The Olympic Games 2010 - Krail & Peter about the FDs

By Leonie Krail and Oscar Peter
Photos © Absolute Skating & Ageha

Our goal was to compete at these Olympic Games but unfortunately we didn’t make it. (picture of Leonie and Oscar to your left, taken at European Championships 2008) But it has been really awesome to watch all the athletes out there and how they enjoy doing what they love the most. We admire all these athletes and hope that we are going to be one of them at the next Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014.

We were very excited but also nervous about the night’s free dance. But the nervousness turned to joy while watching this event because every couple skated their best. Couple after couple earned a new seasonal best and you could just feel the tension getting higher.

The most energetic team this evening was Nora Hoffmann and Maxim Zavozin (HUN). They skated to a hip hop/ RnB medley that was very modern and refreshing and finished 13th. Maxim Zavozin was born in Russia and got his Hungarian citizenship just before these Olympics. He used to skate with Morgan Mathews and together they won the Junior World Championships in 2005, then skating for the USA.

Cappelini/Lanotte, the second couple from Italy, skated their free dance to “Requiem for a dream”, a very popular piece to skate to in the past years. We definitely could see that they changed coaches this season; their style was different from what they used to do. They showed the story pretty well [a very dark one about a drug addict and his dealer]. There was a very cool lift in the beginning of the program where Luca is in a ‘shoot the duck’ position and holds Anna up on his extended leg, a must see! We have to admit that so far they’ve skated only one season with Muriel Zazoui’s team and will need a little more time to get used to their new environment. They finished 12th.

One of the 4 sister/brother couples in this event was the Zaretzkis. They came in 10th place skating for Israel with music from “Schindler’s list”. They showed a clean program; an emotional performance with some strong parts. And Alexandra’s short haircut really caught our attention!

The best sister/brother couple still remains the Kerrs. Sinead and John are the darlings of the public because they can relate to them. They don’t really care about their points; they have fun and skate for the audience. And that’s what they did in this free dance in Vancouver. Although John struggled with the twizzles it was a great and unique performance skated to music from the rockband Linkin Park. The Kerrs have this certain style that everybody loves to watch and they are such a friendly people. They finished 8th overall.

One of the most innovative couples since years back is Natalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat from France. This was an interesting program where the theme was Time and their costumes said it all. They finished in 7th place but we personally thought that they were better than Delobel/Schoenfelder, also of France.

Tessa Virue and Scott Moir (CAN) made history by winning the gold medal in Vancouver, the first gold ever in ice dance for Canada. When we watched them skate you could tell that they were going to win. Even before the Russians skated they knew they had won. This performance was really good and there is not much more to say.

The silver medal went to Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the USA. As expected they did a clean program to “The Phantom of the Opera”. To see how they performed all this difficult elements so easy and light was a bliss, but personally we liked the free dance of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin better. They had something new with these belts around their waists and how they used them in lifts, very cool! The only problems for them were in the step sequences because of Maxim’s knee. They didn’t deserve gold for skating at these Olympic Games but platinum! If you have seen how Maxim practiced all season you wouldn’t have thought that he would even be able to skate in Vancouver. For example: he always skated about 2 or 3 hours less a day than Oksana. Coaches Natalya Linichuk and Guennadij Karponosov were always worried about his knee and they never knew if it would hold up for a couple of hours of practice. Oksana and Maxim seemed proud to be the bronze winners.

And they should be; such an accomplishment! A big thanks to Leonie and Oscar for sharing their impressions and knowledge with us during the three ice dance events. For more information on them, read our interview (2006) with them, or visit their website here!
The ladies are up next!