The Dance Hall 10: The Saitama Samba 2022-2023

[litenkyckling]

I hope not, in regard to H/B. I think they're a really talented team. But it's indisputable that they have been up and down with both judging panels and fans over the past quad. So time will tell, I guess.

I agree - I think they really found their voice at IAM the last couple of seasons. I guess another factor too would be that Green/Parsons left their coaches (is this confirmed? Or just a TSL rumour?).

 

[sap5]

I agree - I think they really found their voice at IAM the last couple of seasons. I guess another factor too would be that Green/Parsons left their coaches (is this confirmed? Or just a TSL rumour?).

It hasn't been confirmed, afaik.

 

[Dobre]

Looks to me like the bronze at Skate America is wide open!

 

[Dobre]

Carreira & Ponomarenko, Lajoie & Lagha, and Taschlerova & Taschler battle in Great Britain should be interesting. Wang & Liu and Green & Parsons both at NHK.

 

[Rhumba d’Amour]

Carreira & Ponomarenko, Lajoie & Lagha, and Taschlerova & Taschler battle in Great Britain should be interesting. Wang & Liu and Green & Parsons both at NHK.

I feel like the Taschlers will be interesting no matter where they are Especially since the theme is Latin

 

[litenkyckling]

Carreira & Ponomarenko, Lajoie & Lagha, and Taschlerova & Taschler battle in Great Britain should be interesting. Wang & Liu and Green & Parsons both at NHK.

Kazakova/Reviya will in the GB battle too!

 

[Colonel Green]

Seeing both Wolfkostin & Chen and the Browns on the senior assignment list also served as an indicator that junior ice dance is going to be really open this JGP season. The entire US Junior World delegation has either moved up or aged out, plus one of the two Canadian teams, and obviously no Russians this time around.

Potentially a big opening for small fed teams like Grimm & Savitskiy and Lim & Quan.

 

[Belsornia]

Now we know who's chosen to move up, here's an update to my list on the status of last season's junior teams:

Junior Worlds teams

• Oona Brown / Gage Brown (USA) - moving up to seniors
• Natalie d'Alessandro / Bruce Waddell (CAN) - split (she's retired)
• Nadiia Bashynska / Peter Beaumont (CAN) - 1 more season (junior eligible through JWC 2023)
• Katarina Wolfkostin / Jeffrey Chen (USA) - moving up
• Darya Grimm / Michail Savitskiy (DEU) - 3 more seasons (junior eligible through JWC 2025)
• Hannah Lim / Ye Quan (KOR) - 1 more season
• Angela Ling / Caleb Wein (USA) - ageing up
• Angelina Kudryavtseva / Ilia Karankevich (CYP) - 3 more seasons
• Celina Fradji / Jean-Hans Fourneaux (FRA) - 3 more seasons
• Phebe Bekker / James Hernandez (GBR) - 1 more season
• Eva Bernard / Tom Jochum (FRA) - split (she's looking for a new partner, he's retired)
• Nao Kida / Masaya Morita (JPN) - 3 more seasons
• Elizabeth Tkachenko / Alexei Kiliakov (ISR) - 3 more seasons
• Olivia Oliver / Joshua Andari (POL) - split (she's ageing up and now skating with Elliott Graham, previously CAN, he's retired)
• Tatjana Bunina / Ivan Kuznetsov (EST) - 2 more seasons (junior eligible through JWC 2024)
• Giorgia Galimberti / Matteo Libasse Madelli (ITA) - 1 more season
• Mariia Pinchuk / Mykyta Pogorielov (UKR) - 2 more seasons
• Anna Simova / Kirill Aksenov (SVK) - 1 more season
• Kayleigh Maksymec / Maximilien Rahier (SUI) - 2 more seasons
• Yulia Lebedeva-Bitadze / Dmitri Parkhomenko (GEO) - ageing up
• Denisa Cimlova / Vilem Hlavsa (CZE) - split (she's now skating senior with Joti Poliozakis, he's dealing with health/injury issues)
• Jillian Prever / Agahan Dortkol (TUR) - 2 more seasons
• Anita Straub / Andreas Straub (AUT) - 4 more seasons (junior eligible through JWC 2026)
• Reka Leveles / Balazs Leveles (HUN) - 4 more seasons

