An American weekend in Paris

Last weekend was excellent.

I don’t usually embrace my nationality a whole lot while in France (aside from the moments when I talk about how where I come from you can go shopping at 3AM on a Sunday if you feel like it whenever I feel particularly bothered with everything being closed). Last time I was here I would flat out lie and pretend to be British or Canadian, because people were seriously not fans of Bush. Obama, regardless of what any Americans think of him, is much more popular internationally, so I’ve stopped lying about being from the US. That said, I only have so long in France, and I’m all about profiter-ing from my time here by embracing the French-ness. And, for the first two and a half months, that was exactly what I did. Then I went to a skating competition.

I haven’t been to a Senior level skating competition (excluding synchro competitions) since I competed at Indy Challenge in the summer of 2004. That, US Junior World Trials in the late 90s, and the 2000 US National Championships are the extent of my competition attending experiences (as a spectator), and all of those were only National competitions. Indy Challenge was an early season competition with only Pairs and Dance teams competing, and since I was busy competing myself, I don’t remember much of that, although I’m pretty sure I saw the Senior Pairs Short. The US Junior World Trials were in a Chicago suburb when I was younger, and my dad took me to watch. That was a pretty fantastic experience—if I was skating at all at the time, I had probably been skating no longer than a year, and I was absolutely in awe of everyone I saw. It was especially nice because I saw several up and coming skaters and then got to see them break through over the next few years. My biggest skating competition experience to date was the 2000 US Nationals in Cleveland. That was awesome. Not even going to get into the details or this whole update will be about that.

Anyway, the point of this recap is that I have not been to a Senior level competition in years, and all the competitions I have been to were National competitions, where most skaters had a lot of friends and family around cheering them on like crazy. And as for the dozens of synchro competitions I’ve competed in over the course of my life, I was always pretty sure that the real competition was to see which team could cheer loudest, not which team could win.

The crowd at Trophée Eric Bompard (which, when I was a kid, was called Trophée Lalique, and thus I shall be calling it Trophée Lalique for the rest of this update and probably the rest of my life as well as I do not adjust well to change) was not nearly so boisterous. On the few occasions when they were boisterous, it was for either for the two Frenchmen competing or for one of the Japanese ladies competing. The German World Champion pairs team also got lots of cheers, as did Finnish ladies champion Kiira Korpi. Not sure how there were so many Japanese fans there, but it makes sense that in Europe there would be a decent German and Finnish turnout. While I like figure skaters from all over, I’m definitely a bigger fan of US figure skaters. Maybe because I know more about them, I see them more often on TV, or because I can find more long, complicated ways in which someone I know knows someone they know—whatever the reason, most of my favorite skaters competing this weekend were American. And I supported them vocally.

At first I figured maybe I just knew too much about skating when I was the only one cheering for American pair team Felicia Zhang & Taylor Toth. I am, after all, far more invested in skating than the average person and they are, after all, just on their first season at the senior level. I could hardly blame people for not applauding them when the former Pairs World Champions were there. So, I continued the pairs event not too distressed by my excessive cheering, and it was a great event. I loved Zhang & Toth’s program, and in general pairs is a much better event to watch live than on TV. I had been completely disillusioned during the Olympics with what used to be my favorite event, but I was pleasantly surprised. Russians Bazarova and Larionov were fabulous. I hate admitting that people other than myself are right (particularly when it means I end up supporting a huge pairs dynasty like Russia, because I’d always rather cheer for the underdogs), but the Russian system of training really leads to amazing ice coverage and fantastic skating skills. It’s incredibly obvious in person but much harder to pick up on when watching on TV. Savchenko and Szolkowy, who won Worlds in 2008 and 2009, were also excellent, even though they did skate to Pink Panther, which is not my favorite music (largely because I had to skate to it and was less than pleased with my costume). They and the Russians were just in a different field from the rest of the competition.

The men’s competition was what I was least excited for, and for good reason. The highlight was Frenchman Florent Amodio, who did a very fun dance-themed program (Michael Jackson music included) and had the crowd going insane. There’s nationalism for you—I heard more “ALLEZ”-ing in the minute before his program started than I probably have in the rest of my life combined. He skated a really strong program and came in second. Brandon Mroz of the US was third, and while he was pretty good, the only thing exciting about his program was that I caught some people waving an American flag, which suggested that maybe I wasn’t the only American around!

There was a short break for the medal ceremonies for Pairs and Men’s. The medal ceremony did not include any real flags, just the images of flags projected onto the center video thing.

Ladies were next, and I was really excited to see the ladies field. Americans Mirai Nagasu and Alissa Czisny were competing (two of my favorite American ladies skaters, both of them former National Champions—Mirai in 2008 and Alissa in 2009), as well as Mao Asada (World Champion and Olympic Silver Medalist last year and the only woman competing today with a consistent triple Axel), Kiira Korpi (who won Nebelhorn Trophy earlier in the season, and who is three months younger than me…which makes her old for a figure skater, but I still can’t believe that I’m older than most figure skaters now), Lena Marrocco (who is French and adorable and definitely younger than me), and six or seven others who I will not document so as to keep you from getting too annoyed with me. Unfortunately, the event wasn’t the most well-skated event I’ve ever been to, but it was still fun to watch. Marrocco started off with a nice triple-triple, but she started to fall apart as the program went on, and she was clearly exhausted by the end. I was pleasantly surprised by Sonia LaFuente from Spain. I had never heard of her going into the competition, but she skated a clean (as best as I can remember) program to Les Miserables. I don’t think she has her triple lutz yet, but she’s a lot of fun to watch and I’m excited to see where she goes from here. Mao Asada, who has had a terrible season so far, had a very rough skate. She was going for the triple axel during the warm up with decent attempts—one two-footed landing and one fall, but in the program she did a single and a double on her attempts, which was disappointing. She’s supposedly reworking her jump technique, but I have to wonder at the wisdom of competing while doing that, because I think she only managed to pull off one clean triple the entire program. It’s been a rough fall for her, but she’s a lovely skater and I’m hoping she manages to bounce back by Worlds.

