The Dance Hall 8: Join the Maskerade 2020-2021

[Sylvia]

I don't see Sergei Ponomarenko's name currently listed as an ice dance technical specialist for Russia (ISU Communication No. 2337, pages 22-23).

 

[Dobre]

I don't see Sergei Ponomarenko's name currently listed as an ice dance technical specialist for Russia (ISU Communication No. 2337, pages 22-23).

No, he was removed from the list a while ago. I don't think he's done any technical calling since his son moved up to seniors. At least not international calling.

 

[Colonel Green]

They would still be taking a risk I remember Tanith Belbin for the 2006 olympics, 2 months before the olympics still did not have it it took last minute intervention from a high profile politician to get it.

That was an issue specific to the the timing of Belbin's application and changes in law. There isn't any indication Christina's application faces a similar problem.

Colonel Green Sergei Ponomarenko the father of Anthony is a high profile member of the ISU a technical specialist, if he decides his son has to move to Canada to better his interests would the USFS really want to play hardball with him.

Now you're really reaching. The USFS has invested a large amount of money in Christina & Anthony, they wouldn't just let that go.

Carreira/Ponomarenko are on track to the be the US number one in two seasons or so, there's no reason for them to move, were that even possible.

 

[yurokis40]

that is all good and jolly but until she does get the citizenship we can all speculate I want to remind you skaters have switched federations because of this issue Mervin Tran a world medalist, Nicolai Sorensen so there is history getting citizenship in the US is not easy as you think. They will have to produce results and be very competitive it took Tanith Belbin to be a medal contender at the olympics to get it.

 

[Colonel Green]

that is all good and jolly but until she does get the citizenship we can all speculate I want to remind you skaters have switched federations because of this issue Mervin Tran a world medalist, Nicolai Sorensen so there is history getting citizenship in the US is not easy as you think. They will have to produce results and be very competitive it took Tanith Belbin to be a medal contender at the olympics to get it.

Denmark and Japan ≠ the United States in citizenship law.

Whether or not you get citizenship through the normal process doesn't have anything to do with how good an athlete you are (most of the people who do are not athletes at all!).

 

[Colonel Green]

Out of curiosity, since it looks like Worlds is more and more likely to actually happen, I went back to look at the world standings for now (which are, of course, unchanged from the end of last season because nobody has been able to earn more of them). As of right now, the final three flights of the RD at Worlds will be:

Final
Sinitsina/Katsalapov
Guignard/Fabbri
Hubbell/Donohue
Gilles/Poirier
Chock/Bates

Penultimate
Stepanova/Bukin
Fear/Gibson
Wang/Liu
[Spanish team]*
Kaliszek/Spodyriev

Antepenultimate
Hawayek/Baker
Kazakova/Reviya
Lajoie/Lagha
Lauriault/Le Gac**
Zahorski/Guerreiro
-----
Reed/Ambrulevicius are the team on the bubble in case one of the above doesn't end up going, followed by Fournier Beaudry/Sorensen.

* Both Hurtado/Khaliavin and Smart/Diaz would be in the second-to-last flight (in the latter case, due to P/C not competing).
** Assuming France sends them, which they frankly should, precisely because their world standing gives them the best draw of any of the options.

 

[yurokis40]

Denmark and Japan ≠ the United States in citizenship law.

Whether or not you get citizenship through the normal process doesn't have anything to do with how good an athlete you are (most of the people who do are not athletes at all!).

It can take 15 years for so called normal people to get citizenship so her citizenship would have to be expediated even in 2026.

 

[yurokis40]

Out of curiosity, since it looks like Worlds is more and more likely to actually happen, I went back to look at the world standings for now (which are, of course, unchanged from the end of last season because nobody has been able to earn more of them). As of right now, the final three flights of the RD at Worlds will be:

Final
Sinitsina/Katsalapov
Guignard/Fabbri
Hubbell/Donohue
Gilles/Poirier
Chock/Bates

Penultimate
Stepanova/Bukin
Fear/Gibson
Wang/Liu
[Spanish team]*
Kaliszek/Spodyriev

Antepenultimate
Hawayek/Baker
Kazakova/Reviya
Lajoie/Lagha
Lauriault/Le Gac**
Zahorski/Guerreiro
-----
Reed/Ambrulevicius are the team on the bubble in case one of the above doesn't end up going, followed by Fournier Beaudry/Sorensen.

* Both Hurtado/Khaliavin and Smart/Diaz would be in the second-to-last flight (in the latter case, due to P/C not competing).
** Assuming France sends them, which they frankly should, precisely because their world standing gives them the best draw of any of the options.

