Ditch & Switch. When a skater dumps a program mid-season.

Paul/Islam dropped their Dubreuil/Lauzon Frank Sinatra FD after fall 2014 for a much-better-received FD revamp of their Jeff Buttle "In Your Eyes" ex for Nats, 4CC, and Worlds 2015.
 
In the 2008/2009 season, Rachael Flatt competed her FS to a collection of music by Debussy (La Mer and and Petite Suite) She competed the SGP, US Nationals and Four Continents to this FS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXUVcqpEkyU

After 4CC, it was recommended by USFS officials that she find a better piece of music for 2009 World Championships (her first World Championships as she had been too young in 2008, held in LA). She returned to work with Lori Nichol on the piece of music she used the year before “Romantic Rhapsody” by Mathieu, which she had not trained in over a year since World Jr Championships in 2008. Flatt had trained two versions of Romantic Rhapsody in 2007/2008, as she competed internationally as a junior lady, and domestically as a senior lady. So, Flatt had not really trained a full senior length version of the program since US Nationals in January of 2008 (14 months).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S2hFTNxBYQ&t=53s


In the 2010/2011 season, Flatt’s SP was a mix of “Summertime” and Happy Feet Blues”, but following the SGP fall season, USFS recommended she find different SP music.

Three weeks before US Nationals, Flatt worked with Lori Nichol again, and Nichol was the one who recommended “East of Eden”, who created a brand new SP for her.

Many people criticized the choice as the music was too closely identified with Michelle Kwan, again it was Nichol’s decision, but the results of the new choreography under the IJS brought out a new performance side of Flatt. Flatt probably was one of the few skaters who had taken on skating to "East of Eden" after the MK era, but it has been used frequently since 2010/2011 with terrific success and memorable performances (Tatsuki Machida, Ellie Kam & Danny O'Shea, Mariah Bell, among others).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfjH5ku5tws

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68O_RfCcn7Q&t=229s

I am curious is to how often it is at the recommendation of a federation that the skater changes music selections during a season, or the coach and skater make the decision. Is it an issue of not getting the scores that they were hoping to achieve, poor audience engagement, the difficulty of the choreography with a specific piece of music?? And when a skater or team goes back to a program that they have competed in the past, wondering how successful the performance is, given the length of time it has been since training a program, or if it is a brand new program??
 
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^ That was a good choice for Evan to ditch Grease.

Didn't Jenny Kirk have a ABBA long program one season that was ditched by the time Nationals rolled around ? I want someone to give ABBA another chance.
 
I don't remember the particulars, but wasn't there a season when Amber Glenn changed both her short and long programs right before Nationals? Maybe when she was still a junior?
 
IIRC Brasseur and Eisler switched their short program in the 93-94 season. I think they started with a polka in the fall and had a Hungarian gypsy number by the time I saw them at 94 Canadians.
 
cgh_11 said:
IIRC Brasseur and Eisler switched their short program in the 93-94 season. I think they started with a polka in the fall and had a Hungarian gypsy number by the time I saw them at 94 Canadians.
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They sure did change it :lol: . The polka that had been chosen initially has to be one of the worst choices I’ve ever seen by anyone, let alone world champions heading into an Olympics. It was juvenile and hokey. Dunno about anyone else but polka and Lloyd Eisler are not things I would think about together and say “Yes, excellent choice. This will be perfect”.

I think they may have only competed the polka once or twice (for sure they did it at Piruetten in the fall of 1993). I have to assume the feedback was rightfully terrible and they changed it pretty quickly.
 
Speaking of bad short programs, didn't Artur Dmitriev have a couple of them?

He and Kazakova briefly skated to La Cucaracha in 1996-97 before switching to the very effective Also Sprach Zarathustra.

In 1993-94, he and Mishkutenok initially used Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini before switching back to Don Quixote.

And in 1990-91, he and Mishkutenok used some kind of can can(?) before switching back to the Swan.
 
honey said:
They sure did change it :lol: . The polka that had been chosen initially has to be one of the worst choices I’ve ever seen by anyone, let alone world champions heading into an Olympics. It was juvenile and hokey. Dunno about anyone else but polka and Lloyd Eisler are not things I would think about together and say “Yes, excellent choice. This will be perfect”.

I think they may have only competed the polka once or twice (for sure they did it at Piruetten in the fall of 1993). I have to assume the feedback was rightfully terrible and they changed it pretty quickly.
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I remember watching that program from Pirtuetten and thinking WTF :lol: The costumes were awful too (although, it's not like they ever had amazing costumes ;) ).
Now I want to go find a video of it!
 
Habs said:
I remember watching that program from Pirtuetten and thinking WTF :lol: The costumes were awful too (although, it's not like they ever had amazing costumes ;) ).
Now I want to go find a video of it!
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I had it on a VHS that I taped as a child :lol:. It was the Canadian broadcast IIRC. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be visual evidence of this program on YouTube.

I do seem to remember Debbie Wilkes ripping this program to shreds in one of her books, though I don’t recall the commentators saying much about it during the performance.
 
Yags ditched "Broken Arrow" after he lost the 2000 Euros to Plush for a new FP to "Tosca" which earned him his 3rd straight gold medal at Worlds.

Totmianina/Marinin kept their "Cotton Club" FP for the first half of the 2003/2004 season and then switched to "Art on Ice".

Obertas/Slavnov skated to "The Truman Show" in 2003/2004 and in 2004/2005 for their FP before switching to some mash-up of techno versions of Russian folk songs before Worlds 2005 which took place in Moscow.

Kolyada switched back and forth between "The Nutcracker" and some other program I don't remember anymore for his SP in the Olympic season. He also went back to "White Crow" during the season and dumped "Schindler's List" the same season.
 
Lambiel had quite a few successful mid-season switches as well as Drailon which was already mentioned.

2004-05 - FS switch from The Truman Show to King Arthur for Worlds - his first world title
2006-07 - Original SP was Geissel Drama, and I think the only video is of a disastrous outing at Skate Canada. Switched to Blood Diamond for the second half of the season, which was a much stronger program.
2009-10 - Skated to a reworked version of his Otono Porteno ex for the first half of the season, and then La Traviata for Euros & Olympics. I think the first outing of La Traviata set a new record for PCS, only beaten by Takahashi at worlds later that season.
 
The skater and reused program that come to mind for me are Brian Joubert and "The Matrix". Not sure if he switched back to that but I remember it that way.
 
miffy said:
IIRC 3 or maybe even 4 of the ice dance teams started off with the same music, then without consulting each other they all changed it so no one ended up using Masquerade Waltz :lol: I remember Lang and Tchernychev were one of the other teams.
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Same with "When a man loves a woman". Lyrics were new to the OD.
skatingguy said:
And he's still not in Ashley Wager Moulin Rouge territory.
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I take Ashley Wagner's threepeat of Moulin Rouge and raise you Petrova/Tikonov doing four seasons
 
G&G ditched their Katyusha and Greek folk music programs mid-season when they dumped their coach after Skate Canada 1986. I'm fond of the SP, which they continued to use as an exhibition piece for a few years. The LP is fairly undistinguished.

(Video quality here is poor, but Katia looks adorable in her Minnie Mouse-esque polka dots)

1986 Skate Canada SP - Katyusha
1986 Skate Canada LP - Greek (?) Folk music
 
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