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December
3 (SPOILERS)
Marina & Gwendal have easily qualified
for the Grand Prix Final in Kitchener, Canada, taking place
in two weeks, thanks to their victories at both Trophee
Lalique and NHK Trophy.
They had a very good start of the season with Trophee
Lalique, where their new routines received very good
reactions from the audience and more importantly, from the
judges. Their flamenco/tango OD was the most characteristic
one of the field and earned them a 6.0 from the Polish
judges; their new FD, named "Liberta-Anthem to Liberty", was
a great success as well, as the artistic marks were all 5.9s
with a 6.0 from the French judge.
Two weeks later, Marina & Gwendal were in Japan for the
NHK Trophy, which is one of their favorite competitions.
They were not as assured as in Paris, but still won gold
easily, despite a small fall from Gwendal during the free
dance.
Marina & Gwendal have therefore qualified for the Grand
Prix Final, and will be competing with the following
teams:
Fusar-Poli & Margaglio (ITA)
Bourne & Kraatz (CAN)
Chait & Sakhnovsky (ISR)
Dubreuil & Lauzon (CAN)
Drobiazko & Vanagas (LTU)
The Grand Prix Final format requires that every team skates
their original dance and two different free dances. Marina
& Gwendal have decided to bring back "Carmina Burana",
the routine that made them become European & World
champions two seasons ago.
In order to practice this routine as much as they need to,
Marina & Gwendal will not be competing at Nationals this
week, but will take part in the gala. They are currently
training in the USA and will come back to France on
Saturday.
November
15
On
to Lalique! Marina & Gwendal are entering their first
competition of the season, the Trophee Lalique in Paris,
today.
Here is their schedule:
Thursday, November 15 (7.00 p.m.): compulsory dance
(blues)
Friday, November 16 (9.00 p.m.): original dance
Saturday, November 17 (4.00 p.m.): free dance
Sunday, November 18 (2.30 p.m.): gala
They will unveil their new programs there: their original
dance coreographed by professional dancers from Madrid,
Spain; and their free dance, named "Liberta", coreographed
by Bruno Vandelli (for more info read the November 4
news).
Go to photo
links to view the very first pictures of this
program and appreciate the new costumes!
(I
didn't link to everything due to lack of time, but just go
to http://newsroom.corbis.com/ and type "anissina"
in the search box and you will get tons of pictures,
including from their summer practices)
Also
in the news, Marina & gwendal are now being helped by
Natalia Dubova, especially on the compulsories.
November
4
Marina & Gwendal's music choices for
this season have been unveiled:
Original dance: "Malagua" and "Tango de
Guell"
The original dance has been coreographed by Antonio Najarro
and Pascal Gaona. It is a flamenco-tango-flamenco, "Malagua"
being used twice.
Free
dance: "Non Merci" by Jean-Claude Petit ("Cyrano de
Bergerac" soundtrack) and "Canone Inverso" by Ennio
Morricone ("Making Love" soundtrack)
The music will also have snippets of Martin Luther King's
speech "I have a dream".
Though the music was taken from the Cyrano soundtrack,
Marina & Gwendal are not interpreting the story, they
are just using the music. The theme for this free dance is
freedom. It was coreographed by Bruno Vandelli who is the
head of the International Dance Center of Cannes and the
coreography will be innovative and contemporary. Gwendal
will be the subjected one in the program, and Marina will
represent freedom.
August
30
Marina & Gwendal are currently training
in Villard-de-Lans and will be doing a show there tonight!
They are working hard on their new dances which will be
unveiled at Trophée Lalique in November. For more
info on M&G's schedule for next season, go here.
Marina &
Gwendal are featured in both the 2002
Figure Skating Calendar and in J.Barry
Mittan's art of figure skating calendar. The first one has a
photo collage of M&G skating to "Beethoven's last night"
on the October page. J.Barry Mittan's calendar features
M&G on the
cover and on the month of March.
