaging being too confusing or just not what the judges were in the mood for, despite that being a very disproportionate at best, and blatantly improper at worst, way to penalize a team.  There is nothing about the way ice dance operates that is befitting of a credible sport, and it has no business being in the Olympics or otherwise officially recognized.  And on that note, I tweeted this teaser for Part 2 of the new series last week, but will include it again here – behold your future Olympic champions, who can only get through a pattern dance by two-footing it.

References:
2015-16 Handbook for Referees and Judges
1. pg 17
2. pg 19

Tech Analysis: P/C Fudging the Ravensburger Waltz (Part 1)

Introduction

Back at the beginning of the month, I was intrigued when twice in the span of a few days I read that Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron's execution of the Ravensburger Waltz pattern in their winning Short Dance at the 2016 World Championships was superior beyond belief.

Gadbois' junior Japanese team Rikako Fukase/Aru Tateno gave the following quote (translated by Google) in this interview published on September 2.  (They then go on to praise the unison and ability for expressive movement they believe Papadakis/Cizeron possess.)

"Tateno: They are going up to top speed in two to three steps. I'm I'm not pushing, but I become the story of the growth of skating = "glide (move to slide)", it is already amazing.
Fukase: it is the odd large pattern dance! Other athletes also I'm very clean, Gabriela and Guillaume, the size of the pattern is completely different.
Tateno: This is an order of magnitude larger. 
Interviewer: It is that is the same time in the distance and are = much slipped take than the other set.
Tateno: That's right..."

V/M's return has meant skating discussion getting restarted in earnest over at the dubemoir watering hole, and a comment claiming that P/C's basic skating was superior to Virtue/Moir's included this example:

"...P/C's pattern in the SD was so, so much bigger than any other team's pattern. It was like there was no friction to slow them down, so they could glide and make the pattern as large as they wanted. I've never seen anything like it."

The breathless enthusiasm that has surrounded P/C the last two seasons has given rise to countless claims of extraordinary talent, but not many as specific as this one.  I was skeptical, when struggling to maintain speed when faced with difficulty, is a clear weakness of theirs.  (Watch how many crossovers, simple stepping and pausing on two feet they do in their Free Dance from the same competition.  There is a floaty quality to their skating which seems to mesmerize people - and certainly a team being able to glide on an edge is a novelty after the horror show that was Davis/White - but P/C get sluggish and messy when it really counts.) However, when I actually compared the Ravensburgers of the SD segment, I was surprised to find that, although the claim that P/C's covered the most ice by far - or even overall - was incorrect, with a handful of teams having a pattern of similar size, it is indeed true that theirs was one of the largest, and arguably a little bigger than that of Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani and Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje.

I found this quite curious. How does a team that minimizes complexity and being close in hold in their choreography- presumably because of how bogged down they get when doing anything that approaches intricacy - accomplish this feat? I decided to take a look at the accuracy of their steps, as well as the quality of holds and general ease of movement. Was everything clean and close, like should be the case with a brilliant team? Or could this evidence of their superiority actually be a result of gaining an advantage through cutting corners?  Could their height also a contributing factor?

What started as a quest to understand the size of their pattern has since expanded into a more in-depth project of using this element to break down their skating.  For now, I'm going to set the issue of comparative ice coverage aside, but will return to it in a future post.

Part 1: Versus the Shibutanis, Steps #1-6

Fortunately, the camera angles of P/C's performance match up almost perfectly to that of Shibutani/Shibutani, the team present at this competition who I consider to have the best skating skills, so that is where I am going to begin. I'm going to start by working through Section 1 of the RW to examine the general technique of the teams in question.  The Key Points and issue of timing and musicality will be dealt with later in this series, along with a closer look at the requirements for Grade of Execution and Program Components.  A table of scores relevant to the first section of the pattern is below. Section 1 comprises steps #1-19, but this post will only cover part of the section, with the rest being looked at in part 2. 

There's Something About "Proud Mary"

With some summer competitions now on the books, 2016-17 is officially underway in the world of ice dance!  And it seems fitting to start this season's analysis with a look at some choreography coming out of Gadbois, as for two seasons in a row, that camp has wreaked the most havoc on a sport that was already coming apart at the seams.

Choreography in itself is certainly of much less importance than the fraudulent scores that get assigned to favoured teams on an ongoing basis, but it is a relevant topic within the context of how that corruption gets justified.  Much of the narrative behind the undeserved rise of Papadakis/Cizeron (as well as the improved fortunes of several of their training mates) has been focused on how the vehicles themselves, particularly those produced by Marie-France Dubreuil, are worthy of praise (and points) for their groundbreaking ability to draw tears from the eyes of both judges and fans.