Sinitsina Katsalapov are still a question mark due to her illness I assume if they don`t go Step and Bukin move to the final fight needless to say this is the best chance Gilles and Poirier have ever had to win a medal at worlds even bigger than last year.

 

[chameleonster]

It's possible Sergei Ponomarenko still calls small, low level domestic comps, but he hasn't called anything remotely of note since the 2016/17 season when C/P's career started taking off.

If C/P didn't intend to continue to represent the US, they wouldn't have bothered to petition USFS to be world alternates. That says to me they wanted to maintain their funding, which means they can't switch countries.

Theoretically USFS would have to let them go eventually, but they'd drag it out so long C/P's career would be stalled for years waiting for release. If C/P split they might let Christina go back to repping Canada with relatively minimal fuss, but not them as a pair.

 

[yurokis40]

It's possible Sergei Ponomarenko still calls small, low level domestic comps, but he hasn't called anything remotely of note since the 2016/17 season when C/P's career started taking off.

If C/P didn't intend to continue to represent the US, they wouldn't have bothered to petition USFS to be world alternates. That says to me they wanted to maintain their funding, which means they can't switch countries.

Theoretically USFS would have to let them go eventually, but they'd drag it out so long C/P's career would be stalled for years waiting for release. If C/P split they might let Christina go back to repping Canada with relatively minimal fuss, but not them as a pair.

Was that petition really serious suppose one of the top three gets injured and they have to go who would coach them where would they train leading up to worlds me thinks they should have waited until at least world passes to ditch Igor just in case they were called upon to compete. I suppose his parents would coach them know but they live in Florida Cristina would have to move there.

 

[marbri]

I wonder if there is a connection between IAM saying they have exciting news and Scott Moir recently saying in an interview about opening an Elite dance school in the London area. IAM has said last year that they wanted to help others open up schools elsewhere and I guess be affiliated with them.

And to really speculate C/P could train there with Scott (and whoever else will be coaching with him along with help from IAM?). It's only a 2.5 hour drive from where they are currently to London so close enough they can pop back and forth on weekends etc.. to keep her US residency in tact.

Obviously this is pure speculation, just wanted to throw in this option so stake my claim to it

 

[dancing_on_ice]

With a green card, there's basically a straight path to American citizenship. While politics has messed with the process of getting a green card, the five year process from green card to citizenship has stayed intact for a long time (someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Christina has her green card, thus it is a straight path to citizenship before 2026. It is way too late for Anthony to get Canadian citizenship in time for 2022, so it wouldn't make sense for them to switch nationalities. As others in the thread have pointed out, USFS would make the process hell. Even if the switch over was relatively easy (which lol, would not happen considering the resources USFS have put into them), Canadian ice dance really isn't easier to break out of compared to American ice dance. It doesn't make sense to switch nationalities this late in the game.

I can see why C/P would want to train with Gadbois. Gadbois has the political power to help push them to US No. 1 and world podiums once C/B and H/D retire. It would be a tricky arrangement though, since for Christina to get her citizenship, she needs to continuously reside in the US (aka spend >6 months of the year living in America). Saying this, Gadbois does have a history of doing something similar. For Tim Koleto to get his Japanese citizenship, didn't they also have residency requirements which required them to train in Japan for a substantial period of time? I'm not very familiar with their situation, so does anyone who follow K/K more closely know how their training was impacted by being away from their coaching team? At least with C/P, it would presumably be easier since the US is substantially closer to Canada than Japan.

 

[Colonel Green]

I can see why C/P would want to train with Gadbois. Gadbois has the political power to help push them to US No. 1 and world podiums once C/B and H/D retire. It would be a tricky arrangement though, since for Christina to get her citizenship, she needs to continuously reside in the US (aka spend >6 months of the year living in America). Saying this, Gadbois does have a history of doing something similar. For Tim Koleto to get his Japanese citizenship, didn't they also have residency requirements which required them to train in Japan for a substantial period of time? I'm not very familiar with their situation, so does anyone who follow K/K more closely know how their training was impacted by being away from their coaching team? At least with C/P, it would presumably be easier since the US is substantially closer to Canada than Japan.

Yeah, it would be theoretically possible to do a 51/49 arrangement (and for that, probably a lower-ranked American coach would be the only ones who'd be eager to agree to that).

I'm not sure it really makes sense to enter into such an arrangement at this particular moment in time, given how many international travel restrictions there are, but that's ultimately something they'd have to judge.

