The Dance Hall 13: When You Dance on the Ice and Your Feet Twizzle Twice, That's Amore

[Kateri]

Shira Ichilov has more sekret powers than we knew! Seriously though, this is so surprising. Hope they're okay.

 

[Bigbird]

If we think about it long enough, it makes sense. Dance is a highly politicised sport, and it is exorbitantly expensive. If you're not making the returns to live, cover your expenses, pay your coaches and attend to your injuries, it just makes sense to turn over a new leaf. The prevailing prejudices of our specialists govern how dance is assessed. If you're not liked, especially within your own country, that is the end of it in most cases. It is sad though.

 

[Dobre]

There has to be something going on, right? This is just weird on multiple levels.

Yep, craziness. After putting together a new RD, debuting with it at an international, & winning the internal head-to-head. During an Olympic season.

Maybe she found out she will not get citizenship, but even if that's the case, they're so young & not that far down. You wouldn't think at this stage, they'd throw in the towel mid-season. They are of age to go off to college, but if that was the plan, why go through all the effort of switching federations in the first place? Also, you wouldn't think they'd have switched feds if there was a chance she wouldn't get it. Not after that happened with Tobias & Tkachenko and with parents so involved in the sport.

 

[ginsengtea]

There has to be something going on, right? This is just weird on multiple levels.

T/K both unfollowed Galit Chait apparently. She coaches the other Israeli ice dance team. I think it’s likely there’s some politics involved here, doesn’t Boris Chait run the Israeli federation?

 

[Karen-W]

T/K both unfollowed Galit Chait apparently. She coaches the other Israeli ice dance team. I think it’s likely there’s some politics involved here, doesn’t Boris Chait run the Israeli federation?

Yes and yes.

The plot thickens...

 

[Karen-W]

Lots of rumors swirling on X about WISA too. I've seen some chatter that Ilin/Cain have split. We saw Olivia pop up in Elliana Peal's IG stories during LP & people are assuming Dylan was not there & taking that as evidence of the rumored split. I don't know that I agree with the assumption since the USFS is still listing Ilin/Cain on both the ISP and as JGP alternates.

 

[Bigbird]

Check and Mate. The way was closed for them, and they knew it.

 

[Debbie S]

I do wonder if citizenship was the issue. Maybe she only recently found out she won't be able to get citizenship and they decided it wasn't worth it to continue if there would be no Olys. Yes, they could compete at Euros and Worlds, but maybe it wasn't worth the expense, time, sacrifice. We know skating at the elite level is...a lot...Alexei is a part-time college student, Liza graduated from high school this year, maybe they are satisfied with what they achieved...JW medal, competing at Worlds, even if they didn't make the FD....and decided they are ready to move on.

It does seem odd that they would compete at LP if they planned to retire, but maybe they wanted to have 1 last comp...who knows.

If it was politiks and the Israeli fed chose Ichilov for the Oly spot based on Galit as their coach and not LP placement, then shame on them (the fed). Unfortunately, we've seen too much of this in skating with other feds, including USFS.

(I've been hoping Ichilov/Noso could leave Galit and go to IAM/Shpilband/Zanni/Margaglio, but i realize that's a pipe dream.)

Ilin/Cain have not been part of WISA since 2020/2021, when Dmitry (her father) stayed in Rockville (instead of going to ION) and formed his own school. I hope they haven't split, but whatever is going on, WISA is not involved.

 

[PRlady]

I wonder if Galit or Boris pulled a Mrs Mitchell and ensured Liza wouldn’t get citizenship. TPTB in Israel are harder on Russians and Ukrainians than other immigrants, lots of times because they don’t have the right papers. And it’s not like they’re immune to political pressure in the resident/citizen process, I’ve seen it myself.

 

[Lara111]

I wonder if Galit or Boris pulled a Mrs Mitchell and ensured Liza wouldn’t get citizenship. TPTB in Israel are harder on Russians and Ukrainians than other immigrants, lots of times because they don’t have the right papers. And it’s not like they’re immune to political pressure in the resident/citizen process, I’ve seen it myself.

Well if this is what happened i think Izraeli federation should be banned.

 

[jackson]

I wonder if Galit or Boris pulled a Mrs Mitchell and ensured Liza wouldn’t get citizenship. TPTB in Israel are harder on Russians and Ukrainians than other immigrants, lots of times because they don’t have the right papers. And it’s not like they’re immune to political pressure in the resident/citizen process, I’ve seen it myself.

What pulling a Mrs. Mitchell? Who is that?

 

[Karen-W]

What pulling a Mrs. Mitchell? Who is that?

