Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2014 8:58:31 GMT -6
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
February 16, 1994
2 STYLES, 1 WINNER AND A LOT OF MAGIC
by Diane Pucin
The styles are so different. Ballroom dancing versus hip-hop. Beethoven versus Grateful Dead.
Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov wore navy blue costumes, sedate and classical. They skated silently - that's what Karen Courtland, part of an American pair, said. "If you were able to use your ears, you would hear nothing. I don't think anyone ever has skated at that level."
Natalia Mishkuteniok and Artur Dmitriev wore black with shaggy gray sleeves and collars that blew in the wind. There were cutout holes on the leggings, and Dmitriev's shirt flew open at the end to show red. For the heart.
Which Russian pair was more stunning? Whom do you prefer? Both. That's the best answer.
Gordeeva and Grinkov, the old married couple with the daughter and the house in Tampa, Fla., back at the Olympics for the first time since they won a mesmerizing gold at Calgary in 1988, won the pairs gold medal again last night. Eight of nine judges preferred Gordeeva and Grinkov.
About 5,999 of 6,000 fans at the Hamar Olympic Amphitheater preferred the silver medalists, Mishkuteniok and Dmitriev. Their coach, Tamara Moskvina, said it was all a matter of taste.
"It seems to me the eternal question between lyrics and physics," she said. "There is the joke: Some prefer the priest, some the priest's wife; others prefer the priest's daughter."
It was that kind of night. Wildly entertaining and always surprising.
The bronze medalists were Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler of Canada. Eisler is vocal, and afterward he said he and his partner won the gold: "If the pros hadn't come back, we would have won the gold. I feel we gave a gold-medal performance."
A little spice, but uncalled for. Who wouldn't want to watch what happened last night?
There was blood, too. Mandy Woetzel, a German, tripped and took a thudding fall. She hit her ribs on the ice first, then bounced her chin off the ice. She needed three stitches after her partner, Ingo Steuer, carried her off the ice.
There were two excellent performances by Americans.
Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, who are boyfriend and girlfriend, skated what they said was their best program ever and moved up from sixth place to fifth. If pros hadn't been allowed to return, pros such as the gold and silver medalists, Meno and Sand would have had a bronze medal.
And Kyoko Ina, who was once the Japanese junior champion, and Jason Dungjen made the biggest move in the standings, from 15th after the short program to seventh. They skated cleanly, placed their long program seventh and were happier than anyone here. Maybe.
This all happened before the final group skated onto the big ice. Three Russian pairs and the Canadians.
Eisler and Brasseur skated first. They have the biggest, highest lifts and the brightest smiles. But they skate slow, a little slow anyway, and you don't notice until the others come afterward. Canadian fans waved lots of maple leafs, and Brasseur and Eisler didn't stumble at all. They had put on a good performance, and then they watched.
They watched Mishkuteniok and Dmitriev first. They won the gold medal at Albertville in 1992, turned pro for a year, then came back to the amateurs last summer when the rule was changed.
They are innovative. They do spins and twists in which you can't tell where a leg stops and an arm stops or even if it's an arm or leg at all. They spin fast in the jumps. Mishkuteniok flies far in the throws.
But maybe this is skating for the future. They are not silent. Use your ears, as Courtland says, and you hear it. Thuds and hisses of ice flying up. The scores came up mostly 5.7s and 5.8s, with a couple of 5.6s even, and the crowd hissed like the ice.
So next up were Gordeeva and Grinkov. Gordeeva is 22 years old and weighs 95 pounds. She is made only of air, it seems. Grinkov is 26, taller, of course, but thin. They began skating together when Gordeeva was 11 and Grinkov was 15.
They skated at the same club. A coach pushed them together. That's how they made pairs in the old Soviet Union. The love came later, after the gold medal in Calgary. In 1990 they turned pro. Fourteen months ago they had a daughter, Daria. Then came that announcement about being able to become amateurs again and skate in the Olympics.
"We wanted to do it very much," Gordeeva said last night. "We worked very hard to do this."
This regal couple was nervous, mainly Grinkov. He wobbled a couple of times, seemed to get a little out of sync on his footwork. But he can throw Gordeeva higher than anyone else can throw a partner. She spins like a top, and the choreography was ethereal.
When the performance was over, the couple hugged and whispered. What did they whisper? "I ask Sergei if he make mistakes," Gordeeva said. "He said yes."
Maybe a couple, but not enough. The marks were all 5.8s and 5.9s. The Russian judge gave them one 6.0. Courtland paid these fellow competitors the highest compliment. She stayed to watch.
"To say I enjoy watching them is an understatement," Courtland said. "I don't think anyone ever skated at their level. I watch their straight line step and I try to hear something and I say, 'Oh, my God, I can't.' "
Courtland's partner, Todd Reynolds, broke in. He was almost breathless because he was so eager to express himself. "The level of pairs skating tonight won't ever be witnessed again." Courtland interrupted this time. "There is all this drama involved with G and G. All the emotion and so much is happening, so much more than jumps and spins. It's magic."
