A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

THE ONLY TIME YOU'LL EVER SEE ISRAELIS COMPETE IN THE OLYMPICS: Gretchen, on last night's Olympic Ice Dancing original dance competition:

With flamenco, Bollywood, country, and an Australian aboriginal dance, last night's Original Dance competition felt a whole lot like So You Think You Can Dance On Ice. Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir slid into first place with a really wonderful flamenco that managed to be technically accomplished and intricate without losing the feeling of the dance. They have incredible lifts and their footwork was just terrific. By contrast, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto performed a Moldavian folk dance that, while clearly challenging, just never took off. The music had so many tempo and tonal changes that by the time the audience caught up with the melody and pace, the music had switched gears again. It just made it hard for the audience to really get into the performance. Nevertheless, I think Belbin and Agosto were underscored -- they were far superior, in my view, to Domnina and Shabalin.

Speaking of Domnina and Shabalin, I was just embarrassed for them. The ridiculous facial expressions, the faux foliage coming out of her ponytail and skates, the simple choreography -- I think they're clearly benefiting from some sort of a Russian Halo Effect. They just weren't very good. I obviously have no expertise to speak to whether the dance was authentic or not. I can, however, point you to this video of an Australian ice dancing team doing their own aboriginal dance. The Russians did most of their research on youtube; by contrast, O'Brian and Merriman worked out their choreography in consultation with actual aboriginal elders. To me, the big difference is in the facial expressions -- instead of mugging, the Australian team seems to be treating the choreography with respect.

I was, however, entertained by the sight of Shabalin on the sidelines, waiting for the prior couple to finish skating, grooving to the music. At least he was having fun!

Virtue and Moir have been beating Davis and White in the free skate for much of the competitive year, so I'm predicting gold for Canada tonight. I'd love to see Belbin and Agosto on the podium, partly because they've been so good for so long and really kicked down some doors for North American ice dance. One possible hope for Tanith and Ben is that the international judging panel will treat their free skate, which has religious themes, as more serious and thus more pointworthy than the Davis/White free skate to Phantom of the Opera. But I'm not optimistic.

Last night's videos are all here.