Now, many points can be made as a rebuttal of that wide-spread belief in Dubreuil's superiority as a choreographer:

that her work is in fact incredibly lacking in dimension and ingenuity;

that the 'soft, flowing edges' fans claim as her trademark are in reality a sign of no contrast, no speed and no intricacy;

that if she has the ability to find and utilize the nuances in a piece of music to create something unexpected, she has apparently chosen not to make use of it;

that any marginal effectiveness her programs possess comes from how the music itself, or the skating skill of the team^A, or the conspicuous displays of emotion^B by the skaters carry the lacklustre choreography rather than the other way around;

that as much as she claims that her teams have each been given sophisticated custom-painted styles that are distinct from one another, the movements and steps she proscribes have a characteristic look that is amazingly consistent across teams (something that the message boards are hesitantly starting to come to terms with).

But I'd like to explore another point  - that perhaps the reputation Dubreuil receives for creativity is undeserved based not only on her substandard body of work, but also the possibility that the rare fresh idea she does present might not in fact originate with her.  To be clear, I'm not claiming this is often the case, merely raising the question.  One program coming out of the Lake Placid competitions last week, Smart/Diaz's egregiously over-scored Tina Turner "Proud Mary" Short Dance, caught my attention for its similarities to another piece recently aired on television - and it turns out that is just the beginning of the story.

On the May 2, 2016 episode of Dancing with the Stars, Mark Ballas and his Season 22 partner Paige VanZant ^C performed a spectacular jive to this song. I was definitely a fan, especially of this thrilling display of precision and dance chemistry:

FYI - This is, generally speaking, what good dance connection looks like. pic.twitter.com/npVPAyaDWk

— Canada Blue (@canadablues) 3 May 2016

At least two other people from the ice dance world shared my enthusiasm - Alex Shibutani (who was in the audience with Maia) and journalist Jacquelyn Thayer (who identified the movement above as an advanced figure called the "Jive Tollgate" and who also appears to have noticed the similarities in S/D's new program).

On May 13, Olivia Smart announced the new team's music for the SD.  The difficulty, athleticism and energy of VanZant & Ballas' jive was still fresh in my mind, and knowing the skating capabilities S/D had had with previous partners and what interpretation was likely to come out of Gadbois, I weighed in on their chances of living up to the recent number.

S/D are doing Proud Mary? LOL, good luck with that. Even performance-wise, NOPE. But maybe MFD can one-up G/P when it comes to boat miming.

— Canada Blue (@canadablues) 14 May 2016

I did not necessarily believe at the time they were basing their SD on Ballas' idea- eleven days is a rather short time for the logistics to work, after all - but it did cross my mind.  My suspicions increased, however, when Smart explained in an interview how they switched to Proud Mary after having already chosen other music.

"We actually chose different swing and blues music in the beginning, and Marie then played Proud Mary in one of our lessons, and we both looked at each other and said how much we loved that music. ... So the next day we came into the rink and right away we requested to Marie if we could skate to that music instead!"

(Please note - I am assuming that Dubreuil choreographed the SD based on this interview, but it is not without precedent for one Gadbois coach to assist the team in deciding on music and for another to choreograph a piece. I will update this post if information surfaces that this was the case instead.)

Of course, choreography can to a certain extent serve the purpose of homage.  Bent/Razgulajevs's White Christmas-themed SD (likely choreographed by Carol Lane^D, and unveiled in the same Lake Placid Senior International competition as S/D's) is one example of this; another would be Paul/Islam's recent exhibition choreographed by Kelly Johnson to Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud. In both cases, the programs include a small handful of upper body gestures copied from a single, well-known source, with the main substance of the choreography being a work onto its own and movements being either new or part of the team's catalogue of prior material.

It should therefore be noted that both the V&B and S/D pieces include classic movements done by Tina Turner and the Ikettes around the time of the song's release in 1970.  As can be seen in this 1971 performance, examples include the 360 degree turns at the tempo change in S/D's program, the revolving fists in V&B's, and the bending forward in both:

Three sections, however, stood out to me as owing more to the DWTS version than Turner's - the partnered section preceding the Twizzles, a jump by both partners during the Not Touching Step Sequence and the triple cartwheel ending.

Apologies

Well, two things have become painfully obvious. 

My last entry, at least with regards to Paul/Islam's political future, has turned out to be spectacularly wrong. 

And my follow through on promises of new material has been terribly pathetic.  My deepest apologies. I fully intend to publish more posts and videos (many of which already exist in draft stage!), and, if you're still willing to bear with me, a change in offline circumstances this spring should make doing so more realistic. I just wanted to make clear that my unintentional hiatus has not been due to lost interest or having given up the fight. In the meantime, for my most pressing thoughts, you can follow me on Twitter.

