1991 World Championships a retrospective

[lulu]

Now the other Natasha
At the 1991 European Championships M&D performed a new SP to Can-Can music. However, this SP was not well received by the judges and at Worlds that year they went back to their SP for the previous year, The Dying Swan.

[A.H.Black]

Kuchiki & Sand: They trained under John Nicks, forming their partnership when she was 12 and he was 25. Despite the age between them, they placed 2nd at their first U.S. nationals in 1990. The next year, they won the title and placed 3rd at Worlds. They placed 6th at the 1992 Olympics, but dissolved their partnership just a few months later, and according to this article, seemingly not under the best circumstances either. In 1993, Kuchiki returned to competition as a singles skater . She competed at U.S. nationals where she placed 12th. The next year she was back as a pairs skater, and placed 4th at U.S. nationals with Rocky Marval. Her sister, Tamara, was an ice dancer.

I enjoyed their SP at this competition, but I would assume that their bronze medal here was a bit unexpected (?)

I think Todd Sand was having difficulty with his back and Kuchiki was growing. He alluded in an article (interview?) I read that lifting her was becoming an issue. Also, Sand and Meno were seen together at National 1992. I understand the romance grew at Albertville. It was a perfect situation for Meno/ Sand. Too bad it left Wendland and Kuchiki without partners although both have had successful careers since.

I liked Kuchiki with Rocky Marval and I still remember them in practice in Detroit 1994. I wish they might have stayed together, but there was no way their story had the public appeal that Calla and Rocky's did - truck driver and the waitress.

My memory is faulty on Bechke/Petrov. I thought this was the infamous "cats" year. The middle eastern music was awful but not as bad as the cats music. Was that music in 1990?

[Marco]

Isn't it ironic that Ito failed to even medal at the first Worlds where figures was dropped? She totally left her best skate that season at NHK. I wish she had landed her 3lutz or 3flip and save the world from seeing that boring program from Kerrigan winning a World medal.

So glad Yamaguchi did enough to win, or alternatively that Harding didn't do enough to win. I just can't stand that kind of program (Harding) winning Worlds. Elements wise what Harding did was superb, but the music, edit and choreography was just too tacky. I was thinking if Harding did not totally botch her toe/toe combo and had done a 3/2 instead, she might have won. Her 3axel was unbelievable!

Interesting battle between Browning and Petrenko. I think the judges got it right. Petrenko really nailed that short program. It was an artistic masterpiece, even though Browning's had harder choreography. Too bad about the diff in technical merit. 3 3/3s vs no 3/3s is too obvious.

[lulu]

My memory is faulty on Bechke/Petrov. I thought this was the infamous "cats" year. The middle eastern music was awful but not as bad as the cats music. Was that music in 1990?

The Cats sp was used for the 1989-1990 season: http://youtu.be/2zCG5cl6AzA

Thanks for the information on Kuchiki & Sand. I probably would have enjoyed Kuchiki & Marval as well.

[judgejudy27]

Isn't it ironic that Ito failed to even medal at the first Worlds where figures was dropped? She totally left her best skate that season at NHK. I wish she had landed her 3lutz or 3flip and save the world from seeing that boring program from Kerrigan winning a World medal.

Kerrigan's performance wasnt that bad, it was actually way better than either her 92 Olympic bronze performance or 92 World silver performance I thought. Had she done one of those Ito probably still would have medaled in 91 even with her problems, and poor Yagiyuma would not have attended every Worlds from 88-95 except 94 but missed out on both the 92 and 94 Olympics.

[orbitz]

The Cats sp was used for the 1989-1990 season: http://youtu.be/2zCG5cl6AzA

"Meow, meow, meow" wasn't considered vocal back then?

[lulu]

"Meow, meow, meow" wasn't considered vocal back then?

I guess not. The entire time I watched the program, I kept on thinking of the "Meow Mix" cat food commercial. The costumes are pretty scary as well.
Of course a few years later B&P skated their lovely Nutcracker long program and went on to have a very successful career as professional skaters.

[lulu]

4. Mishkutenok & Dmitriev won the first of 2 consecutive world titles at these championships, and they would go on to win the 1992 Olympic title as well. They retired after the 1991/92 season, but made a comeback for the 1993/94 season in an attempt to retain their Olympic title. However, they came up against the great Gordeeva & Grinkov (the 1988 Olympics champions), and G&G took the title. M&D's signature move was the "Natasha's spin" (named after Mishkutenok) in which Mishkutenok (who was renowned for her flexibility) would perform a split with her head turned upside down with her arm around Dmitriev's leg (whilst Dmitriev held her upraised skate), to achieve a position in which they were vertically aligned during the spin. Its included in their Liebestraum long program, which they used during both the 1990/91 and 1991/92 seasons, and with which they won both of their world titles and the Olympic gold medal. Indeed, at these championships, Canada's Isabelle Brasseur & Lloyd Eisler had taken the lead after the short program, and it was a superb performance with their Liebestraum free skate that enable Mishkutenok & Dmitriev to win both the free skate and the world title.

