Crystal Skate

The ice-dance podium The Rhythmic Dance left us all with bright hopes for this season, as couples who have been in the shadows until now took the first step to making a name for themselves. However, it was the final that validated those newly formed reputations as the future of ice dance. We were off to a good start with  Carolane Soucisse & Sha ne Firus  from Canada. Skating to Earned It  and Dirty Diana , they stayed perfectly in sync with the music throughout the routine, which made all their transitions and elements really good. The only tiny problem happened during the second position of the twizzles, when Shane struggled with balance. Score: 99.64  -> 156.74 . Haley Sales & Nikolas Wamsteeker  also used contemporary music, but with Celine Dion behind the microphone, theirs was a more romantic routine. They had a bit of trouble with synchronicity during the second part of the twizzles. Also, apart from the last one, none of their lifts w...

In my opinion, the scene stealers of the day were Spain's Smart & Diaz The top 5 ice dance couples at the end of the Rhythmic Dance were not quite whom I expected. The big disappointment for me were Gilles & Poirier finishing just outside of this group, but the exciting part is having two couples I haven't seen much before in it. Madison Hubbell & Zachary Donohue  are slowly, but surely heading towards the Grand Prix Final. They finished the Rhythmic in first place after winning the gold at Skate America exactly one week ago. They changed their costumes, or at least Madison did (sorry, can't remember his tango outfit very well 😅, and I have to say, I like the new red dress more. Score: 80.49 . Victoria Sinitsina & Nikita Katsalapov  came second, with an intense and sharp tango set to  Verano Porteno . Really good rotational lift, with the girl starting very high and then making her way down all the way to the ice. Score: 74.66 . In my opinion, ...