#zingnik

Another one for the salon.

Fun to see these two teams playing nice before the opening ceremonies. The US is doing so well with friendly rivalries and I expect they will be rivals for many years to come.

you did not ask for this at all but i'm using this ask to talk about my thoughts on bolero in a bit more detail. i've only been watching figure skating for a few years and am far from an expert so take everything with a grain of salt.

Before i got into figure skating i always quite liked it as a piece of music and didn't have any negative thoughts towards it whatsoever.

Now, i just went back and rewatched a few boleros: kevin aymoz and metelkina/berulava from this season, kamila valieva 2021 and torvill/dean 1984.

First of all, I think the reason bolero is really not an ideal piece for figure skating, is that the SLOW build of the crescendo over 15 minutes is kind of the whole point. And there is simply no way of getting that in a 4 minute free skate, or god forbid a short program.

I think bolero is probably best for singles skating, because it provides a lot of moments where you can nicely time jumps for dramatic effect. Yes it's repetitive and predictable, but so are singles programs tbh.

The reason i don't really understand it as a choice for zingnik is that i don't think it really rewards energy and speed much (at least until right at the end), which to me are the things zingnik are known for. i also had that thought watching metelkina/berulava, because their skating is great and really fast, but it feels totally disconnected from the music in a way that you can get away with in pairs but definitely not in ice dance.

I do agree with picking a war horse for zingnik, because I think that the upcoming season is the chance for them to really solidify themselves as THE #1 team of the next generation, but they need a really iconic program for that. While I'm really not that familiar with torvill/dean and their place in figure skating culture, I've been seeing a lot of stuff in the last few days about how iconic their bolero is and that people don't pick it much in ice dance because it is so famously tied to them. Now THAT appeals to me, because I always love when athletes have the audacity to believe that they can outdo the legends of their sport. None of this "respect your elders" nonsense. I did go and watch t/d's bolero to see what the fuss was about and while i think it's beautiful ice dancing, i really don't think the music adds much to it there either if that makes sense? Like the choreography is not boring but the misic sort of makes it boring?