March
18
Marina & Gwendal are competing at the
World championships in Vancouver this week. For more info,
visit this sites through the week:
Official
site
Skate
Canada site
Aaron's
page
Ice
dance.com page
Andrea's
page
Iskater.com
For detailed
results: Icecalc
For live
screen captures: Bikeride.com
TV schedules
in Europe:
The
Figure Skating Corner
Silje's
schedule
In the USA:
Heather's
schedule
In Canada:
CFSA
website
March
11
At
the gala of the Top Jump competition last week, Marina &
Gwendal presented a new original dance on which they have
been working since Europeans. After placing second in the
original dance in Bratislava and being criticized for not
having enough difficult steps in the dance and for not quite
catching the mood of the quickstep, M&G decided to
change it. The new dance is very much improved, much more
dynamic than the first one and with more difficulty, and
also more in the mood of ballroom dancing (which is what the
judges want). They have kept Nat King Cole's "More" as a
slow section in the middle, and have chosen a new, fast
music (which I couldn't recognize) for the start and end of
the dance. They will present this new dance at Worlds next
week.
February
28
Marina & Gwendal had to withdraw from
the Grand prix Final earlier this month due to Marina's back
injury which occured shortly after the European
championships. The Italians Fusar-Poli & Margaglio won
the event, in front of Russia's Irina Lobacheva & Ilia
Averbukh. M&G still plan to compete at the World
championships in Vancouver (March 19-25). In a recent
interview (February 27 on "Itelevision"), Marina ensured
that her back was okay and that she was in good form and
ready for these championships.
Some "old
news" now: M&G lost their European title to Italians
Fusar-Poli & Margaglio. After being tied in first place
after the compulsories, then placing second in the original
dance (with one of their best OD performances of the
season), they took a bad and surprising fall at the end of
their free dance, which put them in third place in this
dance, and second overall. After what was a fantastic free
dance so far, M&G both fell during the circular step
sequence; as this step sequence is a required element in the
FD, added to the fact that it took them a long time to
recover from the fall, their marks were as low as 5.2, which
is far from their usual level. "I don't know what happened.
It was not a technical problem, we've worked on this dance
so hard.", said Gwendal. "I'm disappointed because of the
fall", said Marina, "but it's only Europeans. It's not
Worlds, it's not the Olympics."
January
7
M&G unveiled a new exhibition routine to
Art Company's "Susanna" at the Eisgala in Garmisch. The
routine was coreographed in the USA at the end of December
by Alexander Zhulin. As Gwendal said, they "wanted to start
the new year with a smile", so this is a fun number, very
different from "Danse mon Esmeralda" or "Time to say
Goodbye". It includes new moves and also old lifts from
their "Ahla Leila", "The Man in the Iron Mask", and "Carmina
Burana" routines. Screenshots of this program have been
added to the photo album!
M&G
received an award from France 2 (French Television channel)!
It is called the Sports trophy and this award was given to
the 14 best French champions of the year. Congratulations to
them!
Marina &
Gwendal won their sixth National title in Briançon.
They skated to "Beethoven's Last Night" in the free dance
with new costumes. Marina had a golden dress and Gwendal
wore a very simple black outfit with a beige scarf. They did
some minor mistakes but received another 6.0 in artistic
impression.
December
10
A&P were judges for the 2001 Miss France
election yesterday! Gwendal said they tried to be fair and
objective as they had experienced unfairness with some
judges in the past...:-) They were very elegant: Gwendal in
a black tuxedo and Marina in a very beautiful dark blue
dress. I've taped it so I'll put some screen captures on the
site soon!
December
9
Well, it's been a long time since I didn't
update this and a lot has been happening.:-)
So, here are the news in chronogical order.
Trophee Lalique: A&P started the
competition well by winning the compulsory dance, the Tango
Romentica, by a big margin. But they had troubles in their
original dance again, where they only placed 2nd behind the
Russians Lobacheva & Averbukh. Gwendal lost his balance
on a turn because he arched his back too much, and Marina
had troubles on the diagonal step sequence. "We are
disappointed with the performance. But we're happy that we
got good presentation marks", the team said. In the free
dance, A&P went to win their fourth Lalique Trophy with
a flawless performance to "Beethoven's last night". The
routine was skated much better than at Skate Canada and they
received a 6.0 from the French judge, along with five 5.9s
for presentation. "There is room left for improvement",
Gwendal said, "but we're happy we skated it better than at
Skate Canada and that the audience liked it".
