Bolzano Gala Review

[Kat]

It was one of the best shows I have ever seen, even better than last years Bolzano Gala!

The first skater was Giorgia Carossa. She skated to Allegria (Cirque de Soleil). She did a 2lutz and a very nice 3salchow and her program was really well done. I am really looking forward to the Italian Nationals...I heard that Giorgia can do all triples, so it will be exciting who will get the second spot, Marchei, Carossa or someone else.

Federica and massimo skated to Romanza. I am not an ice dance expert so I can't write much about it. Massimo fell on the straightline footwork, it looked really painful.

I was sooo excited to see Sasha Abt skate again!!! He skated to Harmonica, which was really nice. He did a triple toe and a double axel (step out).

Katerina berankova and otto Dlabola skated to Rachmaninov. It was one of their usual programs, but still nice to watch. Katerina's flixibility is just unbelievable and they did some nice lifts and side by side 2toes.

and then i was getting nervous lol, caro skated her new short program 'country'. i couldnt wait to see this program live. i really like it but it doesnt show her speed that much...compared to last year's secret garden (where she just flew across the ice). still, her basic skating skills are awesome. she risked everything and tried a 3flip but fell, landed a beautiful 3loop and a 2axel. the footwork is wow and fits the music really really well. she was wearing a new dress, i dont know if she will wear that at competitions though.

marie france debruil and patrice lauzon skated to singing in the rain and used two umbrellas for the exhibition. i liked it but then again, i am not an expert in dancing.

debbie park is just amazing. this woman is so crazy lol. i've seen her loads of times on tv, but she's even better live. it just looks more spectacular seeing how high she is up there doing her thing. wow.

maria butyrskaya...well. nothing seems to really work out for her at the moment. i've seen her 2 weeks ago in Innsbruck where she disappointed me...I hoped it would be better in Bolzano but I was wrong. She skated to Sarah Brightman but the program was kind of empty. she fell on the 3toe and singled the axel. i really hope she can pull herself together soon!

kati winkler and Rene Lohse were the third dance couple of the night. they skated to a rock'n'roll medley and the audience really liked their program.

Jozef Sabovcik - WOW! he won gold at the Europeans in 1984 (!) and his skating is still so awesome, he did a 3lutz! and one of his famous axels. he was one of the favourites of the night.

leonova/khvalko were awesome. can't remember what they skated to but they did a huge throw 2 axel and their usual spectacular moves.

Surya never stopped smiling on the ice. she did 3 clean triples (i think 2 salchows and a 3toe) and of course, her summersault.

albena and maxim skated their new free dance. i dont know what to think about this program, i think i have to re-watch it to say something about it.

evgeny rocked the house. he presented his new long program...and did one triple after the other. he even did a 3axel which looked SO easy. the program is still a bit empty but he might just have left something out, it was the first time i saw it. i dunno how he does it but there is just this special touch he has which got me yesterday. to be honest, i wasn't a big fan of him but i have changed my mind. he's such a great skater.

then there was a break of 20 mins where we got the chance to hang out with caro a bit. she had a press conference with evgeny on the 28th, we will get the pictures and articles which we will put on the site soon.

caterin gabbanella was the first one to skate in the second part. she is another great junior skater italy has. as far as i can remember, she did a double axel and a nice 3toe.

faiella/scali skated their new exhibition musica araba, which i really enjoyed.

stanick jeanette! yay, he was great. he did his charlie chaplin program. i would have loved to see him skate twice because it was such a pleasure, but unfortunately he only skated once. he did two 3toes and a 2axel.

caro's new exhibition is fly by celine dion. first i thought, oh no, not another celine dion song, but i have to say that this exhibition is even more beautiful than je t'aime encore. you could really see that she has improved her presentation soooo much. i can't wait to see this program again. i dunno why this girl risks so much at exhibitions...she did a 3toe-3toe combo. the first one was good but the second one was not straight and she fell again. she did a 3toe later again though.

ufff my hand hurts, i will write the second part as soon as i find time!

[deedeelocks]

Fab. Review!
Thank you!
can't wait for the rest

[Céline]

thank you so much for the review! this cast was awesome!! yay for you!!

[Melanie]

Wow, great report. What a cast.
Maria B never did anything for me even when she skated "well". I always thought she was grossly overmarked. I know I'll get lynched for that!

