1999 Cup of Russia - Lifetime

alchemy void

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TSL mentioned Lifetime's entire coverage of this event has been uploaded onto youtube by Hyacinth B. And holy shit, this is GOLD.

Lifetime covered pairs and dance this season, in something of a proto-reality show format-- light on actual performances, but heavy on backstage drama, interviews, and intrigue. I remember hating this format back in the late 90s when the only means to watch the skating was on TV. But with the advent of streaming, I have to admit I wouldn't hate to see NBC go to more of a reality show format like this today, for at least the Grand Prix events.

I've had this on in the background while working and I keep watching and getting distracted--it's SO good.

A few random highights:

Bourne & Kraatz, pay attention:rofl:
FP/M claiming B/K aren't friendly with anyone
Dubova: "This is absolutely joke"
Johnnie Stiegler, in his own words:rofl:
B&K not allowed onto the ice so Shae Lynn hops over the boards:mitchell:
Sale/Pelletier are not fans of Russian cuisine
Denis Petukhov, pre-Melissa Gregory, best music ever!

Seriously, there are so many more. I haven't even gotten to the FD showdown yet. What are your favorite moments?

Obviously Margaglio was really playing up to the camera here. I'm thinking Katsalapov could make an excellent dance villian, for obvious reasons. And Andrea Joyce does a great job building up the drama.

Should NBC go the reality show route, at least for ice dance?
 
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mjb52

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Wow I can't believe lyrics were allowed that far back - time has really sped by, I had sort of forgotten they had been around for that long. Someone's post the other day reminded me of Gregory/Petukhov and so I went looking for articles about them - it was interesting to see how skeptical some people were of their relationship back then when it first started, now that we can see how long it has lasted. Also interesting to hear Wilson(?) commenting on how most Russian teams were training in the US - that has really changed.
 

VGThuy

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I’m so glad this is back! It was taken down like a year or so ago and it’s gold. No wonder B/K left Dubova. She was doing nothing for them except egging them on to stew in their misery.
 

Andora

Skating season ends as baseball season begins
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Hyacinth B. is a true gift for skating nostalgia. There are shows I had on tape and lost that I've been able to enjoy again. Getting to see this craziness is just awesome - I'd only read about it before.
 

VGThuy

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Man, that Lifetime production was such a tabloid. I don't know if it's good for the sport's image if NBC were to recreate that, but it's certainly fun for us fans to hear skaters bitching or being snarky so openly in front of the camera like that. Maybe it's about balance and we need a bit of that but also a bit of professionalism.
 

VGThuy

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Was Lifetime broadcasting the GPs well into the 2002-2003 season as well or was it mostly ESPN by that point? I remember it was one cable network from 2002 NHK that was highlighting the friendship of Shizuka Arakawa and Yoshie Onda and then the network spoke about Fumie Suguri who was also competing there. The camera showed Shizuka and Yoshie watching Fumie perform her Swan Lake LP backstage and talking to each other and I think Yoshie was imitating Fumie's swan arms.
 

gk_891

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I think this really shows how senile Dubova had become by then. And how deluded B&K were. They were all really blind on what they had to work on.
 

SpeedySucks

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Was Lifetime broadcasting the GPs well into the 2002-2003 season as well or was it mostly ESPN by that point? I remember it was one cable network from 2002 NHK that was highlighting the friendship of Shizuka Arakawa and Yoshie Onda and then the network spoke about Fumie Suguri who was also competing there. The camera showed Shizuka and Yoshie watching Fumie perform her Swan Lake LP backstage and talking to each other and I think Yoshie was imitating Fumie's swan arms.

From the 99-00 through 03-04 seasons, the Grand Prix coverage was split between ESPN, Lifetime, and ABC. ESPN showed the short programs on Monday night, Lifetime showed the pairs and dance free (first on Friday night and by the last year they were showing it at like 6am on Fridays or Sundays), and ABC showed the men’s and ladies’ free on Sunday afternoon. All of the coverage was 2-3 weeks after the event.