A little side note to your excellent summary: "Natasha's Spin" although best associated with Mishutenok & Dmitriev, was actually invented by pair of Lyndon Johnston (yes, he was named after former U.S. President) and Denise Benning. Besides the Natasha Spin, M&D were also known for the variation on death spirals, which is emphasized in their Liebestraum routine and their 1988-1989 exhibition, as seen here: http://youtu.be/yOY0VpPVO8Q?t=3m25s. The person behind many of M&D's creative moves on the ice was Tamara Moskvina, who coached M&D and the 4th place finishers, Bechke & Petrov. Moskvina also help B&P develop their signature move, the "impossible" death spiral. Moskvina herself was a figure skater, she won a silver medal at the 1969 World Championships with her partner Alexei Mishin. As a single skater, Moskvina performed the "Beillmann" spin at the 1965 European Championship, Denise Beillmann, for whom the spin would eventually be named after, was 3 years old at the time.

[Vash01]

My memories of 91 worlds:

Midori Ito's fall into the camera pit, and then reentering the rink with a huge smile. Later though Latitia Hubert ran into her during a warmup and Midori was injured. She was almost coerced by her fed to skate the LP anyway. She skated poorly and finished off the podium. Kristi won her first world championship and the US ladies swept the podium. However, as a Midori fan, I was heartbroken for her.

M&D coming into their own, with Liebestraum. They always had the flexibility and the innovative moves, but in 91 they were able to put it all together, with one of the best pairs program ever.

Viktor Petrenko's beautiful LP which should have won on artistic marks, over Kurt Browning's 'mainly jumps' LP. Even Kurt looked shocked in the K&C when Viktor's marks went up.

Klimova failed the drug test after the Europeans and was initially disqualified, but the results from another lab were in their favor, and they were allowed to compete at worlds. However, they missed some practice time and were distracted. Still, they were good enough to beat Duschenays, IMO, even though I loved D&D's Missing. The drug episode resulted in K&P leaving Dubova (she did not believe them) and going to Tarasova. It turned out to be a great move for them, because in 92 they skated one of the best FDs of all times.

[Judge Dred]

My memories of 91 worlds:

Midori Ito's fall into the camera pit, and then reentering the rink with a huge smile. Later though Latitia Hubert ran into her during a warmup and Midori was injured. She was almost coerced by her fed to skate the LP anyway. She skated poorly and finished off the podium. Kristi won her first world championship and the US ladies swept the podium. However, as a Midori fan, I was heartbroken for her.

Midori Ito had the crash with Hubert in the practice session before the short/original program

[hennagaijin]

1991........the year USFSA predicted.......no guaranteed an American sweep by the USA women. This to be done by Yamaguchi,Harding and Kerrigan ---- who had won
NOTHING internationally ever. Not to mention , it had never been done, and Midori was in the peak of her career. OP warm ups ,Midori blind sided by worst in the
world, and VOILA !!!.......mission accomplished. Obviously they knew something the rest of us didn't. The day skating lost all credibility.

[judgejudy27]

I remember the overall excitement of the 91 Worlds in every discipline. It was one of my favorite Worlds ever. The big 3 way battle for gold in the dance event between Usova & Zhulin, Duchensays, and Klimova & Ponomarenko. Poor Usova & Zhulin led after the CDs and OD, had 4 1st place votes in the FD and still finished 3rd somehow. They beat K&P in the CDs, OD, and I think 7 of the 9 judges had them over K&P in the FD, but the way the ordinals came out that still dropped them even behind K&P. Incredibly unlucky. This was the only time other than the 94 Europeans and 94 Olympics you really felt 3 times were fighting so strongly for the gold at once.

The ladies event had such excitement going in with the talk of the big 3 way battle between Yamaguchi, Harding, and Ito, and there was also excitement about the young Bonaly. Nobody even talked about Kerrigan, so the U.S sweep was a total surprise.
This was the only major event Harding would ever skate well enough to strongly contend in ever again. I also remember personal breakthrough performances for a young Josee Chouinard who came 6th and the often nervy Joanne Conway of Britian who came 7th. This was the first time Joanne had ever skated so well in a major event, and the last. Josee although she would come higher than 6th in a couple of future Worlds, and did not have all her triples yet, skated to her then potential in a major event for the only time she would in her whole career.

Brasseur & Eisler were actually favored to win the pairs this year and did win the short program, but they were simply eclipsed by the amazing free skate of Miskutienok & Dmitriev. Lloyd singled his double axel in the long but I dont think that made the difference, or atleast it shouldnt have. The biased CBC commentatry by Underhill & Martini really annoyed me here, particularly when it came to Brasseur & Eisler. Kuchiki & Sand winning the bronze was a total surprise. They never ended up in medal contention again, and in fact would be split up in just over a year. I never liked this pairing, and much prefered Meno & Sand in the future, and I even prefered Meno & Wendland who were much lower ranked to this team. I guess they deserved to beat Bechke & Petrov who sadly melted down in their LP though. The other pairs werent shown.

