So, now back to normal life, after an amazing night at the Free Dance.
It was crazy being there, I could not believe it was actually happening. On a positive note, my "obstructed views" seats was not obstructed at all!!! :-) So got to see the competition from the Lower Bowl, 5th rows from the ice :-)
They were some empty seats through the lower bowl that never got filled through the night and the sponsors/big companies that don't use them but don't release them should be ashamed!!!
Most in attendance were, well obviously Canadians, then Americans and Russians. Skaters from others countries had a few flags there and there but not much
Thankfully the audience cheered for everybody, and clapped a lot (ignorance is a bliss, some of the things they clapped for were pretty horrendous, lol)
Mostly they (the audience as opposed to the few skating fans in attendance) LOVED the twizzles. All of them got big big applause! I guess, ice-dance being jumpless, they are the easiest elements to recognize to the un-trained eyes.
Hoffman/Zavozin entertained a lot due to their music, Crone Poirier were received as if they were medal contender. I couldn't believe what a rip-off of Delschoes the Ukrainians program was...
During the first re-surfacing I noticed this bearded guy sitting 3 seats away from me, and he looked familiar... he really really looked like John Hamm from Mad Men... and well, it was John Hamm from Mad Men. Kept his cap on all the time, but nobody came to bother him... fair enough, I probably was the only one who recognized him, lol.
Back to skating and to the penultimate group, my favourite
Kerrs and French skaters
During the warm-up, the Japanese lady next to me was cracked up because I was struggling alternating between my GB flag and my FR flag, so she was laughing and couldn't stop saying "you're so busy, you're so busy", so I put her to contribution and gave her my second French flag!
S&J skated well, there was a few mishap, I think S tripped at one point, it was not obvious, but happened just in my corner. And of course those d*mn twizzles... It was still a great program, and everybody loved the reverse lift. So much that it got a second round of cheers/applause on the replay on the jumbotron. :-) So once more, and not to my surprise, everybody LOVED sinead and john :-D :-)
I can't remember much of Pechalat Bourzat program, they did not really catch my attention, I guess I was really looking forward to Isabelle and Olivier.
Event though during warm-up, the announcer said that she had a baby on Oct 1st, not many people were listening, so I felt it was my duty as a French supporter to let people in my area know
They were pretty impressed, and I hope they were able to admire the work they did during their program.
I like I&O program, loved the fact that they did not try to play the COP game to earn more points, but stayed true to themselves and DANCED.
K/N program, i just found weird. That bird thing did not impress me at all... it was all too a bit hectic.
If it had been just me, I would have stopped the competition at that point: Isa&Oli in 1st and Sinead&John in 3rd. Wicked podium that would have been.
The last group took the ice and the Pacific Coliseum was on fire! (understatement). Even though I did not really mid who was winning, I was starting to think that so much pressure would jinx V&M. It did not. The skated a technically perfect program, but that was very forgettable to my eyes (i know, unpopular opinion) It was obvious that with 110 pts they were going to win, but I would have hoped they'd been a bit more contained in the Kn'C as there was still 2 teams to compete.
Domnina Shabalin skated well, but I found them quite slow after all those youngsters skating with so much speed.
Anyway, the house exploded when hearing the 101 pts for Domnina Shabalin, and did not stop until after the medal ceremony...
Pix from the FD are -->
here<--, with the ones from practices.
That's it for my Olympics, the rest will be in front of the TV.
Hope you enjoyed the reports, I feel like I can't stop writing when I start!