That first year of Lifetime coverage was gold. The Skate Canada coverage of the Sikharulidze meltdown is worth a rewatch as well.
 

miffy

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While watching these videos, I stumbled across the horrific accident with Totmianina and Marinin.
https://youtu.be/YfX-sPtVCmg?t=235:eek:
:fragile: Ohhhhh I was in the front row, I can see me in the replay. It was awful. I remember the previous pair Obertas/Slavnov??? nearly had a fall but he just saved her from crashing head first into the ice. That was scary enough. Then Totmianina went down in the same place! :eek: Lots of people were in tears on the way back to the hotel.
 

alchemy void

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I've been looking for this coverage for YEARS! Does this have the podium? I remember some clip of Shae Lynn crying and saying like "I could accept it if I could understand, but I just don't understand." :rofl:

https://youtu.be/3KByuy46Su8?t=4550
No tears, though. :D

I think this really shows how senile Dubova had become by then. And how deluded B&K were. They were all really blind on what they had to work on.

I don't mean to totally trash B/K here (although we would be going back to FSU's "Bore and Krap" roots :rofl: ), but that OD and FD were atrocious. Like, not even talking about style or presentation at all, that FD looked so easy, open, and slow. It's even more glaring because their 98-99 FD to Meet Her at the Love Parade was awesome, packed with content, and really ahead of its time.
 

VGThuy

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https://youtu.be/3KByuy46Su8?t=4550
No tears, though. :D



I don't mean to totally trash B/K here (although we would be going back to FSU's "Bore and Krap" roots :rofl: ), but that OD and FD were atrocious. Like, not even talking about style or presentation at all, that FD looked so easy, open, and slow. It's even more glaring because their 98-99 FD to Meet Her at the Love Parade was awesome, packed with content, and really ahead of its time.

They really regressed that season, and they lost a lot of ground to Lobacheva/Averbukh (helped by the early unexpected retirement of Krylova/Ovysiannikov) and Fusar-Poli/Margaglio. Their 1998-1999 FD to "Meet Her at the Love Parade" was a step in the right direction for them and really challenged them as athletes with all that content and difficulty, so I don't know why they followed that up with these vehicles. Their Latin OD was just a complete miss and made them look like they didn't know how to dance Latin at all while their FD was just not a good vehicle.

Lifetime made it look like B/K expected the ice dance hierarchy to benefit them and to just win over the Italians based on previous season's placements and were really shocked when that didn't happen here...or maybe they saw how Maurizio skated...either way this competition result was a huge shock to their system. A season later, Anissina/Peizerat would deal with their own version of B/K at 1999 Cup of Russia confusion when they lost a few key competitions to Fusar-Poli/Margaglio and then Worlds. Then next season Fusar-Poli/Margaglio would have their own B/K at 1999 Cup of Russia confusion at the GPF when Bourne/Kraatz; Anissina/Peizerat; and Drobiazko/Vanagas beat them and then later that season when the Lobacheva/Averbukh politick was in full force and L/A passed them over at the Olympics (after solidly beating them at Euros) and that politcking got to the point where L/A was one judge away from winning the OGM. I guess this is what ice dance looks like when the judges don't really have a dominant team to push and are all displaying their competing agendas. Maybe this is what ice dance in the past four years would have looked like if V/M and P/C weren't competing.
 

tony

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From the 99-00 through 03-04 seasons, the Grand Prix coverage was split between ESPN, Lifetime, and ABC. ESPN showed the short programs on Monday night, Lifetime showed the pairs and dance free (first on Friday night and by the last year they were showing it at like 6am on Fridays or Sundays), and ABC showed the men’s and ladies’ free on Sunday afternoon. All of the coverage was 2-3 weeks after the event.

That first year of Lifetime coverage was gold. The Skate Canada coverage of the Sikharulidze meltdown is worth a rewatch as well.

Yes, except for many seasons the short programs that aired for 2.5 hours on ESPN were a day or two after the event concluded. By the time the free skates rolled around on Friday/Sunday, the next Grand Prix would already be taking place.

But we really were spoiled back then. From the 1996-1999 seasons, we got next to nothing in terms of Grand Prix coverage (in 98/99 ONLY Skate America and the Final), and then we were getting 6.5 hours a week for the next several years.

I liked the behind the scenes look at the skating as a kid, but Lifetime picked up this tendency to re-air many of the short programs that we’d already seen on ESPN. The Skate Canada incident you referred to crammed so much into the pairs recap and free skates that all we got for dance was a side-by-side comparison of Grushina/Goncharov and Drobiazko/Vanagas’ free dances as they had selected the same music. ABC was also notorious during Worlds for re-airing the short progams we’d already seen once or even twice prior to the final groups of the free skate- rather than showing more skaters.