[Kat]

ok, here is the second part:

marie france and patrice skated to glory box. it was one of the highlights for me. the program just flowed over the ice and the music was very cool.

alexander abt skated to a songt called black betty. it was okay, but i liked his first program a lot better, the music suited him well. as far as i remember he did 3toe and 2axel and had sunglasses on!

kati and rene skated to norah jones. i was so excited cause i loooooved the song and i really wanted to see someone skate to it. the program was full of lifts that seemed difficult, not much footwork though, but still nice.

surya is just incredible. her triples are so consistent. she did 3loop and 3salchow i think and another backflip.

leonova and khvalko skated to carmina burana. the dramatic music suited them really well and they made all their moves to it. another huge throw 2 axel and all their lifts.

jozef sabovcik's second program was skated to the promise, a pretty slow song for him, but his skating is soft so it suited him well. his jumps are SO high and that special axel he does is wow.

butyrskaya....well i dont like abba lol. she even tried the 3loop but it was badly underrotated and she fell hard. she didnt try any more jumps after that.

albena and maxim skated their exhibition from last year, in heaven. i was so excited to see this program live!!! and it was amazing, they have so much speed.

evgeny did his sexbomb program! it was funny and he went into the audience again, i am sure that his blades are ruined. he did some triples, they just seem so easy for him, even with the costume on. the audience went crazy and i guess he has a lot of fans for torino now!

well, all in all, it was a very nice show with great skaters.
the highlights for me were of course caro's new exhibition which just blew me away, evgeny and marie france and patric's exhibition to glory box.

we were allowed to go backstage with the kosnters after the show and we were the last ones to leave at about 1 lol. that family is so nice and down to earth. it was funny to see how caro's mum made jokes with evgeny. she was like: did you cut your hair? we sat together at the show and evgeny was watching it from the skater's entrance when he saw the kostner's in the audience. he waved to them and took out his camera to take a pic of them lol. it was really nice although we didnt have the chance to hang out with caro as much as last year cause we weren't allowed to watch practices before the show. so no new caro practice clips for the site i might go to nationals and make some there though.

[Melanie]

Thanks for the 2nd part.
Im amazed Surya still does consistent triples but then she was always a very good athlete.

I'm sure Plushenko will rock the house in Turin.

[Céline]

Vielen Dank Kat!

I can't wait to see Caro at Euros, I hope she'll skate even better than in Paris!

[deedeelocks]

thanx for the 2nd part!

I'm sure Plushenko will rock the house in Turin.

I hope so, I don't want a repeat of last years Europeans

[Sk8swan]

