Amelie Proves To Be a Winner for Belbin and Agosto
by Daphne Backman
 (1/26/07) - In a press conference last week, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto announced they had decided to scrap their free dance to “That’s Entertainment” in favor of a new program to music from the “Amelie” soundtrack. Since that announcement, fans of the team have been anxiously awaiting the free dance event at these championships for the program debut. Belbin and Agosto did not disappoint Friday night at the 2007 State Farm U.S. Championships.
To a crowd of more than 10,000 at the Spokane Arena, the duo scored 102.04 for their performance, receiving level fours on all of their elements except for their diagonal and circular step sequences and received no negative GOEs. The audience responded well to the program which highlighted Belbin and Agosto’s edge quality and expression, and featured innovative new lifts. The couple acknowledged that it was ambitious to create an entirely new free dance at this point in the season.
“We’re so pleased with the change we made,” Belbin said. “I think it was a gutsy move on our part, and it was the right one. I think tonight we did a great job with it being so new and I think it has limitless potential. We just feel so proud to be able to put out a program we feel is more true to what we’re capable of.”
“It’s been a really good learning experience for us as well,” Agosto said. “We had to get ourselves together and dig down and really just do our job well, and we knew we had a very short amount of time. It came together so fast and I think it’s a great accomplishment for us as a team.”
With four straight U.S. titles, Belbin and Agosto are moving closer to the record books for U.S. ice dancing gold medals.
“We’re only at four, and Naomi (Lang) and Peter (Tchernyshev) had five, and “Liz (Punsalan) and Jerod (Swallow) had three in a row and five total. I’m going for six!” Belbin laughed.
Finishing second and receiving a standing ovation for their program to music by Yoav Goren were the three-time U.S. silver medalists, Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov. The duo started strong and continued the energy and speed throughout the performance. They received all level fours, with the exception of a level three on their circular step sequence.
“We felt really good,” Gregory said. “The audience was great. We love this program. It’s really special to us; the music, the choreography, everything about it. We really feel it every time we perform it.”
Gregory and Petukhov, who relocated to Newark, Dela, last year, attribute much of their success to the support of their new coaches, Natalia Linichuk and Gennadiy Karpanosov.
“They’ve been wonderful for us and pushed us further than we thought we could go,” Gregory said. “There is still more time between now and Worlds, and we feel we can improve more and more.”
2006 U.S. junior champions, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, finished third in the free dance and overall. Davis and White finished third at the 2006 World Junior Championships and will compete along with Belbin and Agosto, and Gregory and Petukhov at the 2007 World Championships in March.
“It’s an honor to be with the two U.S. superpowers of the past couple of years,” White said. “They’ve done a great job of making a name for the U.S. in our sport, and it’s phenomenal just to be here with them. We’re really looking forward to going to Worlds and learning from them and hoping to follow in their steps.”
Although Davis and White did not repeat their milestone at the NHK Trophy, which saw them receive all level fours, they did receive level fours on seven elements and had no negative GOEs.
Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre, skating to a medley of music by the Beatles finished fourth. Their crowd-pleasing performance earned level fours on seven elements, although they received a couple of negative GOEs on their dance spin.
The couple had an interesting inspiration for their program, which included “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “End.”
“We saw a pretty famous juggler who juggled to these three songs, and there’s a clip going around the Internet of it,” Navarro said. “The way he juggled really brought out the music. We hoped to do the same thing with our skating.”
In fifth place were the 2006 fourth-place finishers, Morgan Matthews and Max Zavozin, who skated a spirited performance to music from “The Piano” soundtrack. Despite having level three and level four elements, Matthews and Zavozin received negative GOEs due to mistakes on their twizzles and step sequences.
Jennifer Wester and Daniil Barantsev round out the top six.
|