Anyways, a little off topic but I brought up this video several times in the past as a reference as to why I figured that I didn’t like B/K as much back then. She makes the comment that they were beating F-P/M ‘by a lot before’ but they were only two places ahead of them at Worlds 8 months before this event and B/K were probably very lucky to hold on to bronze with the sloppy ending to their FD at that Worlds. They went on to the GPF in 99/2000 and thanks to that super final set-up, they were the fifth of five teams after two rounds and did not advance to the medal battles. That had to be the biggest wake-up call— and then we didn’t see them the rest of the season.
 
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gk_891

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https://youtu.be/3KByuy46Su8?t=4550
No tears, though. :D



I don't mean to totally trash B/K here (although we would be going back to FSU's "Bore and Krap" roots :rofl: ), but that OD and FD were atrocious. Like, not even talking about style or presentation at all, that FD looked so easy, open, and slow. It's even more glaring because their 98-99 FD to Meet Her at the Love Parade was awesome, packed with content, and really ahead of its time.

Their material in 1999 was indeed a big improvement from previous years but it was clear that they could not handle the content of those programs. I have never seen them able to handle good content. The few times where their programs did feature good content (1999 OD and FD, 2001 OD), they were slow and laboured.
 

Habs

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They went on to the GPF in 99/2000 and thanks to that super final set-up, they were the fifth of five teams after two rounds and did not advance to the medal battles. That had to be the biggest wake-up call— and then we didn’t see them the rest of the season.

Didn't they have to take the rest of the season off because Shae had knee surgery? Or do I have that timeline screwed up? I also think that was a big issue with the 1999 Worlds and the (amazing) heart attack program - Shae's knee was injured even at that point.

I was a HUGE B&K fan back in the day, and even back then as a rabid uber and an immature university student, I knew their programs in 99/00 were sh!t.
 

tony

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Didn't they have to take the rest of the season off because Shae had knee surgery? Or do I have that timeline screwed up? I also think that was a big issue with the 1999 Worlds and the (amazing) heart attack program - Shae's knee was injured even at that point.

I was a HUGE B&K fan back in the day, and even back then as a rabid uber and an immature university student, I knew their programs in 99/00 were sh!t.

Yes, I believe they were out with her surgery, but I think falling convincingly behind D/V as well, who would later win bronze at Worlds and IIRC K/O still being a question mark as to whether they’d show up to compete, that had to help with the timing of the surgery. Maybe it really just fell into place in that time period.
 

Andora

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Didn't they have to take the rest of the season off because Shae had knee surgery? Or do I have that timeline screwed up? I also think that was a big issue with the 1999 Worlds and the (amazing) heart attack program - Shae's knee was injured even at that point.

I was a HUGE B&K fan back in the day, and even back then as a rabid uber and an immature university student, I knew their programs in 99/00 were sh!t.

Her knee was bad enough by 1999 worlds that most of the content was gone from their FD, I believe. Christopher Dean wasn't too pleased his work was stripped out - though that's hearsay.

Same boat in terms of being their fan - that year was such hogwash. They'd done a great jazz-ish program in 1997 (their best, imho, until they moved to Tarasova), so I'm not sure why they felt Harry Connick Jr. was a good choice by then.

Thank goodness for D&V. I could easily move on to another mediocre team with better programs than most of the top teams. :p FP&M's FD was as bad as Barbra is talented.

Yes, I believe they were out with her surgery, but I think falling convincingly behind D/V as well, who would later win bronze at Worlds and IIRC K/O still being a question mark as to whether they’d show up to compete, that had to help with the timing of the surgery. Maybe it really just fell into place in that time period.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was booked on purpose. They sure talked about it a lot more than I remember other teams did, which was weird. But it opened the doors for Dubreuil & Lauzon to win their first national title that year. I was such a huge fan of theirs - by 2000 I thought they should beat B&K. :rofl:

I wouldn't have expected the delusional team in this video to make the jump and leave Dubova at all - wonder what finally did it?
 

VGThuy

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Their 1999 FD seemed more-or-less the same as it was earlier in the season except they made the typical minor changes for Worlds to help the program flow better.
 

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