A Tale of Two Mistreated Teams

Shortly after the 2014-15 season concluded, Hubbell/Donohue and Paul/Islam moved from the Detroit Skating Club to CPA Gadbois in Montreal.  Why would two of the four strongest teams of the past season (according to what was executed on the ice rather than the scores given) move to a training centre that did not have a proven track record of accommodating the type of talent these two teams possess?  The obvious answer is, of course, politics.  What is interesting, however, is the divergent way in which the pressure to gain a political advantage likely took shape.


Hb/Dn had been left off the Olympic, World and 4 Continents teams for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons in order for Davis/White and Chock/Bates to rack up undeserved accolades of all kinds.  In 2014-15, Hb/Dn once again proved themselves to be deserving of much more than they received.  After the earlier indignity of placing behind Gilles/Poirier, Papadakis/Cizeron and Monko/Khaliavin on the Grand Prix circuit, they had to make do with Golden Spin of Zagreb instead of the hoped-for Grand Prix Final in early December.  They nearly lost this Senior B competition to Guignard/Fabbri, a truly terrible team that had, until then, been mostly relegated to the scoring basement where they belonged.

Once Nationals arrived, it was clear that Ch/Ba had succeeded D/W as the automatic victors.  But instead of fighting for second place against the Shibutanis as might be expected, Hb/Dn were cast in the role of battling for third place against the very deserving but ultimately less refined Hawayek/Baker.

Despite placing ahead of H/B, they were only given the Worlds assignment and not 4CC.  The message seemed clear: they could easily be replaced next season by the young and fresh World Junior champions, who also happened to represent the DSC.

In the meantime, CPA Gadbois was having an extremely good year.  Skate Canada mouthpiece Bev Smith's coverage of 2015 4CC, a competition which the European P/C naturally did not attend, provides a good example of the hype surrounding the camp's top team.

"A young team, Papadakis and Cizeron have made amazing strides throughout the past season. They improved their skating skills. They endured draining work over the summer to improve their interpretative skills, too. Strategies were put in place.  Their coaches threw them an uncommon challenge, asking them to skate to Mozart, which is not easy for ice dancer to interpret, especially skaters so young. Obviously, all obstacles can be overcome. The French certainly have done that – and quickly. And what’s most pleasant about the whole thing: the judges of the world have rewarded what they’ve seen on the ice. That makes a competition so much more fun. And sporty."
 
If a team whose quality was markedly below that of Hb/Dn's could ascend more suddenly than Virtue/Moir and score nearly as outrageously as Davis/White, then it would seem that anything is possible.  What Hb/Dn need is for strong international scores to force the USFSA's hand in keeping them in the game at the national level.  And while the cause/effect relationship of P/C's rise and Gadbois's popularity is still unclear, there is no question that teams aside from P/C have already benefited politically from training in Montreal, and that nabbing a top American team can only increase the prestige of the camp.


Paul/Islam's case, on the other hand, would appear to be more complex.  The benefit of moving to Montreal is less obvious and even somewhat counter-intuitive.  To be sure, their situation appeared to be desperately stagnant by the season's end (going by results, of course, as they continued to improve despite the absurd placements they were continually handed).  After a humiliating fall season where they unfairly placed behind or were outscored by more than a dozen weaker teams, they scrapped their first Free Dance and managed to hang on to the third spot at Nationals.  At this competition, where they should have been vying for the national crown against Weaver/Poje, the margin between them and silver medalists G/P was approximately five times more than the margin between them and the 4th- and 5th-place finishers (Orford/Williams and Paradis/Ouellette, respectively).  Finishing the season off with a nonsensical 13th-place at Worlds, three spaces lower than the year before, and having obviously ceded back all the ground they had gained over Gilles/Poirier during the Sochi season, a fresh start somewhere else would seem to be of both political and psychological benefit. 

But why Montreal?  The scrapped FD was, in fact, choreographed by Gadbois coaches Dubreuil/Lauzon and had been nearly universally, if somewhat unfairly, panned.  P/O, the team that many had viewed as their biggest competition going forward, were already training at the camp.  But what if the reason why P/O, and G/P once again, were more favoured by Skate Canada was as simple as location?  There is evidence to suggest that Skate Canada is currently obsessed with having their teams train within Canada's borders.

The first obvious sign of this new mindset came during 2014 Skate Canada International, when a fluff piece for the DSC was dismissively followed by an interview with High Performance Director Mike Slipchuk in which he discussed "a mission to keep our top skaters here [at home]".  A few months later at 2015 Canadian Nationals, on the heels of a Paul/Islam fluff piece, Tracy Wilson insisted on-air that training outside the country was no longer necessary.