Other JGP competitors

• Katerina Mrazkov / Daniel Mrazek (CZE) - 2 more seasons
• Isabella Flores / Dmitry Tsarevski (USA) - split (she's ageing up and now skating with Ivan Desyatov, previously BLR/RUS; he's no longer skating )
• Miku Makita / Tyler Gunara (CAN) - ageing up
• Solene Mazingue / Marko Jevgeni Gaidajenko (EST) - already moved up
• Leah Neset / Artem Markelov (USA) - 3 more seasons
• Nicole Calderari / Marco Cilli (ITA) - split (she's ageing up and looking for a new partner)
• Sofia Lukinskaya / Danil Pak (KAZ) - split (he's looking for a new partner, looks like she's retired)
• Sofia Val / Nikita Vitryanyuk (ESP) - split (she's now skating with Alexander Gnedin, previously competed domestically in EST/RUS; he's looking for a new partner)
• Alyssa Robinson / Jacob Portz (CAN) - ageing up
• Emma Goodstadt / Michael Barsoum (CAN) - 2 more seasons
• Hailey Yu / Brendan Giang (CAN) - 3 more seasons
• Noemi Tali / Stefano Frasca (ITA) - ageing up
• Chaima Ben Khelifa / Everest Zhu (CAN) - 2 more seasons
• Arina Klimova / Filip Bojanowski (POL) - split (he's now skating for SUI with Fiona Pernas - second partner since splitting with Klimova!)
• Dea Kuparadze / Danila Saveliev (GEO) - 2 more seasons
• Karla Maria Karl / Kai Hoferrichter (DEU) - 1 more season
• Chloe Nguyen / Alec Roueche (CAN) - split [eta: Thanks for the info @coralline]
• Louise Bordet / Thomas Gipoulou (FRA) - 3 more seasons
• Lila-Maya Seclet-Monchot / Martin Chardain (FRA) - 1 more season
• Gina Zehnder / Beda Leon Sieber (SUI) - 3 more seasons
• Sofiia Dovhal / Wiktor Kulesza (POL) - 3 more seasons
• Lou Koch / Ivan Melnyk (FRA) - 4 more seasons
• Katica Kedves / Fedor Sharonov (HUN) - 2 more seasons
• Lika Bondar / Artem Koval (UKR) - 4 more seasons
• Sophia Bushell / Alex Lapsky (GBR) - 2 more seasons
• Maya Benkiewicz / Nicolas Henault (FRA) - split (she's now skating with Mark Shapiro, previously ISR)
• Myroslava Tkachenko / Andrii Kapran (UKR) - split (he's now skating with Zoe Larson - for USA?)
• Lucie Lauria / Antonin Emo (FRA) - 3 more seasons
• Natalia Pallu-Neves / Jayin Panesar (GBR) - 1 more season (switched to BRA so sitting out till February)
• Barbora Zelena / Jachym Novak (CZE) - 3 more seasons
• Corinna Huber / Patrik Huber (AUT) - ageing up
• Daniela Ivanitskiy / David Goldshteyn (FIN) - 1 more season
• Vasilisa Ahramenka / Alessio Surenkov-Gultchev (GBR) - split (she's switched to pairs, he's competing in solo dance)

At this very early stage Bashynska/Beaumont seem like tentative favourites for the junior world title, with Grimm/Savitskiy, Lim/Quan, Kudryavtseva/Karankevich and probably the Mrazeks and Neset/Markelov as likely challengers. Then there's a second group from Fradji/Fourneaux to Tkachenko/Kiliakov who could be in the mix for JGP medals depending on how the assignments work out. Some of the US teams who will be debuting on the JGP should be in this group too, plus hopefully Pinchuk/Pogorielov who had a hard time in the FD at junior worlds for understandable reasons. Anyone else I'm overlooking?

 

[Ena Grins]

I feel like Green/Parsons are the wild card. If you look at the ISU season's-best list for 2021-22, Green/Parsons are #4 on the list among still-active teams, behind only C/B, G/P, and G/F. And they won 4CCs. But they weren't able to skate at Worlds to establish their credentials against some of the rival Euro teams. Also, we have no idea yet what their programs or coaching situation are. But I'll be bold and predict 2 silvers for them.

I think Skate Canada could be very interesting. I think Green/Parsons could go as high as silver, and I think both they and Lajoie/Lagha are stronger teams than Fear/Gibson, but F/G will probably get second. Plus it's Canada, so we could also see L/L outscore G/P. Can't wait to see programs (and learn more about G/P's coaching situation).

 

[sap5]

I’m predicting a Papadakis/Cizeron type of rise for Green/Parsons this year. It just seems like their moment.

 

[Wyliefan]

I’m predicting a Papadakis/Cizeron type of rise for Green/Parsons this year. It just seems like their moment.

I hope so! Fingers crossed they get another strong set of programs that can help them keep climbing!

 

[Dobre]

I'm not thrilled about Green & Parsons going back to Skate Canada. There's no point in rerunning a battle you've already won. I was rooting for having them at SA, which would have made the field there deeper, and put them in the position to chase.

But it's really going to come down to who's ready. Post-Olympic seasons: you tend to get lower-ranked teams that are just fired up & have been working their butts off because this is the big season of opportunity, and then you get top teams that are exhausted & needed a break & come back looking very not ready (though they score well because there are holes in the ice-dance hierarchy). Then you get the teams of all ages that moved around or thought about splitting or retiring and are just not that far into their preparations yet.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see who is really ready.