The highlight for me though was the mens amazing. The level was simply amazing, WAY higher than the 1992 Olympics, 1992 Worlds, 1993 Worlds, 1994 Olympics, basically any mens event for years to come. Christopher Bowman who finished 5th behind Petrenko, Browning, Eldredge, and Barna, would have won the 92 Olympics easily with the same performances given the level of skating there.

[gk_891]

It's to my understanding that none of the top 3 ice dance teams that year had enough first place ordinals to win the free dance outright so they looked at first and second place ordinals. And from what I remember, the winning couple turned out to be Klimova & Ponomarenko. But since they were too far back after the CD's and OD (where the judges really gave them a thumbs down on their material that year), they could only finish as high as second. The next team with the highest number of first and second place ordinals turned out to be Isabelle and Paul. The same thing more or less happened at the 1994 Europeans. It's called cut-through. The 3rd place team cuts though the top 2 teams and one finishes a distant third in spite of being in tight contention for the gold medal.

[bardtoob]

1991........the year USFSA predicted.......no guaranteed an American sweep by the USA women. This to be done by Yamaguchi,Harding and Kerrigan ---- who had won
NOTHING internationally ever. Not to mention , it had never been done, and Midori was in the peak of her career. OP warm ups ,Midori blind sided by worst in the
world, and VOILA !!!.......mission accomplished. Obviously they knew something the rest of us didn't. The day skating lost all credibility.

Wow, that was dumb . . . Troll to the ignore list.

[Seerek]

One interesting tidbit from this competition: As this was the first year after re-unification, Germany was allowed to send the combined number of qualified slots from East and West Germany in each of the disciplines. Therefore, in the case of ladies singles, there were 4 entrants: Marina Kielmann (8th), Patricia Neske (9th), Simone Lang (13th) and Cathrin Degler (22nd, replacing Evelyn Grossmann who withdrew before the championships).

[lulu]

One interesting tidbit from this competition: As this was the first year after re-unification, Germany was allowed to send the combined number of qualified slots from East and West Germany in each of the disciplines. Therefore, in the case of ladies singles, there were 4 entrants: Marina Kielmann (8th), Patricia Neske (9th), Simone Lang (13th) and Cathrin Degler (22nd, replacing Evelyn Grossmann who withdrew before the championships).

That is really interesting! Thanks for sharing that tidbit.

[gkelly]

My perspective is a little bit different because I saw 1991 Worlds years after the fact and saw Missing II before Missing I (so I didn't have the comparison), but I loved Missing II from a pure enjoyment factor. That said, I agree that the Duchesnays did not deserve their win - they were completely outclassed technically and were lucky to be mentioned in the same breath as K&P and U&Z IMO. I also have a slight preference for U&Z winning but would have been OK with K&P.

I totally agree with this. I loved all three of those free dances -- and several others that year as well, notably Rahkomo/Kokko and Punsalan/Swallow, which were the other ones shown on the US broadcast. But I do think the broadcast was slanted to make viewers root for the Duchesnays, without educating us about the differences in skating quality that are at least as important as the quality of the choreography.

I really don't think it would have happened had she been injury free and not been psychologically affected by the collision. It had not happened earlier in the season at the NHK Trophy, Skate America, or Japanese Nationals. Why should it happen now all of a sudden? Quite simply, because she was injured, in pain, and psychologically affected. She had done that program numerous times in training and in competition and knew when she should make the jump combination, but the fact that her mind was distracted by the injury and the pain mean't that she misjudged it. Inevitably, therefore, the collision was a contributory factor.

Yes, quite likely she was distracted by pain etc. However, taking into account that not all ice rinks are the exact same size and the corners are not all the exact same shape, it's entirely possible that the size or shape of the rink also played a contributory role.

[essence_of_soy]

In 1993, Kuchiki returned to competition as a singles skater . She competed at U.S. nationals where she placed 12th. The next year she was back as a pairs skater, and placed 4th at U.S. nationals with Rocky Marval. Her sister, Tamara, was an ice dancer.

Tamara also skated singles (competing at the 1992 World Junior Championships and the 1992 US National Championships at the senior level.) She teamed up with Neale Smull in 1993/94(?)

I thought Kuchiki and Marvel should have beaten Karen Courtland and Todd Reynolds for bronze in 1994 (and made the Olympic Team in Lillehammer). From memory, K & R made multiple mistakes in their free skate, while K & M skated relatively clean.

[olympic]

Whatever happened to Evelin Grossmann? Did she just fade or did something happen to her?

[gkelly]

Evelyn Grossmann