NHK
Trophy: A&P skated first in the compulsory
dance, the Rhumba, and skated it beautifully to win this
part of the competition. Once again, they were not perfect
in their original dance, going out of synchronisation on a
step sequence and looking tired at the end, but the
performance was better than at Lalique and Skate canada and
they were awarded first place from all judges. They kept
that place in the free dance, skating even better than they
did at Trophee Lalique.
Grand
Prix Final news: A&P have qualified for the Grand prix
Final which will take place in February in Japan. The other
teams that will compete there are:
Fusar-Poli & Margaglio (ITA)
Lobacheva & Averbukh (RUS)
Drobiazko & Vanagas (LTU)
Chait & Sakhnovsky (ISR)
Winkler & Lohse (GER)
ARD
Gala on Ice: this gala took place in Germany on December
6. A&P were one of the highlights of the show, skating
to "Danse mon Esmeralda" and their free dance.
November
5-19
News from
Skate Canada
Here
are news from Skate Canada. Thanks a lot to Michele Peltier
for her great reports!
The
compulsory dance was the rhumba. Marina & Gwendal took
the lead with a strong performance.
More info from Michele Peltier:
"The
CD and OD practice took place at 08:00 this morning. The
first dance that they practiced was the CD. For this
competition, the CD is the Rhumba. I really like this dance,
especially the sections with the wide steps. They looked
very confident on the ice during the practice and did a
great job.
Costumes: Gwendal wore black trousers and a black cumberbund
with a grey shirt. The shirt was made of material/fabric
that resembles satin (i.e. it had a sheen to it). Marina's
dress was primarily black and red. The right side of the
bodice has grey sequins. The left side is red. The skirt
part was made of two inch strips of material. You'll know
what I mean when Beth has a chance to download today's batch
of pictures.
Today's hair report (Hey, I'm a Yank and you know how taken
we are with hair styles! ;-) ) Gwendal: No change. Marina:
The top section was pulled back into a pony tail and the
ends were curled.
The second dance practiced was the OD. For this, Gwendal put
on a sequined vest that coordinated with Marina's costume.
The first section of the dance (the foxtrot) was skated to
Nat King Cole's "More". The second section (the quickstep)
was skated to "Dancing Fool" (I definitely heard the words,
"I'm a dancing fool.")
Now for the BEST part... After a break, the actual
competition commenced with the CD. They wore the royal blue
costumes used for the OD (version 1) at Trophee Lalique last
year! :-) The Rhumba was skated beautifully. Here are the
scores broken out by judge:
JPN CAN
POL ISR FRA UKR USA
5.4 5.7
5.7 5.5 5.5 5.6 5.5 Technical
5.6 5.8
5.7 5.7 5.7 5.8 5.6 Timing and Expression
1.
Anissina & Peizerat (or as the Daily Schedule has him
listed; Piezerat)
2. Chait & Sakhnovski
3. Grushina & Goncharov"
Marina &
Gwendal were not at their best, and many articles say that
Chait & Sakhnovky "should have been first", and indeed,
two judges put C&S in first place. Even Gwendal said
that "the Israelis deserved to be in first place". In fact,
there was an obvious mistake on the step sequence, some
people say that it was Gwendal who made the mistake and some
people say it was Marina, so we won't know exactly what
happened!:-) Still, A&P are in first place. Their
original dance is a quickstep and a foxrot. Their music
selections are Nat King Cole's "More", and "Dancing Fool".
The 5-time ballroom dancing World champion, Mickael
Stylianos, helped them coreographing this dance(he was the
one who coreographed Grishuk & Platov's quickstep in
1995).
Here is Michele's Friday review:
"Let's backtrack to the morning OD/FD
practice. The skaters opted to practice their OD's so we did
not see the lift again. I guess our pictures will have to
wait until tomorrow afternoon's FD practice. I picked a good
seat to view the practice. I sat four rows from the boards.
