Rhonda thanks for your input. It was very interesting.
Thank you.
----- Original Message -----
From: "rhonda13832" <rhonda13832@...>
To: <michellekwanworld@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 11:02 AM
Subject: [michellekwanworld] Re: Michelle's Performance at Nationals


>
>
> Loretta,
>
> I went to Nationals and saw Michelle skate. I have seen Michelle
> live at Nationals or Worlds 5 out of the last 7 years, and it was not
> the best I have ever seen her skate, but it was clearly good enough
> to win her 9th Nationals title.
>
> I had not seen Michelle skate her short program to Spartacus before,
> and the first practice session when she skated it was incredible.
> Not just me but people all around me got goose bumps and were visibly
> moved. She was solid during all of her run-throughs and skated with
> speed and focus. All week long, it was clear that Michelle came to
> win and was the class of the field. When Michelle skated her short,
> she was a little tentative and slightly off her music, so it was not
> a perfect Michelle skate like Rachmaninoff, but she clearly deserved
> to be in first place. But I must say I was much more impressed by
> Michelle's short than her long.
>
> When Michelle skated her long to Bolero, she was not as mesmerizing.
> I think the choice of music doesn't lend itself to one of
> those "bring the whole audience to tears" performances, but why not
> stretch and skate to something different every once in a while?
> During Michelle's performance on Saturday, when she went into the air
> for the second lutz, I had a feeling it would not be a triple because
> she wasn't spinning fast enough and her legs weren't as tightly held
> together. All throughout the program, she skated more slowly than
> she had been in practice and ended after the music. Considering all
> the pressure she was under, I thought Michelle was wonderful and got
> the job done.
>
> I am really looking forward to the reworked Bolero which I know
> Michelle will debut at Worlds. I am looking for more difficult jump
> entries, more varied spins, the missing triple loop jump, and a
> triple sal-double-loop combination, the latter two of which I saw her
> do during practice. It was pretty clear that what Michelle performed
> at Nationals is not all she is capable of doing or planning on doing
> at Worlds. I say this because all week, she was practicing moves and
> jumps that weren't performed during the short and long programs.
>
> I had a feeling Sasha was not going to be totally clean. During
> practice, although she landed everything, Sasha doubled a lot of
> things when it looked like she was going for triples and fell once in
> a while. In comparison, Michelle was a virtual rock all week, only
> doubling one jump.
>
> By the way, this is just my opinion, but I think Bebe Liang got the
> shaft at Nationals. She is a more complete skater right now who
> delivered two better performances. Kimmie Meissner has a great
> future, but she is just a work in progress right now. I am not sure
> that the tv broadcast conveys how slowly Kimmie Meisner skated during
> her long and short programs. She crept along so slowly I thought she
> would finish after her music!! I actually thought she was given
> inflated presentation scores in her short program, much less in her
> long program, given how slowly she skated and how weak her spins were
> in comparison to the other ladies. To me, Kimmie's lack of speed
> took away from the performance. And when the crowd watched Kimmie's
> performance, we basically were silent waiting for her to complete
> another jump. It was like there was nothing that impressive about
> her skating except the jumps. Her spins appeared well-centered but
> lacked speed and had subpar positions. Her spiral was weak too.
> Definitely Bebe Liang, but even Katie Taylor, skated with more speed
> and had better spins, although they weren't as successful with their
> jumps. When Kimmie went up for her triple axel, I thought, oh my
> gosh, there is no way she can land it because she doesn't have near
> enough speed to complete it. Sure enough, during the replay, it was
> clear to everyone in my section that she had cheated her rotations
> and there was absolutely no speed or flow coming out of it. In
> contrast, the triple axels Kimmie did during practice and warm up
> were beautiful--they had great height, complete rotations, and decent
> speed and flow coming out of them.
>
> Rhonda
>
>
> --- In michellekwanworld@yahoogroups.com, LorettaFromFL@w... wrote:
>>
>> I just joined this group as Michelle is my favorite skater. Did
> everyone watch Nationals and what did you think of Michelles programs?
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