Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 23:33:49 -0400
From: Sandra Loosemore <loosemore-sandra>
To: skatefans-l@UDel.Edu, skaters-l@UDel.Edu,
        rec.sport.skating.ice.figure-news@babyblue.cs.YALE.EDU
Subject: Charter Oak Open
Sender: owner-skatefans-l@UDel.Edu

This afternoon I drove up to Simsbury to be a spectator at the club's
summer competition.  Here, for your entertainment, are my comments....

The first bunch of skaters I saw were preliminary girls.  I think they
were sorted by age, because this bunch looked like they were probably
in their early teens, and there were some other groups that I didn't
see.  All of them had axels, or at least were attempting axels as if
they could actually land them sometimes, and many of them also were
trying doubles.  The girl who won landed a double loop and salchow and
I think a toe loop.  It seems kind of crazy to me that girls with
doubles would still be in preliminary, but I was told that some of
them hadn't been able to pass pre-juve moves yet.  Footwork and
connecting steps were pretty minimal in these programs, and most of
the girls had really weak spins as well, with the exception of one
very leggy girl who did nice Biellmann and layback spins as well as a
respectable camel.

The one jump that seemed to be giving a lot of the girls trouble was
the loop.  They were all doing loops as the back half of combinations,
and more often or not they'd grind to a complete halt, turn around,
and hop forward off the toe pick.  Hmmm, is this a "toe loop"?  ;-)
Several of the girls were also "spinning" their axels almost in place --
they might be able to land a single that way, but it's not going to
work for a double.

The low-test boys were next.  The most notable skater of this bunch
was the boy dressed in something that looked exactly like Todd
Eldredge's blue costume from this past season, who skated to what I
presume was the same music.  (Fran is gonna kill me, but I honestly
can't tell the difference between Todd's 1996 and 1997 music, nor can
I distinguish it from the stuff Elvis Stojko has been skating to in
the last couple of years, either.)  As a group, the boys seemed to be
less proficient than the girls I'd seen earlier.

After this came the short program for junior ladies.  For some reason,
they were using open marking for this event.  I thought that the base
mark for the first skater was a little low, and things kind of went
downhill from there, until one poor girl wound up getting 1.6's and
1.7's for required elements after she blew all three jumps.  Eeek.
The only one who came close to landing a triple was Cheryl Smith, who
had a slightly two-footed triple salchow combination, but then went on
to single her double axel, so that she wound up in second place behind
Alexis Mante.  Besides the jumps, several of the skaters were having
an awful lot of trouble with the required flying sitspin.  Somehow, I
don't think it counts as a flying sitspin if you only "fly" about an
inch off the ice and don't get into something resembling a sitting
position until after you've landed....  I have to say that, for the
most part, the preliminary girls I saw were attempting programs that
were within their technical abilities, but some of these juniors were
way out of their depth skating at this level.

They were back to closed judging for the senior ladies.  Here we were
lucky to see Anna Rechnio, who I believe still skates for Poland but
trains in Marlborough now.  She couldn't land either her triple lutz
or triple loop cleanly, but her speed and power really set her apart.
Her double axel was majorly impressive, and she also showed good spins
and had a really lovely program.  As for Alicia Cavanaugh, I'm afraid
she's looking like another victim of the puberty monster -- she's
grown a whole bunch since last year's New Englands, and while she
never used to be a particularly strong jumper, she now appears to be
completely disoriented in the air on all of her jumps.  Her spins
remain very good but that isn't going to get her to Nationals, or
probably even Easterns this year.

After this I watched some adults and various levels of solo dance, and
by then I was getting burned out enough that I decided not to stay to
watch the novice ladies free skating.  I don't think I'm going to
bother driving back up there for the junior and senior ladies free
skating splatfests tomorrow, either.

-Sandra