 

[VGThuy]

Yurokis just wants another team that could potentially be a strong competitor for Canada and is jumping through some crazy mental hoops to justify why Christina and Anthony will change citizenship despite the fact that Christina is already on her way to receive US citizenship in the most straightforward, all-procedural way there is. I wouldn’t give those posts more further thought unless they decide they will pursue Canadian citizenship. A lot of yurokis’ predictions never come true.

 

[thvu]

I think @yurokis40 just likes to be consistently factually wrong.

 

[angi]

I.AM are branching out and opening an Ontario branch with Scott Moir as the head coach:

Three-time Olympians

—I.AM Ontario

virtchandmoir.tumblr.com

This has the potential to be very interesting.

ETA: I'm also guessing this is where Carreira/Ponomarenko are going.

 

[Colonel Green]

I.AM are branching out and opening an Ontario branch with Scott Moir as the head coach:

Three-time Olympians

—I.AM Ontario

virtchandmoir.tumblr.com

This has the potential to be very interesting.

ETA: I'm also guessing this is where Carreira/Ponomarenko are going.

Coaching staff: the entire Moir family, plus some other people.

C/P would still need a domestic coaching arrangement for 50+% of the year, were they to decide to go here.

 

[sap5]

Will IAM Ontario focus only on ice dance? Because with that coaching staff, they should really be coaching synchro as well.

 

[angi]

Coaching staff: the entire Moir family, plus some other people.

They've been coaching for years so it does make sense, but I do assume they will add more (perhaps notable) people to the coaching staff.

 

[sap5]

Coaching staff: the entire Moir family, plus some other people.

C/P would still need a domestic coaching arrangement for 50+% of the year, were they to decide to go here.

Is the 6 month rule a continuous 6 months? Or is just 6 months in a year. Because iirc, VM had a similar arrangement at one point, where they made sure to spend 6 months in Canada to maintain their visa/health insurance by going home every weekend.

 

[Colonel Green]

Is the 6 month rule a continuous 6 months? Or is just 6 months in a year. Because iirc, VM had a similar arrangement at one point, where they made sure to spend 6 months in Canada to maintain their health insurance by going home every weekend.

6 months in a year.

Also, in immigration matters there's always a risk that the people counting the numbers are going to get nitpicky about what that says about your overall residence pattern.

 

[sap5]

6 months in a year.

Also, in immigration matters there's always a risk that the people counting the numbers are going to get nitpicky about what that says about your overall residence pattern.

I think the hurdle has been largely passed if she already has a green card. At this point, to say that she's crossing the border for coaching to represent the US at the Olympics is a strong argument in her favor -- if C/P are actually going there and not to a US coach.

If C/P really are going to IAM, I'd hope this has all been run in front of immigration officials by USFS or others.

 

[dancing_on_ice]

If it matters, the Ilderton skating rink is a little farther than Montreal from the US. Ilderton is 1.5 hours from the nearest border town while Montreal is 1 hour from the nearest border town. I guess if they wanted to stay in Michigan, they could go to Scott? Since they would have to live in upstate New York to be close to Gadbois. Driving in Ilderton would presumably be easier than driving in Montreal though, but it's essentially the same for their immigration situation since Christina needs to live in the US for >6 months.

 

[Gris]

Gadbois has been overcrowded for some time so maybe some lower-ranked IAM teams will go to the Ontario branch.

Not sure about CPom though given the citizenship requirement. But the timing looks interesting indeed.

 

[barbarafan]

Gadbois has been overcrowded for some time so maybe some lower-ranked IAM teams will go to the Ontario branch.

Not sure about CPom though given the citizenship requirement. But the timing looks interesting indeed.

So Scott must be living in Canada full time or going to. I wonder how this works out with his fiance and her children.

 

[marbri]

So Scott must be living in Canada full time or going to. I wonder how this works out with his fiance and her children.

She's Canadian and I don't think she has any kids.

 

[Colonel Green]

New ISU dance rule updates for next season.

The big news, ladies can now wear pants in the free dance! Finally, no more need to cheat the rules by including obviously extraneous, barely-there skirts on bodysuits (see, Hannah Lim’s costume this year).

 

[VGThuy]

Welcome to the 1920s-1960s, ISU. Actually, people still made a big deal about pantsuits in the 2000s.

 

[Sylvia]

Scott Moir is scheduled for an IG Live at 5:30 pm ET today: https://www.instagram.com/iceacademyofmontreal/

 

[barbarafan]

She's Canadian and I don't think she has any kids.

I know she is Canadian but she has kids as Scott had said at the beginning of c***** he looked after them while she worked in healthcare. So you cannot just take kids to another country without legalities to settle with the father.