Last year, I was the one worried about T/M's long term chances, but I'm actually feeling better at this point. We learned that Evgenia was skating on an injured leg last season, which explains a lot. They didn't win in Kazan, but the errors there were clearly "lack of stamina post Vladimir having the crud" and not "lack of confidence or ability." Overall, T/M handily beat B/K in Kazan. Then, B/K turned around and beat M/G this weekend. Nothing is set in stone here. At the end of the day, T/M have the maturity to their skating that the younger teams don't and I think a clean T/M will get a boost in international scoring compared to the younger teams because of that. I remain convinced that clean T/M is the only team that can take on a clean S/H and it really does all come down to maturity.
My takes on their performances in Kazan that make me feel more hopeful are that they seemed into both programs and performing for the first time in years. The fire and determination seem back for the first time in a long time. Best of all, Evgenia's confidence and her ability to jump seem to have returned. I'm glad they added Voronov to their team--she just seems so much more solid and not so tentative. Vladimir had errors, but I do think it's clearly related to needing to build stamina back up.
I think, deep down, I'd been "shrug" on keeping Bolero for another season because I didn't know if there was a lot more that they could do with it, but I think there is still room to grow that program out some more. I think if we get worlds, it could really be something special. The FS music makes my ears bleed, but they seem connected to it and each other in the performance and that's what matters.
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T/M seem to like Dimash so I wasn't surprised they went with his vocals. I still think it's a step up from the odd Parseltongue sounding thing they went with last year, but I do wish they had gone with the original Adagio.