A short time later, Muriel came into the arena and sat in
front of me in the first row. Needless to say, I had a great
camera angle when M & G came to the boards. :-)
Costumes: Gwendal wore a black cut-away tuxedo/formal wear
with tails and a white shirt. The buttons on the shirt are
large rhinestones. Marina wore a knee length dress that was
made of a chiffon like material. The colors on the dress
were graduated. The bodice was lime green graduating to
blue-green, then blue, then blue-green again and finally
green at the bottom. The straps on the dress were encrusted
with rhinestones. We all noticed that when they play M &
G's music, the other skaters cleared the way for them; they
move to the boards. They went through the straight line step
sequence twice; no problems with unison. Post practice,
Marina signed a LOT of autographs for the Canadian kids.
OD Competition:
Costumes: Top half of the dress is black. The sleeves of the
dress have black sections of material on the illusion
fabric. Below the waist, the dress is blue, graduating to
blue green and then yellow at the bottom. Gwendal wore the
same black cut-away tuxedo worn during the practice
session.
Hair report du jour: Gwendal-No change. Marina-During
practice, it was similar to yesterday. She had it styled in
a French twist for the competition.
Scores for A & P:
JPN CAN POL ISR FRA UKR USA
Composition 5.6 5.5 5.4 5.6 5.5 5.6
5.6
Presentation 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7
Scores for Chait &
Sakhnovky:
5.5 5.4
5.5 5.7 5.4 5.7 5.6
5.6 5.6
5.6 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.8
The
dance: Keep in mind, that I am viewing it through the camera
lens. M & G's OD looks more technically difficult than
the ODs of the other dance teams competing here. As you
already know, there was a problem with the straight line
step sequence. It looked to me like Gwendal caught a
toepick. There was an audible gasp from the audience when
this happened. He did not recover as quickly as he did when
he made the mistake at Worlds, so their unison was quite
off. Hence the comment from Paul Martini that "they were so
far apart that you could have driven a truck between them."
I did not see any other problems.
Chait and Sakhnovski: Quickstep section skated to "Sing,
Sing, Sing" (Is it just me or is this song the "Carmen" of
ice dance?). The foxtrot was skated to "Bir mit du schoen"
(my apologies in advance to all of our German subscribers; I
probably messed up the spelling of that song). The last
section was "Sing, Sing, Sing" again. Their dance was skated
with as much speed as M & G's but was less technically
difficult. They did an EXCELLENT job on their straight line
step sequence. When the dance concluded, I fully expected to
see a repeat of the OD at Worlds in terms of the
placement.
I'm assuming that M & G opted to count this as the
non-scoring event of the three. If Gwendal was going to make
a mistake, then I'm glad he did it here and got it out of
his system.
Miscellaneous: I noticed that all three teams that Muriel
trains began their programs with the foxtrot and music by
Nat King Cole. The Japanese team of Rie ARIKAWA & Kenji
MIYAMOTO performed their quickstep to the music from
Disney's "Jungle Book". I can't remember the name of the
song but some of the words are "Ooby do, scooby do, I want
to walk like you, talk like you and learn to be someone like
you." Maybe they should add a line, "ice dance like you".
They're part way there...they were outfitted in M & G's
OD jive costumes from the Nagano Olympics. I coerced Beth
into taking a picture on her digital camera so you all could
see for yourselves. Dubreuil & Lauzon began their
foxtrot to N.K.C.'s "Love". No recycled costumes for
them.
Results from the OD:
1.
A & P
2. Chait & Sakhnovski
3. Dubreil & Lauzon (they moved ahead of Grushina &
Goncharov)
4. Grushina & Goncharov
5. Wing and Lowe (one section of their dance was to the
Charleston, which was not a overwhelming choice for most of
the teams)
6. Lefebvre & Lanning
7. Handra & Sinek
8. Humphreys & Baranov
9. Kulikova & Markov (he moved his bow tie to his hair
before they went into the K & C area, quite a fashion
statement! ;-) )
10. Kauc & Bernadowski
11. Arikawa & Miyamota
The Lift:
Although they did not practice the FD today, we saw a photo
from day one of practice. The photographer had an entirely
different view then our feet first one! Marina is in the
same position as the MITIM reverse lift. Gwendal is facing
Marina with his hands on her thighs (his fingers are
pointing outwards). Marina's hands are around Gwendal's
neck. Gwendals thighs rest on Marina's knees for support.