Better late than never... here is my review

I wasn't taking notes so I'll basically write my impressions with more details here and there. There were some addictions to the cast like Berankova/Dlabola (I was particularly glad to see them again , Butyrskaya and Jeanette.
The opening "Let me entertain you" had all the cast skating to it besides for the guest stars: Denkova/Stavyski, Federica&Massimo, Caro and Plushy. The guest stars unlike the other skaters all wore the costumes they were going to use for their first program and they got out one after the other performing an element. The dance couple did a lift if I recall well, Plushy a flying camel and smth else, Caro who's wearing a very elegant black shining dress a beautiful 2axel. Okay let me gush a bit here I just can't get over how fast she is over the ice, 2 crossovers and she's flying! By far the fastest skater of all the girls and most of the men, impressive.
Now I'll comment on each skater programs together not dividing part 1 and part 2.
First the hometown girls Carrossa and Gabanella. They were both on tonight landing all their jumps (2axel, 3toe and 3sal). Carossa skated to "Allegria" wearing a grey-fading-into-white sparkling body suit, Gabanella skated wearing a nice red dress skated to a spanish tune. Presentation wise I still like Gabanella more than Carossa as she has a more soft and lyrical style. She's very elegant and reminds me a bit of Poykio. Another lefty with loads of potential (she's only 16).
Carolina. I do think I'll be a nervous wreck in Torino as I was nervous even if it was an exhibition! And well, I think she was nervous too... As first program she did the sp which is great live much better than on tv so much power and everything looks so easy. Too bad she fell on the 3flip (loud awwww from the crowd who really got supportive and started to clap) but did a very nice 3loop. She took the 2axel out and replaced it with a split jump and didn't really do the layback but spiral and step sequence were so amazing! As 2nd program she skated her new ex to "Fly" by Celine Dion and that was the highlight of the show, it's such a beautiful program and it suits her sooo well I loved it right from the very beginning when she does some graceful arm movements as if she's pretending to get smth to fly out of her hands... okay I'm terrible at explaining this, you have to see it to understand what I mean. I think she really wanted to redeem herself from the fall on the 1st program and instead of taking it easy she went for 3toe-3toe and unfortunately fell really bad on the toe that looked like it hurted! The program even with the fall was amazing, she's really coming out of her shell this yr, expressing her feeling for the music much more than before. She performed an amazing spiral that covered the whole ice surface, camel spin in both directions and a very nice combo spin with interesting variations of positions.
Federica&Massimo were great, 1st program "Romanza" by Bocelli was my fav, really nice flowing program, fast with wonderful lifts. Too bad he fell on a twizzle. They wore the same costume they used for their Four Season FD I think (she in a purple dress). I have to admit I like it better than their other ex, the voidy one with the white sheet. They skated that one without mistakes and did some really cool effective lifts including the reverse with a edge change from Federica. It was great to see them live, looking forward to Torino!
Abt. First program was "Harmonica" didn't grab my attention at all still wonderful stroking and flow from him. The 2nd program "Black Betty" was more upbeat and fun to watch, he landed a couple of nice triples (toes if I remember well).
Berankova/Dlabola. It was a nice surprise to see them there, they skated only one program to Rachmaninov (an old program if I recall well), she's sooo beautiful to watch (she was wearing a very pretty green dress) and sooo flexible. Very nice lifts.
Dubreil/Lauzon. I was surprised to see an eligible team coming from oversea to Bolzano gala. "Singing in The rain" and "Glory Box". What stands out about these 2 are their lifts. They had some really cool in both programs and they were nicely received by the audience.
Debbie Park the acrobat, I think she's done the same program since forever now one of them where she wears skates and does gymn stuff on the ice the 2nd one where she steps on the ice with naked feet and get up in the air doing acrobacies wrapped in a white sheet... okay i'm terrible at describing again but if you ever seen her you know what i mean She got loads of cheers from the crowd expecially for the 2nd number who got ppl's chins up like at the circus lol
Butyrskaya. Her programs over the past few yrs tend to be really similar to one another, like if you saw one you see all... I wish she'd come out with something different. The Abba medley selection was nice tough. She did a 3toe but messed the 2axel and fell on a 3loop attempt.
Winkler/Lohse RocknRoll medley and Norah Jones for them both program really nice and got a very warm reception from the audience.
Sabovcik. Wow, I didn't expect him to be so good! Medalist in Sarajevo 84 and he still can do the 3lutz! Amazing and he's quite a performer too! Crowd loved him.
Leonova/Khvalko. I have to admit they were a nice surprise too. When I first heard about the cast, I wasn't too excited they were the only couple to show up but they were good! Two big 2axels, great lifts, they got a huge response from the crowd!
Bonaly. If I had to describe her with a word I'd say 'power'. Wearing typical Bonaly costumes, with short hair looking a bit wild she still has nice 3sal and 3toe and backflips too of course that had the crowd roaring.
Denkova/Stavyski. I'm afraid to say but I didn't like their new FD at all... the music is just too weird for my taste and I wasn't too crazy about their EX with white pants either dunno why...
Plushy. He got the best response from the crowd expecially during his Sex Bomb EX! First program was his lp a bit watered down of course. I have to say watching him live and on tv is just 2 totally different things. I wasn't too impressed with his lp after watching it on clips but live he just captures you and you can't get your eyes off of him! He popped the quad and did 3toe-3toe and then 3lutz-3toe eeeasy. As I say for his SexBomb program the crowd really went wild, he went up in the stands to kiss the hand of a lady and show his muscles off
The finale to "hey baby" was fun Daniel Weiss made us sing to the "uh-ah" part as loud as we could setting up kind of a competition between the right section and the left section of the audience!
I couldn't believe when the skaters were bowing that the gala was already over... it went by soo fast! We got Caro doing another 3toe and that was it.
By far the best skating gala I've ever seen!

[Céline]

Grazie mille Sara! This definitely sounds like an amazing show, what a cast!! to the organizers!
I'm so looking forwards to Torino too!

And just so you know, Dubreuil/Lauzon practice in Lyon (France), so they didn't come from overseas just for the show.

[Sk8swan]

Céline said:

And just so you know, Dubreuil/Lauzon practice in Lyon (France), so they didn't come from overseas just for the show.

Oh I didn't know... it's not so strange they were there then