Thoughts on Russian Nationals, anyone?
In particular, how do people see things shaping up
below the battle for gold & silver? Do you see a huge fight for 4th? Or one for 3rd? I'm finding it really hard to know what to expect as a couple of the teams with top scores got those on the CS, didn't do the GP, and haven't been head-to-head with the teams that earned GPs.
Program-wise, I quite like Shpilevaya & Smirnov's flirty thing, Shevchenko & Eremenko's sharp modern thing, and I think Zagorski & Guerreiro's
Survivor has potential for great highlights if sharper & better trained now. My favorite RD of the bunch was Popova & Mozgov's
Cabaret so I am rather bummed that we won't see it.
I am, of course, mostly rooting for Stepanova & Bukin to upset for gold, though I think they are a bit underdogs this season.
A few dance-related details from elsewhere on the board in case anyone has missed them:
-Hawayek & Baker, Wang & Liu, and Kaliszek & Spodyriev are signed up for Mentor Torun Cup. Also Tweedale & Buckland making it back to competition after their injury. And another head-to-head between Harris & Chan and Kerry & Dodds for Australia.
-Popova & Mozgov are out of Russian Nationals

, due to back problems for him which have apparently been a problem for a month & likely explain why they did not do a late-season CS to follow up their GP event at SC.
-Turkkila & Versluis withdrew from Finnish Nationals. Orihara & Pirinen won the berth for Europeans. Apparently there is still a chance T&V could earn a berth for Worlds, but they would need to earn more than one high score prior to Worlds in order to do so. Seems like a challenging task.
-New junior champions in dance for both Italy and Great Britain this season, with both Portesi-Peroni & Chrastecky and Rose Brown & Hernandez upsetting last year's champions.
-Still waiting for official word from France on who is assigned to Europeans, I think.