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beautiful lift from Raffaella Koncius & Alexey Shchepetov in their Romeo and Juliet FD

they were the team who had the horrible accident in practice at Nationals two years ago, and she hit her head. so i'm so glad to see them doing well here

that split position where he's holding her under her boot is wow like Ashley says - for a combo lift you'd be aiming for a BV of 10.9 usually. yet they've already done a combo lift in this program, so this huge element counts as a choreo lift, and they got 3.23 points for it 👀😳 it feels like a shame to give this away, even though it does make a dramatic finish

choreo elements don't make sense in the judging a lot of times - half the panel gave them only +2 - which if this was worth 10 points, ok. but when the BV is 1.1, that feels stingy. and curious what their coaches were thinking with this - that it added impact to the program in a way that was worth it?

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Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko FD coming off the ice and kiss and cry at 2025 US Nationals

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a glimpse of CPom backstage as NBC goes to commercial

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Gabi Papadakis in the booth for NBC at 2025 US Nationals with Terry Gannon and Johnny Weir

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Adam Rippon backstage before the last FD group at 2025 US Nationals

👀 that was the look in their eye during practice yesterday too. i hope it’s just the annoyance of having a camera crew in their face at such a tense moment or how they always look and that they gather strength before their skate

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CPom RD run though at 2025 US Nationals with Jean-Luc Baker commentary

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Annabelle Morozov & Jeffrey Chen new FD to Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto at US Nats practice

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CPom in the 20 min warmup today at 2025 US Nationals a few hours before the RD competition

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2025 US Nationals women's practice Jan 21, 2025 Jean-Luc Baker and Jackie Wong commentary

JLB: this part of the practice when we'd have only a couple minutes left, and we skate back to the coach, most of the time we were not talking about anything to do with skating. it was like hey where do you want to get lunch after this? cause like, not like the job's been done, but Patch would just sit there and nod like you complete? you want anything else? and most of the time that's where i'd be like nope, i just want a protein bar or something. let's get outta here. i'm sure they were talking about important things like patterning JW: or protein bars

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Sonja Hilmer SP practice Jan 21 2025 at US Nationals Jean-Luc Baker and Jackie Wong commentary

JLB: Sonja! JW: ok, anyone who has followed me knows how much i love Sonja Hilmer because of the quirkiness of one, her choreography, but two she's just different. the way she approaches skating is so different, and i love it. and she's an ambi jumper

JLB: oh interesting entrance to the double axel - oh wow - that's very hard! JW: she just finds a way to inject something surprising to things that are normally just like [ ] a double axel

JW: this is her short, so we won't see her triple sal double sal [which she jumps counterclockwise, then clockwise] her clockwise spinning is better than some skaters's regular skating JLB: same. i mean not same. better than mine. not same - that was actually very misinterpreted on my part. her other direction spinning is better than my normal way. you'll never catch me spinning alone - where's Kaitlin

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a 14 sec clip of Morozov/Chen and their new FD and costumes

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Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko RD practice run through at 2025 US Nationals

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Jean-Luc Baker day 3 Skate America Practice commentary Lauriault/LeGac RD

'they have some really cool tricks, and they have some fun fun moments within this performance. all those assisted jumps are so easy for a team like this, and so dynamic as well. going into the midline step. i love the slicked back hair from Romain - i think it's a very solid look for him, very fitting for this style. little far apart on that, like if you could move just one of them over a body. just like go 6 inches closer, just one of them, would make all the difference in the world for that. cause right now i don't have a wow factor although it's so musical. if it's a little bit closer it's gonna be like wow they're so clear, and they're so controlled. when i create a precise image for you to be able see, that's when that whoaaa happens. very similar to the Czech team, they have two repeated movements- the Czech had a jumping mohawk kind of moment, and they just had a jumping rocker almost, two footed, and i think that having it twice over makes it that little more like, you saw it? i know you saw it. cool - very solid skate. that's definitely in the pocket for where they want to be for this afternoon

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Jean-Luc Baker day 3 Skate America Practice commentary Mrazeks RD

"whoa that was so fast out of the corner. wow they are powerful. little far apart, but any closer would be a little bit dangerous and risky, but just the power this team has is insane. i don't know how if they do runthroughs with parachutes on or weighted vests because that is just exquisite in terms of how much power they just got out of those two crossovers just then. i really don't know another team in the world other than their training mates the other Czech team that would be able to get that amount of power. they know how to push. and at times it's exciting. at times i like that. at times i do want to see that, but with a team like this, i see a little bit of it too much - very very hard steps there though. that jumping mohawk step - that is not a walk in the park i can tell you right now. there's a reason i never did it. way in the corner, not a bad thing. gonna maybe even try to hide that mohawk if you can from the technical panel. back inside rocker. this performance is very different than what i saw the first day of practice. i'm starting to really like this. particularly, it's got a stiffness in a way that creates clarity that fits with the music in my opinion. particularly for that section. i think in this part i'd like it to loosen up a little bit more. like we're running through a field or with our friends to a concert. i feel like it's a little just let's push again. some good stuff, though. great power. the power band of this team is unreal. and the assertiveness of edge that they create, too. like there's no question. they're not like i hope if the ice isn't good, i hope i don't catch an edge. nope we're going to make sure if i do catch an edge, i'm making a new one through it, which i do love. very grounded

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Day 3 L/LeG S/D D/S N/M T/K

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Jean-Luc Baker day 2 Skate America Practice commentary

talking about the free dance

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Jean-Luc Baker 2024 Skate America Practice commentary day 1

Q: why does Madison Chock always look so perfect