His left leg is crossed over his right leg. Beth took a
digital picture of the photograph so hopefully you will have
a better view when she finishes downloading."
Here is
Michele's review from the free dance
practice:
"Costumes: They wore the same costumes as the previous FD
practice session onday one. Gwendal had a bit of a problem
with one of the white pieces of silk that's attached to his
cutaway. He finally came over to the boards and just ripped
it off. After the practice, he again removed the black
jacket to reveal the white shirt portion which is sleeveless
and has a back keyhole opening (meaning he must slip it over
his head to put it on). Emma has a fewshots of the 'strip'
routine as she jokingly refers to it.
Daily Coiffure report: Marina-No change. Gwendal-French
twist ;-)
Marina had a fall during the warmup but Gwendal immediately
pulled her back up. Emma, Christie, Beth, David and I all
shot pictures of 'the lift' in rapid succession. All you
heard in our sections was the whirring sound ofthe film auto
rewinders. When the practice concluded, Marina left the ice
quickly and Gwendal signed about four autographs. There were
loads of littlekids in the arena, all clamoring for
autographs. I can understand why theymade the hasty
exit.
Music: We think we've pieced together (from memory) the
music sequence from the Transiberian Orchestra's
"Beethoven's Last Night":
1. Moonlight Sonata (slow section)
2. 9th Symphony (fast section)
3. Instrumental version of 'Ode to Joy'
4.Vocal section with female voice
5. 9th Symphony"
And
here is the starting order for the free dance (last group
only):
Chait & Sakhnovsky
Anissina & Peizerat
Grushina & Goncharov
Dubreuil & Lauzon
And now,
here is Michele's review from the free dance and the
gala:
"The
free dance began at 12:00. A & P were in the third group
of skaters that also included CHAIT & SAKHNOVSKI,
GRUSHINA & GONCHAROV, and DUBREUIL & LAUZON. I did
not see Marina stumble during the warm up segment. The first
team that skated was C & S. They skated to themes based
on Paganini (sp?). Galit lost a piece of her skirt (the
skirt was strips of chiffon material) halfway through the
performance. We anxiously watched the remainder of the
program wondering if they would skate over it. Fortunately,
they were able to avoid it for the remainder of the program.
The girls that pick up the items thrown on the ice saw it
and picked it up before Marina and Gwendal skated. Marina
and Gwendal got in their starting position that represents
Beethoven at the piano (Gwendal is actually sitting on
Marina's knee), the music began but it was their OD music
andnot the FD music. Marina laughed it off but I don't think
Gwendal was amused. After I photographed the opening moves,
I put the camera away and watched my first A & P
performance without a camera in front of my face. Emma was
seated next to me and did photograph the FD. Keep you eyes
posted for messages from her announcing pictures. This was
the first time that we saw the FD in it's entirety. This FD
is more subtle than Carmina Burana, which I would classify
as powerful and dramatic. It has a light and airy quality to
it. Obviously, it is still in it's infancy, but I liked it a
lot. We called Gwendalover to the boards while he and Marina
were skating to the Kiss and Cry area. Emma had made a
lovely card using gold coloured paper (of course) and one of
her photos. All of the A & P fans from the message list
signed the card with a gold pen thinking that silver might
remind them of Helsinki. ;-) We also bought a large bouquet
of flowers for Marina. I had bought Gwendal a T-shirt (sorry
folks, it wasn't black) at the inaugural Formula One race at
Indy and Marina another SLC Olympic pin with a skater on it.
All of these items were presented to Gwendal (we didn't want
him returning to France with nothing in his suitcase ;-) )
on behalf of his and Marina's fans.
