Updated: 30-Mar-2001
- Cover Page
- Pre-event
- We will be driving up to Vancouver on the 16th & 17th.
The diary entries will start after that.
- 18-Mar-2001
- Getting Started
- 19-Mar-2001
- Pairs Short
- 20-Mar-2001
- Men's Short
- 21-Mar-2001
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- 22-Mar-2001
- Men's Free
- 23-Mar-2001
- Ladies Short
- 24-Mar-2001
- Ladies Free
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Ladies' Qualifying, Group A
Well by the time we got to Ladie's Group A it was after Pairs and so we
were all exhausted. We could only stay for half the ladies and I could
not take notes at all. However I do have some comments on what I can
remember seeing.
- USA - Sarah Hughes
- She did her Don Quixote program in her original
costume, not the one from Nationals. Landed six triples including triple
sal/triple loop. Got a standing ovation.
- Uzbekistan - Tatiana Malinina
- She messed up her first couple of jumps.
But then she came back strong and skated the rest clean.
- Denmark - Mikkeline Kierkgaard
- I am so glad she skated early because I
would have hated to miss her. What a lovely skater, she was graceful and
full of expression. She did a lovely extended spiral and a Charlotte.
She also landed a bunch of triples. Unfortunately she doesn't have a
triple lutz, so her base mark was low. The crowd really booed her tech
scores, her presentation scores went up by about half a point. Still I
don't think she can make top ten with the lutz. But she is wonderful to
watch!
- Hong Kong - Christine Lee
- I don't know if this is the same Christine Lee
who skated at US Nationals a few years back, but I think it is. I
originally saw both Carina Chen, who now skates for Taipei and Dirke
O'Brien-Baker, who now skates for New Zealand, at Nationals. If this is
the same Christine she has improved much since Nationals, where she
couldn't land a thing. Here she did manage a few triples.
- USA - Michelle Kwan
- Michelle added an element of suspense that was
frightening. During the six minute warm up Michelle was landing jump
after jump, including her triple toe/triple toe combination. But then
she took a hard fall. Okay no big deal, Michelle falls in warm up a lot.
But then when the warm up ended and all the other girls were leaving the
ice, Michelle went over and talked to the referee. Oh my gosh I thought,
what could this be? Then as Michelle left the ice she seemed to be
favoring one leg, it wasn't as if she was injured but there seemed to be
something wrong with her blade. Eeeeeeek! I was so worried that Michelle
would have to pull out.
So I waited through five girls, Michelle was the last in her group.
While the second to last girl was still on the ice I saw Michelle come
out to stand by the boards and I thought great she is okay. So Michelle
got on the ice, but when they called her name she didn't take her
position. She kept stroking around the ice for a while and seemed to be
testing her skates. And everyone was wondering what was going on, and I
was worried that something was wrong.
But then she took her position and skated GREAT!!!!!! She was fabulous,
absolutely fabulous. She landed everything, including the triple
toe/triple toe! Two lutzes, flip, loop, sal and a double axel. All
perfect!!! She was thrilling. It was great just to be there. Her tech
marks were 5.7 and 5.8, but her presentation marks were all 5.8 and that
was terrible, because she deserved much better than that. She skated so
great I was expecting 6.0. Well now she just has to do it two more
times. Sigh this whole qualifying thing is demented.
I found out later that Michelle's boot had broken during warm up and
they had to fix it while she was waiting to skate. It is amazing that
she could skate the way she did on skate she couldn't trust. Adversity
always seems to bring out the best in Michelle.
Oh by the way she skated to Song of the Black Swan and wore a new dress.
The dress was maroon red tank dress with silver sparkle trim around the
neck.
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