Alright moving onward to Pairs. Without last year's two teams, the competition is wide open but not particularly strong in my opinion. There are only ten entries, I'm not sure why so few. Either that's just how many teams are actually good enough to compete at this level or they just don't want as many competitors. Anyway, according to the starting order here are our top 4:
'Rank' Pair Best GP Score this year
1 Mylene Brodeur/ John Mattatall 151.97 at NHK Trophy
2 Kirsten Moore-Toweres/ Dylan Moscovitch 175.48 at Skate America
3 Paige Lawrence/ Rudi Swiegers 161.15 at Skate Canada
4 Kaleigh Hole/ Adam Johnson 115.15 At Cup of China
But I'm not sure what Skate Canada is thinking because Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford are listed below this group in 6th but they are certainly better than Hole/Johnson so I will comment on them also.
Duhamel and Radford are a really new team, only together since spring of 2010. They scored 158.53 at Skate Canada and 166.76 at the East/West Challenge Qualifying event in December, and this definitely makes them podium material. For such a new team they look fabulous and are fun to watch especially when they nail their technical content (which is formidable). They were far and away the best team at the qualifier and you could tell just by watching them do crossovers. These two could really march in and take the title by surprise!
Brodeur and Mattatall had kind of an OK GP season. A disappointing 6th place finish was improved upon with a 4th place finish at Trophee Eric Bompard, but remember there were only 7 teams at that event and 3 of them had some pretty serious fails so take it with a grain of salt. However they have been at this event 4 times before and they were 3rd in 2009 so they are certainly a team to watch. I'm just not sure they deserve 'top ranking', if, in fact, that is what is meant by starting last. If I don't sound real jazzed about them I guess I should be fair and point out that I've only seen this year's GP skates and they weren't perfect, so if they bring their A-game, watch out.
Moore-Towers and Moscovitch are going to make it hard for the other teams to make a surprise splash though. This GP season they got great scores even when they made errors so maybe it is time for them to have their turn at being the judges' favourites. They haven't been together particularly long and this is only their second time at Nationals together (they were 5th last year). However they had an amazing GP season this year winning two silver medals and qualifying for the final (where they were at last seriously outclassed by the likes of the Germans and the Chinese). I might be the only one that isn't mesmerized by their Les Mis program but I do love their difficult lift at the end where he rises up from a lunge. Ouch! And you gotta love her infectious smile.
Now Lawrence and Swiegers are a pair actually going back to 2005 and they placed 2nd at the Junior Nationals in 2008. They scored a bronze medal at Skate Canada and have two very entertaining programs this year. The SP is a very silly/cute routine to City Slickers and the LP is to the Van Helsing soundtrack with some vampire stuff thrown in for kicks. They seem like kind of a sassy duo and I'd love to see them come on strong and make this a good competition.
Hole and Johnson represent a big step down in the competition in my opinion, and it probably drops off from there. OK to be fair it looks like they are ALSO a relatively fresh pairing with only one complete season as a pair under their belts apparently. But their Cup of China performance was wince-worthy and their East/West Challenge FS was...well....pretty much disastrous. (I'll spare you the gory details, just look up the detailed classification if you must know). They skate like they don't have confidence in themselves or eachother and it makes me uncomfortable watching them. Of course it's possible that they'll have a clean skate here but I might have to avert my eyes every time he goes to lift or throw her. Ummm so that was pretty harsh, I feel like I should say something good about them. They have good side-by-side spins and their death spiral is fine. Trust doesn't seem to be an issue on that one.
And that wraps up the Pairs analysis! Apologies if I missed a real contender, I haven't been able to watch as much pairs or dance as I did the singles, and I'm running out of time.
Stay tuned for the dance preview.
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