Lifts: The teams are allowed 5-7 lifts during a free dance.
I was watching and taking notes at the same time, but I
counted five lifts.
1. Marina has her leg over his shoulder. This was not like
the final pose from last year's OD.
2.One of Marina's knees is bent and one leg is straight. She
is at chest level. I wondered if this was the one referred
to as the "Tulip Lift".
3.One small unremarkable lift.
4.The new reverse lift. Here is amendment number three to my
earlier posts…Gwendal is NOT balancing on Marina's knees! He
must have one strong set of abdominal muscles (refer to the
waterskiing picture in the latest issue of Patinage) to hold
that position.
5.Marina ends up draped upside down over Gwendal's back.
Dance spins: I counted two.
1.One where his leg is up (similar to the one in R &
J)
2.One where Marina is in a camel position.
They had a bit of a synchronization problem during the
footwork sequence. This came late in the program after the
vocal piece and during the second section of the 9th
symphony. There were no 6.0's for this FD.
Music: For those who have a copy of the TSO "Beethoven's
LastNight", check a female vocal section that has the words
"could this night last forever?" This is the piece that I
referred to yesterday.
Costumes: The costumes are the same as the ones used for
practice.
Here's what Gwendal had to say about the program: "They
wanted to change their way of skating but not the style.
They wanted to do something modern but keep the romanticism
and passion."
Gala: The
`Parade of Champions" began at 15:00 and includedthe fourth
through first place skaters/teams. The skate order was the
dance, ladies, pairs and then men. After the third place man
(Matt Savoie from the USA) performed, guest skaters
Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz skated their OD. Marina
and Muriel watched from the area where the judges had been
seated. We then saw a demonstration of a synchronization
team from Canada called "Black Ice". After a brief
intermission, the gala continued with all the silver
medallists. Having scrutinized all the tapes from last
season and noting that prior to the GPF, Marina and Gwendal
always skated to MITIM for their exhibition number in order
to practice it for the A and B FD format used at the GPF; I
assumed that they would skate to CB. I would finally get to
see it live. Well, just like COI in Spokane, I was foiled
again…they skated to DmE. I have now given up all hope of
seeing it live, just like I have given up ever trying to
make it through the entire Louvre. ;-) The announcer called
Marina and Gwendal back for an encore and they obliged. It
looks like they were in position to do the straight line
step sequence from lastseason's OD, but when the music
began, once again, it wasn't theirs. Even I was starting to
wonder if they were being sabotaged. Then again, maybe the
person in charge of the music was not familiar with the
operation of a CD player. They never got the music started
so M & G ended up doing the reverse lift from CB. Alexei
Yagudin had the same problem with his encore. He was
standing right in front of us waiting for his music to
begin. He looked at us, shrugged and said, "I'll just skate
without my music" andbegan the encore. Let me preface this
next part with the statement that I do NOT dislike Bourne
& Kraatz. I have my favorites, but I do not hate the
other teams. After Yagudin concluded his encore, they called
all the skaters out for a final bow. Typically, when they
call out the various skating disciplines, the gold
medallists are the ones to lead the others out on to the
ice. However, today Bourne and Kraatz lead the other ice
dancers around the rink. I was personally annoyed at this as
I felt it was a slight to Marina and Gwendal. I don'tthink
it was right for B & K to come out with the skaters who
had competed. After all, they didn't bring the other guest
skaters (the synchro team) out for a bow. I will now get off
my soapbox and stop ranting."
November
2
The
competition at Skate Canada is starting today with the
compulsory dance. Here is the starting order:
1. Humphreys & Baranov (GBR)
2. Wing & Lowe (CAN)
3. Kauc & Bernadowski (POL)
4. Arikawa & Miyamoto (JPN)
5. Lefebvre & Lanning (CAN)
6. Grushina & Goncharov (RUS)
7. Lefebvre & Brunet (FRA)
8. Chait & Sakhnovsky (ISR)
9. Handra & Sinek (USA)
10. Anissina & Peizerat (FRA)
11. Kulikova & Markov (RUS)
Isn't that the perfect draw?;-)
A&P practiced their original dance and free dance
yesterday. Links to photos and reviews have been added to
the articles and photo
links section.
