something about the way Evgenia and Alina worked under the same coach for years, fought their way to the top of their coaching program, to the world of elite ice skating, were best friends and couldn't even look at each other in the years after the Olympics. something about how the story was poised to repeat again in 2022 with Sasha and Anna, something about the way the silver medalists broke down, something about how they figured it out. something about how Anna came to Sasha's wedding and laughed with her and cheered for her when she gave birth. something about the eteri girls and their patterns and how cycles were broken.
It was fun rewatching this program. I don’t think I’ve seen it since I watched it live and then I was cheering for Virtue/Moir so hard I didn’t really appreciate this program.
I’ve always liked Papadakis/Cizeron’s style, they had the lines and grace to be able to pull off the languid and lyrical style (though why others tried to badly copy them, I don’t understand). I also really like this piece of music and I think only they could have pulled off a piece that had so little build throughout.
It’s a gorgeous program, but a couple of thoughts 7 years later:
- most of their lifts are relatively simple - and next to Virtue/Moir’s Moulin Rouge, that really stands out.
-Ice dance is such an expressive sport, but most of the emotion of this program shows on her face. He maintains almost the same expression throughout. Perhaps he’s controlling his emotions so as not to make errors, but my memories of their other programs were that he looked icy calm throughout.
- I’ve heard people say that without the wardrobe issue in the Rhythm Dance P/C would have won gold. This is a gorgeous program, but it’s not as hard as V/M was and doesn’t have the heart (I may be biased there).
- Watching this after all that’s happened makes me realize how much Gabby was the strength of this team.
This also reminds me that I should always go back later and rewatch gorgeous programs without the pressure of ‘who will win’ and ‘will they make a mistake’.