The mother of David Mitchell, who skated with Loren Galler-Rabinowitz back in the early '00s. She protested the citizenship bill that granted Tanith Belbin (among others, IIRC) citizenship ahead of the 2006 Olympics. From her Wikipedia entry -

Tanith Belbin was born in Kingston, Ontario, and raised in Kirkland, Quebec. In 1998, she moved to the Detroit area in the United States and received an immigrant worker visa in 2000.[1] Due to immigration rules at the time, she did not receive a green card until July 2002 and would not have been granted U.S. citizenship until 2007.[1] An amendment was passed which allowed Belbin to be sworn in as an American citizen on December 31, 2005.[1] The amendment was authored by Senator Carl Levin who stated, "This amendment corrects an anomaly in the law that unfairly disadvantaged some people who had begun their naturalization process before 2002. Tanith Belbin began her naturalization process in 2000, but due to changes that were made to the law in 2002, the process has taken significantly longer than it would have if she had filed her paperwork 2 years later."[2]

Tanith Belbin White - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Rukia]

we've lost the ancient texts (aka the reason for )

 

[angi]

Wang/Liu are officially back, they skated their RD at a local competition (currently in 2nd place, about a point away from the lead). I don't think they look good enough to challenge for an Olympic spot, but given the qualification event is in China, I wouldn't be surprised if they receive a significant enough push to secure one.

 

[Karen-W]

Wang/Liu are officially back, they skated their RD at a local competition (currently in 2nd place, about a point away from the lead). I don't think they look good enough to challenge for an Olympic spot, but given the qualification event is in China, I wouldn't be surprised if they receive a significant enough push to secure one.

Doubtful. If they're 1 pt behind Ren/Xing, who weren't even close to making the FD in Boston, at a domestic competition then they're not going to get enough of a push to secure one. The CFSA would be wise to put their political capital in whichever pairs team and woman they send to compete for those spots.

 

[angi]

Doubtful. If they're 1 pt behind Ren/Xing, who weren't even close to making the FD in Boston, at a domestic competition then they're not going to get enough of a push to secure one. The CFSA would be wise to put their political capital in whichever pairs team and woman they send to compete for those spots.

I think that the gap is small enough that if they turn it away in the FD, they will get sent to the qualification event, they have way more experience than R/X, but I do agree it's still a long shot that China will qualify for a spot.

 

[jackson]

The mother of David Mitchell, who skated with Loren Galler-Rabinowitz back in the early '00s. She protested the citizenship bill that granted Tanith Belbin (among others, IIRC) citizenship ahead of the 2006 Olympics. From her Wikipedia entry -

Tanith Belbin White - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Oh blast from the past! I actually remember hearing about that. Wow - How did everyone find out? was it public or leaked?

 

[Karen-W]

I think that the gap is small enough that if they turn it away in the FD, they will get sent to the qualification event, they have way more experience than R/X, but I do agree it's still a long shot that China will qualify for a spot.

It's such a long shot it's not even funny. Ren/Xing scored 56.05 in the RD in Boston. TurkVers were the 20th team in the RD and they scored 68.09, with ReedAmbru just missing the cut at 68.08 and Harris/Chan missed out on an Olympic spot since only 19 were awarded in Boston. There are 4 dance spots available in Beijing. Just looking at the SB for last season, here's where Ren/Xing rank of the teams who are likely to be competing at the OQE:

Reed/Ambrulevicius 196.66
Harris/Chan 179.53
Tali/Lafornara 177.50 or Manni/Roethlisberger 170.75
Ignateva/Szemko 174.95
Reitan/Majorov 172.56
Yoshida/Morita 171.59
Soucisse/Firus 171.34
Val/Kazimov 170.50
Larson/Kapran 169.28 or Pinchuk/Pogorielov 162.28
Xiao/He 157.43 or Ren/Xing 156.51
Zehnder/Sieber 153.29
Dovhal/Kulesza 153.25

And Ichilov/Nosovitskiy will fit in there somewhere - probably around the Chinese team based on their LPIDI score of 158.04

If anyone is getting a bump/push from their fed, it will be YoMori. I have a hard time believing WangLiu can close the pretty sizable gap that exists between where they appear to be right now and the higher tier that has been scoring in the 169-175 range during the next six weeks, even with a push from the CFSA.

 

[Dobre]

At the time T/K switched to compete for Israel, the rumors were that Boris was trying to recruit Davis & Smolkin. I've always assumed he (or Chait on his behalf) was, therefore, at T/K's rink during that time and wound up encouraging T/K also to compete for Israel.

I do feel like this is about the time of year when Tobias & Tkachenko got the nope-it's-not-happening word & threw in the towel. (Though Israel kept them on the GP list for a good long while).

As far as the idea of either of the Chaits undermining T/K's ability to get citizenship, that would seem mighty drastic & short-sighted for a country that doesn't have a berth yet. (There are smaller political decisions that could get up one's back is all I'm saying).

Anyway, who knows? Elizabeth's post is classy and no reason for us to all go down the rabbit hole. I just always assumed that the whole point of switching feds was to enable a senior career. T/K weren't that far down in the U.S. junior ranks, and they were younger than anyone above them. They could have earned their way to Junior Worlds where there were. It's just that it's so tough to make the senior World team. Israel seemed a very logical choice for them long-term. Oh, well. It seems clear they're moving on elsewhere.

Shame because they could still grow so much.