It was. A magical night.
February 16, 1994
2 STYLES, 1 WINNER AND A LOT OF MAGIC
by Diane Pucin
The styles are so different. Ballroom dancing versus hip-hop. Beethoven versus Grateful Dead.
Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov wore navy blue costumes, sedate and classical. They skated silently - that's what Karen Courtland, part of an American pair, said. "If you were able to use your ears, you would hear nothing. I don't think anyone ever has skated at that level."
Natalia Mishkuteniok and Artur Dmitriev wore black with shaggy gray sleeves and collars that blew in the wind. There were cutout holes on the leggings, and Dmitriev's shirt flew open at the end to show red. For the heart.
Which Russian pair was more stunning? Whom do you prefer? Both. That's the best answer.
Gordeeva and Grinkov, the old married couple with the daughter and the house in Tampa, Fla., back at the Olympics for the first time since they won a mesmerizing gold at Calgary in 1988, won the pairs gold medal again last night. Eight of nine judges preferred Gordeeva and Grinkov.
About 5,999 of 6,000 fans at the Hamar Olympic Amphitheater preferred the silver medalists, Mishkuteniok and Dmitriev. Their coach, Tamara Moskvina, said it was all a matter of taste.
"It seems to me the eternal question between lyrics and physics," she said. "There is the joke: Some prefer the priest, some the priest's wife; others prefer the priest's daughter."
It was that kind of night. Wildly entertaining and always surprising.
The bronze medalists were Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler of Canada. Eisler is vocal, and afterward he said he and his partner won the gold: "If the pros hadn't come back, we would have won the gold. I feel we gave a gold-medal performance."
A little spice, but uncalled for. Who wouldn't want to watch what happened last night?
There was blood, too. Mandy Woetzel, a German, tripped and took a thudding fall. She hit her ribs on the ice first, then bounced her chin off the ice. She needed three stitches after her partner, Ingo Steuer, carried her off the ice.
There were two excellent performances by Americans.
Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, who are boyfriend and girlfriend, skated what they said was their best program ever and moved up from sixth place to fifth. If pros hadn't been allowed to return, pros such as the gold and silver medalists, Meno and Sand would have had a bronze medal.
And Kyoko Ina, who was once the Japanese junior champion, and Jason Dungjen made the biggest move in the standings, from 15th after the short program to seventh. They skated cleanly, placed their long program seventh and were happier than anyone here. Maybe.
This all happened before the final group skated onto the big ice. Three Russian pairs and the Canadians.
Eisler and Brasseur skated first. They have the biggest, highest lifts and the brightest smiles. But they skate slow, a little slow anyway, and you don't notice until the others come afterward. Canadian fans waved lots of maple leafs, and Brasseur and Eisler didn't stumble at all. They had put on a good performance, and then they watched.
They watched Mishkuteniok and Dmitriev first. They won the gold medal at Albertville in 1992, turned pro for a year, then came back to the amateurs last summer when the rule was changed.
They are innovative. They do spins and twists in which you can't tell where a leg stops and an arm stops or even if it's an arm or leg at all. They spin fast in the jumps. Mishkuteniok flies far in the throws.
But maybe this is skating for the future. They are not silent. Use your ears, as Courtland says, and you hear it. Thuds and hisses of ice flying up. The scores came up mostly 5.7s and 5.8s, with a couple of 5.6s even, and the crowd hissed like the ice.
So next up were Gordeeva and Grinkov. Gordeeva is 22 years old and weighs 95 pounds. She is made only of air, it seems. Grinkov is 26, taller, of course, but thin. They began skating together when Gordeeva was 11 and Grinkov was 15.
They skated at the same club. A coach pushed them together. That's how they made pairs in the old Soviet Union. The love came later, after the gold medal in Calgary. In 1990 they turned pro. Fourteen months ago they had a daughter, Daria. Then came that announcement about being able to become amateurs again and skate in the Olympics.
"We wanted to do it very much," Gordeeva said last night. "We worked very hard to do this."
This regal couple was nervous, mainly Grinkov. He wobbled a couple of times, seemed to get a little out of sync on his footwork. But he can throw Gordeeva higher than anyone else can throw a partner. She spins like a top, and the choreography was ethereal.
When the performance was over, the couple hugged and whispered. What did they whisper? "I ask Sergei if he make mistakes," Gordeeva said. "He said yes."
Maybe a couple, but not enough. The marks were all 5.8s and 5.9s. The Russian judge gave them one 6.0. Courtland paid these fellow competitors the highest compliment. She stayed to watch.
"To say I enjoy watching them is an understatement," Courtland said. "I don't think anyone ever skated at their level. I watch their straight line step and I try to hear something and I say, 'Oh, my God, I can't.' "
Courtland's partner, Todd Reynolds, broke in. He was almost breathless because he was so eager to express himself. "The level of pairs skating tonight won't ever be witnessed again." Courtland interrupted this time. "There is all this drama involved with G and G. All the emotion and so much is happening, so much more than jumps and spins. It's magic."
It was. A magical night.