Figure skating World Championships

[Pamela Moberg]

Helene, are you by any chance in Torino, Italy? Or anybody else there?

I have to be content with the TV, but this time it will be fine, no problem with time schedules. Of course, you American guys are probably facing the problems I had with the Olympic games I will certainly see everything that is being televised here and if nobody reports live, I will put in a commentary or two.

Today it was ice dance, and the chosen music was Viennese waltz. Sounds easy, maybe, but I know from experience that doing that type of waltz in shoes on a proper floor is not that as easy as it looks, but on ice... Well, few of the non European skaters seemed to get the real feel of it, although their skating might have been fine.

[Helene]

No, alas, can't have everything, alas...

[sidwich]

Today it was ice dance, and the chosen music was Viennese waltz. Sounds easy, maybe, but I know from experience that doing that type of waltz in shoes on a proper floor is not that as easy as it looks, but on ice... Well, few of the non European skaters seemed to get the real feel of it, although their skating might have been fine.

Yes, the CD at Worlds this year is the Golden Waltz, which is one of the most difficult CDs; many consider it the most difficult CD out there, much more difficult than say, the Tango Romantica which was chosen for the Olympics this year. The Golden Waltz is also one of my favorites, and has been since Klimova and Ponomarenko first performed it back in the 80s. It's a lovely piece of choreography; Dubova/Klimova/Ponomarenko really captured the speed and rotation of the Viennese Waltz, and put it on ice.

The speed and rotation of Viennese Waltz is really a killer, especially for beginners who don't know how to control it. Making the full 180 over and over again in three beats is deceptively difficult, and a real test of good technique where there is no place to hide with complex figures.

Although they're not Europeans, I do think that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir perform the Golden Waltz exceptionally well. No one does it as well as Klimova and Ponomarenko on whom it was originally choreographed (and no one does the complete original choreography that they performed, either), but I think Virtue and Moir's speed, deep edges, classic posture and feel for the music serves the Golden Waltz well.