Like okay guys, what's going on, eh? But sure we weren't surprised. Did you catch the
Olympic Ice episode online where Tanith & Terry were in the booth in Pyeongchang, and the hosts were in the studio back in the U.S.? Charlie got to say hello to his wife.
And Ben got to say hello to his former partner.
Tanith actually asked Ben whether he could tell why the Shibs were dinged with a Level 2 on their pattern because she couldn't see anything wrong with ther naked eyes. Ben responded that he couldn't see a problem with his naked eyes either, but on replay he detected some miniscule issue with flat of blade or something or other!
What does that tell us? The judges were absolutely hunting for ways to keep the Shibs down in the scoring. They put a microscope on them. Meanwhile, no review whatsoever for B/S! Such bs!
I'll be honest that I love Madi & Zach, and I truly enjoy their SD and their FD. I do think H/D and the Shibs are about even right now in ability, but that
the Shibs' SD is stellar, even better than V/M's and P/C's (especially at the start of the season). I think that H/D's FD has been better than the Shibs' all season, but the Shibs made some important improvements to their FD and it looked great in the team event. However, I think it's already been decided somehow that if H/D perform well enough they will win bronze, or else the judges would prefer that H/D and the Shibs cancel each other out, so that another politically-favored team can be sneaked in there. Why were B/S and C/L skating in the final group anyway over the Shibs and C/B?
For the team event strategy, US fed was caught in a bind. They did not want to keep Mirai or Adam out of the team event. And so they had to make the no-switch decision for ice dance. And their choice seems to suggest that USFS are expecting H/D to medal in the individual event. Obviously, that's not a guarantee, but apparently it's the more expected and hoped for outcome. I'm sure the Shibs saw the writing on the wall. And so in the individual event, by this point, they have nothing to lose, and are just going for it.
Much of this is obviously political and not based on the skaters' abilities and performances. If it was based on the actual performances, how the hell are C/L and B/S ahead of Gilles/Poirier and Chock/Bates? No way. Even Weav/Po are a tad better than C/L and B/S for God's sake. Clearly, the judges were itching to push B/S close to the Shibs, but they just couldn't manage. And I suppose Cinquanta wants his Italians in the mix. I mean even in pairs, while Marchei/Hotarek performed extremely well, their scores were overly high, IMHO. Cappellini/Lanotte were shocked themselves to be ahead of B/S. Lots of politicks going on with those scores.
Woo, re Gaby's costume malfunction. Boy was it a distraction. I felt sorry for them. But everyone knows, their SD score was overly high for that distracted performance. Still, I have to commend them for getting through that performance without a major mistake. They were clearly distracted. Their team had been working on trying to secure the catch of Gaby's top right before the performance too. Why didn't someone grab a good old trusty safety pin or two? No one in the viewing audience would have been the wiser, and I think Gaby's top might have at least held together, and not been distracting and problematic for them.
. (Was also a bit surprised to see Lynn Rutherford of IceNetwork commenting so freely there.)
. 
, but they looked very relaxed, right? especially Maia.
And the way they came back this season is nothing short of spectacular (particularly after their disastrous mistake in Helsinki Worlds fd after being in 3rd place in sd). There's no getting away from the fact that Dubreuil/Lauzon have built a powerhouse ice dance training camp. Taking a look at the V/M promo vid (directed to a French speaking audience) gave some insights into the meticulous and thorough approach D/L take, with lots of expert back-up. I'm very impressed! Without a doubt, H/D made a career transformative decision moving to train with D/L in Montreal. It has certainly helped H/D tremendously to be training in the same environment with V/M and P/C.
