I shall begin my new blog entry sounding like an old grandma.

When I was a little girl, I used to watch figure skating with my mum quite a bit. Although I didn’t know too much about figure skating, but I still remember being completely enchanted by skaters such as Kristine Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan, Elvis Stojko, Scott Hamilton, those Russian rival skaters, whatever their names were… Yet, once the pressures of school came in, figure skating on TV went straight out of my life and into the depths of childhood memory, never to appear in my conscious thought - until now that is. After literally a decade, two ice dancers have awed me to silence with their skills and this blog entry is just a little show of support for two very talented – and Canadian – skaters.

To start off, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are two Canadian ice dancers, therefore their routines look very different from regular pair skating. For those who are unfamiliar with ice dance, it’s simply figure skating that is very influenced by ballroom dancing. Unlike pair skating, the two skaters must keep close to each other throughout the entire routine. As well, revolution jumps – such as triple axels - are not permitted and couples must perform spins together. Although it might sound a little boring, the charm of ice dancing comes from the footwork and the intricate lifts and spins. 

Virtue and Moir  are two skaters from London, Ontario. Last year in the 2008 World Championships in Goteborg, Sweden, they won a silver medal, second only to a veteran French team. This weekend, they won the Canadian Figure Skating Championships. Yay!

I admit that when I first watched them, what might have caught my attention may not have been the skaters themselves, but my unfamiliarity with ice dancing. However that soon changed when I saw the rest of their free dance routine to the song “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” . I had never – even in my childhood – seen anything like it.

What is completely beautiful about this pair is that unlike many other professional skaters, their movements clearly have energy and emotion behind them. Their routines are generally well skated with many surprises in the various elements. I have yet to encounter a routine in which I didn’t gasp at one of their lifts.

I’ll leave you to links to a few of their routines, so you can judge for yourselves:

2009 Canadian Figure Skating Championships – Original Dance

2008 World Championship – Free Dance

Best of luck to both of them at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics!

Picture from here.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 8:30 am and is filed under Arts, Athletics & Health, Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.