Latest news about their programs: their Original dance is a
quickstep and a foxrot, and yes, their free dance is
Beethoven.
Here are more links to Skate Canada pages:
Laurie's
page
Skate
Canada discussion board at FSWorld
November
1
A&P will start their season this week with Skate Canada!
Here is their schedule:
November 2: compulsory dance
November 3: original dance
November 5: free dance & gala
Lobacheva & Averbukh of Russia have withdrawn from the
event, so A&P's main rivals will surely be Chait &
Sakhnovsky of Israel.
For more info, don't forget to visit these 2 sites
throughout the week:
Official
Skate Canada site
Andrea's
Ice World
Lenny
Faustino's reports
And of course I will try my best to keep you
informed!
October
22
According to Patinage Magazine and L'Equipe, Marina &
Gwendal will skate to "Beethoven in rock" in their free
dance this season (So, the rumors were true! ). The music is
from a rock opera about Beethoven's life. The program will
show Gwendal as Beethoven and Marina as his muse (the
Italian comtess Guicciardi). Their selections include the
Symphony No.9 with a female voice. The program was
coreographed by Shanti Rushpaul, Torvill & Dean and
Ludmilla Vlassova and will include a new reverse
lift.
The A&P
interview at About.com is finally online!! Go here to learn more about
them (the interview is 5 page long!).
September
10
The Blades
on Ice news confirmed that Marina & Gwendal
are going to skate to a rock opera by Beethoven. The routine
has been coreographed by Christopher Dean and Tatiana
Tarassova has given some help on the technical side too.
By the way, the September/October issue of Blades on Ice is
already sold out! Just tells how popular Marina &
Gwendal are...
September
6
Marina & Gwendal are on the cover of the October issue
of Blades
on Ice! The cover is an awesome
picture of Marina & Gwendal in the costumes they wore
for their COI opening number this year. The magazine also
has an interview of M&G.
Marina &
Gwendal will take part in a charity show in
Boulogne-Billancourt (near Paris) on September 22. The show
will also feature top French skaters like Abitbol &
Bernadis, Vanessa Gusmeroli and Stanick Jeannette. You can
order tickets here.
August
30
Well, finally, the first rumors about Anissina &
Peizerat's music for next year's free dance! Marina &
Gwendal may skate to music by Beethoven. MarieM has posted
on FSW that their music is
a Beethoven piece that sounds like a rock opera. Read the
whole thread here . There are no news
about their original dance yet.Their new programs will be
unveiled at Skate Canada at the beginning of November. Be
patient!
August
19
It's time to buy your 2001 figure skating calendar(s)! Two
very good calendars are available on the Internet, and both
of them include pictures of Marina & Gwendal.
J.Barry
Mittan's art of figure skating calendar includes small
photos of Marina & Gwendal on the October page.
The
Figure skating calendar includes two photos of Marina
& Gwendal (and they are the only skaters to be featured
twice!), a Carmina Burana photo (March), and a photo from
their latin OD (November).
Marina &
Gwendal will be skating with the rest of the French team at
the St Gervais Grand prix Gala on August 26! For more info
about the event, visit this
website. They also participated in two shows this
month: on August 11 in Villard de Lans, and on August 4 in
Beziers. The Beziers show, "les arènes de la glace",
was an original one as it was an outdoor show, in a place
that usually hosts corridas. Marina & Gwendal skated to
"Carmina Burana" and "Danse mon Esmeralda" there - and got
standing ovations of course!
July
29
According to the Torvill
& Dean homepage, Marina & Gwendal have just finished
working with Christopher Dean on their new routines. No news
about the music yet, though!
July
14
Marina & Gwendal have left their usual training town
Villard-de-Lans and are now in the USA for a short time.
They will be training with Tatiana Tarassova who will make
them work on some technical points (Murielle Boucher Zazoui
is still their coach).