It was when the second group of ladies skaters took the ice for warm-up that I started to realize that yes, I really was the only one cheering for Americans. It’s one thing to not cheer for a team just up from juniors, but Mirai Nagasu was fourth at the Olympics last year. My enthused reaction to her getting on the ice led the woman next to me to ask if I was American, which is the first time I’ve ever been asked that in France. Guilty as charged. This ladies group (which consisted of the medal contenders) unfortunately didn’t end up skating that much better than the first group. Alissa Czisny is an absolutely gorgeous skater. She’s taller than your average figure skater, but that gives her a really nice line on the ice. Her edges and spins are incredible, and I love watching her. Until she jumps. Because, sadly, most of the time she jumps, she doesn’t come down the way she wants to. And, once she makes one mistake on a jump, you can usually assume that she won’t land another clean jump for the rest of the program. As lovely as her program was, that’s exactly what happened. Mirai Nagasu had the strongest program of the night and won the long program (coming in second overall by a mere .05 since Korpi had a lead from the short program). Obviously, she did a great job and was clean on all her jumps (to the naked eye, anyway—she got marked down on a couple by judges using instant replay, which is fine), but she had a sad mishap on a layback spin that was painful to watch. It looked like she caught an edge and then she was completely unable to keep the spin going, which had to cost her a lot of points. Anyway, it was a huge improvement over her earlier long program this season, and it gives her something to focus on for Nationals and Worlds. I’m not wild about her long for the season; it seems a bit dull and doesn’t sing the way her past programs have, but it’s a post-Olympic year and there are bigger problems in skating. Kiira Korpi skated an overall solid program with one fall, and she does a great job on edges and transitions. I still think she needs to attack her last footwork sequence more (the music is Evita and that particular piece is Buenos Aires, which just begs for an awesome footwork sequence), but she’s really polished for this early in the season. Korpi was first, Nagasu second, and Czisny third.

By the time the Ice Dance event came around, I was cold (I think that the amount of time I’ve spent in ice rinks over the course of my life has permanently altered my body temperature and thus makes me get cold far too quickly), tired (despite all that time spent in ice rinks, much of it at six AM, it appears that I’m no longer very good at getting up at six AM to catch trains to Paris), and my back and calves hurt from sitting for so long (yes, I’m an old lady). But ice dance has taken over ladies as my favorite event ever since Michelle Kwan stopped competing, and it’s always been one of my favorite things to work on when I skate. While the Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir had withdrawn from the event (the nerve of Tessa’s shins to get injured!), another of my favorites teams was there: Nathalie Pechalat & Fabian Bourzat. They, however, were the last to skate, so we had to first get through a Chinese team that skated to a weird techno version of Singin’ in the Rain (I wanted to give them a deduction for poor music). We then got treated to Canadians Kharis Ralph & Asher Hill, skating to Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. They were wonderful, with really nice knees and edges, and his lines on the ice are gorgeous. Following them we had a young American team just up from juniors who I’d never heard of (Cannuscio & Lorello). They had a rough skate, but they have a lot of raw talent and excitement, so they’re definitely another team to look out for. Another American team, Chock & Zuerlein, skated to Cabaret and a had lovely routine except for the part where she fell over and he dragged her along for a few feet. In synchro you’re supposed to immediately let go of anyone who falls, but maybe that’s not a rule in ice dance. They wound up with the bronze, a Russian team that didn’t make much of an impression on me was in second, and the utterly lovely Pechalat & Bourzat won with a Charlie Chaplin themed program. I first came across Pechalat & Bourzat in early 2008 when I was studying in Avignon. They were not the top French team at the time, but I happened to see them on TV during the European Championships and their edges and knee bend were amazing. I wrote in my journal at the time that they were going to be international contenders soon, and here we are, almost three years later, and they’re one of the top three teams in the world.

In case any of you are still reading this (HA! Maybe Anna, if she’s really procrastinating, but I’m pretty sure I lost everyone else with all the skate babble, and the only reason Anna understands it is because I forced the poor girl to learn everything I knew about skating so I’d have someone to talk about it with), I shall now quickly sum up the rest of my weekend and let you get back to your lives. I went to my hostel, got slightly lost on the way there even though I’d been there before, crashed, woke up, enjoyed my free breakfast and the fact that it came with free tea since this was a British hostel, hopped on the Metro since I had a few hours to kill before my train left, and searched out one of the only places that I knew would be open on a Sunday morning in Paris: Starbucks. I splurged on a tall skim mocha (since I am very well acquainted with French milk vocabulary and thus can ask for such things as skim milk) and spent an hour listening to Frank Sinatra and people watching. I figured that while I was being blatantly American over the course of my weekend, I might as well go all the way and have some delicious corporate behemoth-made coffee. And I enjoyed it.

Okay, I had hopes of getting entirely caught up, but I am just going to post this and be done with it. On our next installment: work, weather, and…um…walking? I do a lot of walking, I’m sure I can find a way to bring that up somehow.