I don’t know what Daisuke is on, but I want the same stuff for Stephane!
After 10 minutes he was done with the jumps, including gorgeous 3A, 4T/3T and a much too easy 3F/3T – all on the first try. He landed everything during the run-through, with lovely step sequences (not to mention that Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto is my fave piece of music and that I can easily fall in love on it! LOL). Then he tried the 4F 2-3 times, kept falling, and he was off the ice after 18-20 minutes of practice! I hope he keeps up this afternoon (is not planning the quad) and tomorrow, but no matter what, I’m happy I got to see the practices at least.
Then I watched the other guys! LOL
After a while I wondered if Evan would ever do any jump other than 3Lz/3T, until he did the 3A.
Johnny went for the 4T a few times, it never worked at all. He must have been disturbed by the people hanging their “special” banners for him, I know I would have.
Alban was ok, I saw nice 3Lz, 3F and 3A, he did lots of spinning (I actually wondered if it was just his 3 usually SP spins or if he was checking which positions hurt less) and steps. He was the only one who stayed till the end of the practice, and he smiled quite a lot, so I guess it’s all good news.
And I’m sorry, but I didn’t see anything of what Brian and Nobunari did, I guess it means they didn’t fall, because that I would have noticed…
Ladies were ok, they did lots of jumps and it didn’t always work as they wanted. The 3Lz gave some trouble to Sarah, Julia, Fumie and Yu-Na, but they all eventually nailed it. Miki’s very consistent, her 3Lz/3L and Yu-Na’s 3F/3T are amazing. Mao was good, didn’t see any 3A but I guess she was just focusing on her SP jumps.
I also saw the first group of pair, Savchenko/Szolkowy looked good. I hope they keep improving like that and they’ll soon be (at least) European Champs. Oh, but for the first time in my life, I saw a fall on a death spiral (from them). Inoue/Baldwin tried the throw 3A, but I didn’t see it landed clean. Nothing to say about Marcoux/Buntin, sorry.