Due to a
schedule conflict between Trophée Lalique and Cup of
Russia, some skaters have changed their Grand Prix
Assignments. Marina & Gwendal have not changed their
assignments (they are still competing at Skate Canada,
Trophée Lalique and NHK Trophy), but their
competitors have: Lobacheva & Averbukh have been moved
to Skate America, therefore the main competitors for Marina
& Gwendal will now be the Lithuanians Drobiazko &
Vanagas.
July
8
I just received the latest issue of "Patinage Magazine". As
always, Marina & Gwendal are featured many times:
- introduction, page 5
- this
photo and this
one
from Masters Miko, page 7
- article on Masters Miko, page 20
- Carmina Burana
photo from Masters Miko, page 28
- French team
photo, page 31
- article on the French Team tour, page 32
(all pictures scanned by me, copyright Patinage Magazine,
not to be used without permission from Patinage
Magazine)
The magazine also confirmed that on August 4, a French team
gala will take place in Béziers.
July
3
According to Blades
on Ice, Marina & Gwendal will endorse Colonial
Travel, an American travel agency, for one year, which means
that they will be featured in some print advertisements and
they will promote the company.
During the
French Open of tennis, Rolland-Garros, a very popular tennis
tournament in France since almost every part of it is
televised, Marina was in the crowd! She was shown on TV
twice, with the other celebrities invited. She was
especially attending the match opposing Safin and Norman
(and it looked like she was cheering for Safin - who is
Russian!).
Marina
&Gwendal will compete in Skate Canada and Trophée
Lalique this fall, and probably in NHK Trophy as well. Their
main competitors at Skate Canada will be Lobacheva &
Averbukh and Chait & Sakhnovsky, and in Trophée
Lalique they will be competing against Lobacheva &
Averbukh again, and the Germans Winkler & Lohse. Some of
the skaters invited to NHK Trophy are Drobiazko &
Vanagas, Winkler & Lohse and Grushina &
Goncharov.
Marina & Gwendal will
now be working on new programs for next season. They will
enter the season as European & World champions, so of
course there will be added pressure. Furthermore, they have
been told by many people that their usual dramatic style
can't work anymore and that they need a change this year.
True, Marina & Gwendal will be criticized if they go for
another dramatic routine. In an interview, Ilia Averbukh
said: "they are good, but they've been doing the same things
for 3 years and one day the judges will notice that". In the
French broadcast of the Masters Miko, Annick Gailhaguet (a
very famous coach in France, wife of the French Skating
Federation's president), who was commentating with Nelson
Monfort, said that Marina & Gwendal will try a totally
different style for next season's free dance. Murielle
Zazoui, their coach, said this at Worlds: "We always have to
go forward, to surprise people each time, to make them
dream, to try new things. But we can't change their
personnalities: Marina is dramatic, Gwendal is romantic, and
people like them this way."
Marina &
Gwendal have finished touring with Champions on Ice.
Although they joined the tour later than the other skaters,
on May 12, they really enjoyed it. They skated to "Dance my
Esmeralda", the English version of the song from the famous
French musical "Notre-Dame de Paris", and in some cities
they chose to perform a three-minute version of their
"Carmina Burana" free dance. Their opening number was
Santana's "Smooth". They found that the COI tour was much
more fun than the French team tour. Indeed, Marina &
Gwendal had been touring in France in April and May, skating
to "Danse mon Esmeralda", "Time to Say Goodbye" and "Carmina
Burana", and the tour was kind of exhausting for them as
they were the leaders of the team.
On April 27
and 28, Marina & Gwendal competed in the first "Open de
France", the Masters Miko. They helped the French team
beating the Russian team, skating to an emotional "Danse mon
Esmeralda" routine and received four maximum 6.0 marks,
beating Lobacheva & Averbukh who skated to the same free
dance as at Europeans. In the original dance, M&G skated
to the last two parts of their Latin combination, while
Lobacheva & Averbukh skated to "Tutti Fruti", their jive
for the 1997/1998 season.
Marina &
Gwendal were sponsoring the 44th International Exposition of
Flowers in Cagnes-sur-mer (not far from Nice!), which took
place in April, 13-24.
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