And then there was the emphasis placed on P/O, which was suspect because it was far above what their skating should have merited.  It seems apparent from their trajectory last season that a Gadbois contender was very much what Skate Canada wanted. 

The buzz started when they were assigned Skate Canada's Grand Prix host pick outright at the end of June.  Having been assigned to a senior B the season before and finishing fifth in the FD at the previous Nationals did provide a basis of sorts for the decision, despite a previously non-existent international career.  Results at the 2014 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships a month later, however, seemed to suggest that waiting to see how others teams fared during summer competition might have been a wise decision.  P/O scored lower than five other Canadian teams in the Short Dance segment, the highest-scoring of which were the 2012 Canadian Junior champions Poulin/Servant.  And while they were not present at this competition, the 2011 Canadian Junior champions and seasoned international competitors Orford/Williams would have also been a fitting choice for the host pick.  They had a strong showing at BC Summer Skate in early August, and had also publicly noted a wish to be assigned to the event because of its proximity to home.

The decision had already been made, however, and Bev gave P/O a starring role in her article covering the High Performance Camp in September.

"Dubreuil brought with her some new faces, Elisabeth Paradis and Francois-Xavier Ouellette, who aren’t exactly members of the national team, and never even saw a Junior Grand Prix, but at age 22, have finally impressed.

Their scores at Cup of Nice last season placed them in the top 75 of Grand Prix selection criteria. So Skate Canada has given them a starting berth at the Skate Canada International in Kelowna, B.C. in October. “We put them on a top level really quick,” Slipchuk said. “We like to see that….Junior is not the end of the line. It’s just a stop along the way.” Judging from the past quadrennial, young skaters can push themselves up quickly in the next four, Slipchuk said. Skate Canada will have a better idea of who will make up the 2018 Olympic team two years out, but for now, it’s time to spread wings and look at all possibilities."

[The first paragraph quoted could leave the impression that it is an unheard-of honour for a team who are not members of the National Team to receive an invitation to HPC.  It is, in fact, standard procedure to invite teams who have been given Grand Prix assignments.  Such was the case in 2010 for P/I and in 2012 for O/W.  (Thank you to blue eyed birds of Goldenskate for that insight.)]

Next, P/O received a somewhat baffling second Grand Prix assignment as substitutes (Skate America).  As they were handed scores in the same range as P/I's during the fall season, the narrative shifted to one in which P/I were no longer in a race with G/P, but in danger of losing their spot on the World team.  On the eve of the Nationals-qualifying Skate Canada Challenge competition in early December, Bev released another glowing recommendation of P/O, a profile that featured a rather suspicious similarity to P/I's 2013-14 "No matter what" motto, quoted here in Bev's Olympic profile of them.  P/O finished 15 points ahead of other competitors, against a field which included all five of the teams who outscored them earlier in the summer (albeit with P/S dealing with injury).  P/O appeared to have reason to believe a bronze medal at Nats was possible.  But P/I were, barely, allowed to remain ahead, and a surprise victory over P/O by O/W took a possible 4CC assignment effectively off the table.

In the days before Nationals, two things seemed to have possibly strengthened P/I's position.  P/O had failed to make the tech minimums for Worlds, despite padded GOE, and as noted above, P/I had scrapped their FD for one more suited to demonstrating what they were capable of.  But despite this, they hung on to third place via their SD, and finished fifth in the FD segment, a very close call that cannot have put them at ease going forward for the rest of the season.  For whatever reason, P/I were clearly not being given consideration in accordance with their skill level.  Instead, they were being put through the ringer (some technical examples to follow shortly in a separate post.)

Without the international resume of H/D, P/I almost certainly need the national backing of Skate Canada to see improved standings at high-level competitions.  And taken in context, it seems reasonable that this move was strongly encouraged by their federation.  Where that will take them this season remains to be seen, but the off-season has shown some signs of the tide turning back in their favour.

Bev busted out some Gadbois exclamation points in honour of their move.

Skate Canada has twice acknowledged the existence of P/I on Twitter, once in May and again at the  end of July (shown below).

And most notably, P/I have been been assigned to Skate Canada International alongside W/P instead of G/P.   P/O have not yet been given the nod for the host pick, with a TBD marking the third Canadian slot.  (P/O are unlikely to pick up a Grand Prix assignment without the host pick because their truncated 2014-15 season lost them opportunities to finish in the top 10 at Worlds or have high- enough standing on the World Standings or Season's Best lists, which are the usual ways senior teams receive assignments.)

Both Hb/Dn and P/I compete this weekend at the Quebec Summer Championships.  If their fortunes have improved, I'm sure much will be said about the magical change Gadbois has wrought with them, despite years of technical progress at the DSC being ignored.  As with the fate of all the Gadbois teams, it will be mostly political.