I think this year is likely to be a tough challenge for Green & Parsons because they had such a noisemaker of an FD last year. (Not entirely certain they'll change it, but assuming they will & you can't hit it out of the park every year). That said, they ended last year on a big note; and they do have the skills to follow that up if they're ready. Meanwhile, expectations from fans for Carreira & Ponomarenko are way down so it's gonna be easier to make people happy if they show up looking better. Lajoie & Lagha and Fournier-Beaudry & Sorensen will have to have new FD material, which ought to help. Gilles & Poirier--it'll be a miracle if they're ready by SC. Hawayek & Baker, I think, will be ready. After the late start to their season last year, they've got to want to get a faster jump on this one. And this is a big year for them to be able to move up, plus with G&P on their tail at last year's Nationals, I reckon they're probably pretty motivated. Fear & Gibson were a mess early last season. I'd expect a better start, plus they're gonna reap some more love from the European judges with the Russians out + a home GP. Guignard & Fabbri and Chock & Bates--I'm really curious how they will look. They had long seasons last year, but they seemed to decide pretty early that they wanted to continue; and a world title can be pretty motivating. Anyway, we'll see. There should be some surprises for sure. Some people are gonna be ready. We just don't know who they are.

I'm looking forward to seeing the youngsters, Wolfkostin & Chen and the Browns, because I've no expectations there whatsoever and think it will just be fun to watch them skate and learn.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

This seems like it could be a pretty critical year for Carreira and Ponomarenko to regain some momentum after last year's programs and also being held back by citizenship issues.

 

[coralline]

• Chloe Nguyen / Alec Roueche (CAN) - 1 more season

Alec is on IPS，so maybe they split…

 

[leilaofpaper]

My (preliminary) predictions:

Skate America
Gold - Chock/Bates
Silver - Hawayek/Baker
Bronze - Muramoto/Takahashi (judges seem to love them)

Skate Canada
Gold - Gilles/Porier
Silver - Fear/Gibson
Bronze - Green/Parsons

(whilst I'm certain these teams will be the podium the order could very easily vary based on how good their programs are this year)

Internationeaux de France
Gold - Guignard/Fabbri
Silver - Fournier Beaudry/Sorensen
Bronze - Lopareva/Brissaud (hometown advantage)

MK John Wilson Trophy
Gold - Fear/Gibson
Silver - Guignard/Fabbri
Bronze - Lajoie/Lagha

NHK Trophy
Gold - Chock/Bates
Silver - Green/Parsons
Bronze - Fournier Beaudry/Sorensen

Grand Prix Espoo
Gold - Gilles/Poirier
Silver - Hawayek/Baker
Bronze - Turkkila/Versluis

 

[sap5]

This seems like it could be a pretty critical year for Carreira and Ponomarenko to regain some momentum after last year's programs and also being held back by citizenship issues.

I wonder how Anthony’s injury will play out. It seemed like he spent a lot of time in rehab, which is a good thing. I just wonder how much time is needed to get back up to full speed.

 

[allezfred]

Comparing a team to once in a generation skaters like Papadakis/Cizeron is a bit premature to say the least.

 

[On My Own]

I don't think Green/Parsons have the ability of Papadakis/Cizeron... I find their dance quality lacking, which is the biggest thing that set Papadakis/Cizeron far apart from the rest of the field and made the judges really look at them when it turned out that neither V/M nor D/W were around anymore (that and the new coaching team, of course). And I don't see them being better at anything else or "different" in any manner from others competing against them?

In general, I've been confused about the Green/Parsons hype.

 

[sap5]

I don't think Green/Parsons have the ability of Papadakis/Cizeron... I find their dance quality lacking, which is the biggest thing that set Papadakis/Cizeron far apart from the rest of the field and made the judges really look at them when it turned out that neither V/M nor D/W were around anymore (that and the new coaching team, of course). And I don't see them being better at anything else or "different" in any manner from others competing against them?

In general, I've been confused about the Green/Parsons hype.

I don’t think Green/Parsons have great dance qualities yet (especially her), but they have a real interest in learning dance, which I’m excited about. If they are at MIDA, as has been speculated, I’m excited to see how that school’s partnership with UMich’s dance program will work out. I’ve also liked Charlie White’s choreography in the past, so I’m ready to see some fresh new visions. I think there’s just a perfect combination of things needed to make a huge move up the standings.

 

[VGThuy]

I think Michael Parsons has a beautiful body for dance and has shown keen awareness of utilizing it to maximize lines and create excellent body shapes. I think he probably has the best free leg stretch out of all the currently competing male ice dancers. I also think from the knees down he’s excellent as his edges flow like butter and there’s such an ease to the way he moves from edge to edge. And for a “small” male ice dancer, he hasn’t let that hurt his ability to lift his partner at all (like Fabbri). That said, he needs to work on his overall presence and he and Caroline need a bit more power-speed to give them an image as a “top ice dance team”. I think she has a lot of improvements to make and is kind of holding him back but she’s not incapable of doing so.

 

[Dobre]

I don't think she's "holding him back." I think she just had to go through all the first-time competitive experiences last season that he had already been through with Rachel. This year, those nerves should be on a more even keel, as they now have a more comparable set of experiences. Most new competitive ground broken will be new for both of them. Although she hasn't had a crack at a GP podium yet and he did get that back in 2018-19 so that would be one more step.

 

[litenkyckling]

I kind of hope no team becomes "the chosen one" because it's so much more fun to watch when it feels more competitive and unpredicatable

 

[Karen-W]

I'm going to channel Randy Jackson back in his American Idol days... Green/Parsons are "aiight" - they're fine, they're decent, they might be brilliant sometimes, but I don't think they're extraordinarily remarkable. But, I also don't think most of the field (both ahead of and in their general placement range) are all that special - I can't think of more than 1 memorable program from most of those teams - Chock/Bates, Hawayek/Baker and Fear/Gibson being the notable exceptions with multiple memorable programs in the past quad.

 

[On My Own]

I agree that no one jumps out to me, personally. Artistically, I'm ready for someone to shake up ID this season, but IDK if anyone can. (To be fair to the competitors, I might be forgetting who's even competing, and am too lazy to look up the GP lists again)

ETA: Oh wait! KanaDai are still in!!! OK, that's one couple I want to watch lol.

 

[her grace]

Of last year's mid-tier teams, these are ones that I think have good potential in both technique and artistry and I would be happy to see rise in the ranks:

Turkkila/Versluis
Lajoie/Lagha
Lopareva/Brissaud
Tascherlova/Taschler

Just noticed that Italy only has G/F on the GP. I don't understand why Italy is struggling to create a next generation of dancers. They have history, tradition and Skary Babs right there.

In juniors, I'm excited for Grimm/Savitskiy, Bashynska/Beaumont, and Neset/Markelov's chances. Also excited to see what new talent emerges.

 

[Ena Grins]

I'm looking forward to seeing Grimm/Savitskiy on the JGP too. They could be very much on the rise after their high finish at Junior Worlds.

 

[GoneWithTheWind]

Just noticed that Italy only has G/F on the GP. I don't understand why Italy is struggling to create a next generation of dancers. They have history, tradition and Skary Babs right there.

I still have hope for Portesi Peroni/Chrastecky, they'd begun last season quite well, considering it was their first Sr. season but sadly she was injured after Nebelhorn and they had to sit out the rest of the season Hopefully, they can begin to build momentum again this season, they've got very little competition for the 2nd spots at Europeans and Worlds.

 

[Sylvia]

For those interested, an article about Emilea Zingas (represented Cyprus in singles for 2 seasons and was the 2018 U.S. Novice ladies silver medalist) & Vadym Kolesnik, a new U.S. senior ice dance team with Igor Shpilband's group who debuted their RD at Chesapeake Open and both programs at Dallas Classic, after which they were added to USFS' ISP):

New Team Series: Emilea Zingas & Vadym Kolesnik – Ice-dance.com

www.ice-dance.com

Kolesnik’s mother is now in Michigan, but his dad, aunt and grandmas are still in Ukraine. His brother serves in the military. His neighborhood in Kharkiv was recently bombed.
The team intends to compete at Lake Placid. “We’ll skate there, then after that we’ll see what happens,” Zingas said. ”I can’t compete internationally until late November because I competed for another Federation.”
“We’ll try to do as many domestic competitions as we can,” Kolesnik added.

 

[Sylvia]

Now we know who's chosen to move up, here's an update to my list on the status of last season's junior teams:
...
Myroslava Tkachenko / Andrii Kapran (UKR) - split (he's now skating with Zoe Larson - for USA?)

Ukraine (thanks for the link, @airgelaal!) : https://ufsf.com.ua/андрій-капран-виступатиме-з-новою-пар/

Larson has never represented USA internationally so they should be able to compete internationally this season?

ETA that Nadiia Bashynska was one of Andrii Kapran's early partners in Ukraine (@ice coverage originally posted this link: https://skateukraine.org/competitors/bashynska-kapran/)

 

[Dobre]

Not answering Sylvia's question, but just adding that they had a 126.99 at the Orange Blossom event (if you combine the scores from the two separate RD and FD events there), which is a nice starter score for a new junior team & pretty close to the score earned by the lowest U.S. junior team currently on the International Selection Pool.