Totmianina & Marinin v. Shen & Zhao? (plus where to find old competitions)

[LauraH]

I actually just joined this forum to ask this question to fans and skaters alike. I've just started following pairs skating again after a decade of being totally out of the loop. I've been under the impression that Shen & Zhao are considered by ranking the best in the world, but after checking their competitive profiles, it seems Totmianina & Marinin are better (or have more wins over Shen & Zhao)? What do you all think? Unfortunately I've never seen them compete against each other.

And on a totally unrelated note: 2 more questions--
1) is it possible to buy tapes of old competitions? if so, where?
2) is it possible to view ALL of the teams skating, not just the 3-4 that ESPN airs due to, I suppose, time constraints?

Thanks for any input.

[Meredith]

I've been under the impression that Shen & Zhao are considered by ranking the best in the world, but after checking their competitive profiles, it seems Totmianina & Marinin are better (or have more wins over Shen & Zhao)? What do you all think? Unfortunately I've never seen them compete against each other.

Oh my. I guess it depends upon who you ask! My preference is for Shen & Zhao. I saw the teams compete against one another at DC Worlds and Shen & Zhao not only blew their competitors away, but brought nearly everyone in the arena out of their seats. It was a "WOW! You just had to have been there to appreciate the (physical and emotional) power of their performance" experience. I like Totmianina & Marinin more this year than any previous years, but my heart remains with Shen & Zhao.

I don't know their competitive histories against one another and don't particularly care. To use an analogy, I followed Roger Federer's tennis long before he was World #1 and didn't care about numbers -- Federer's tennis is a thing of beauty and Shen and Zhao's skating is as well. IMHO, that is.

1) is it possible to buy tapes of old competitions? if so, where?

Try posting your requests in the trading area. Some folks are in the process of transferring their tapes to DVD and wish to get rid of their VHS tapes. Others are attempting to downsize so the tapes can stop taking over their living space. (Mine are encroaching, but I haven't gone through them yet to know what to save, what to get rid of.)

2) is it possible to view ALL of the teams skating, not just the 3-4 that ESPN airs due to, I suppose, time constraints?

Is Canadian television still offering more skating covere than the U.S.? I've lost track -- Canadian broadcasts used to leave ours in the dust.


BTW, welcome to the board, Laura.

[dbny]

JMO: Totmianina & Marinin are wonderful skaters and better than most other elite pairs. Shen & Zhao are magical and take my breath away. No comparison.

[NJSk8Fan]

Hi and Welcome.
JMO, T/M have always been very good in the technical aspect of skating but they are on the "cold" side as far as their emotion, both to each other and in relating to the audience, and not very musical/lyrical in their skating.
S/Z are marvelous technically and their emotions/presentation/musicality have grown by leaps and bounds since their first year competing. This puts them first in "my" book.
Last year I saw both T/M and S/Z live for the first time in the COI show.....altho I will say it seems T/M are starting to come out of that "cold" category, I still prefer S/Z over them. There is definately something special about S/Z that makes you just say "WOW"!

[danibellerika]

Oh my. I guess it depends upon who you ask! My preference is for Shen & Zhao. I saw the teams compete against one another at DC Worlds and Shen & Zhao not only blew their competitors away, but brought nearly everyone in the arena out of their seats. It was a "WOW! You just had to have been there to appreciate the (physical and emotional) power of their performance" experience. I like Totmianina & Marinin more this year than any previous years, but my heart remains with Shen & Zhao.

I totally agree. I was there and I was in tears. It was just unbelievable. No other skater or skating team has ever done that for me. The crowd started standing for them WELL before their music ended as well.

I saw them on COI at the MCI Center (where they won that world title) as well and they were the only performance besides michelle to get a standing O. They were the only ones *I* stood for and once again, you could feel their magic. You just get goosebumps like no other. It probably brought back great memories for them and for everyone in the arena (because the majority that was there for worlds was there for COI). That night, it was like they made up for not having their exhibition skate at worlds that year.

At COI I DID however notice that T&M actually aren't so bad and have a nice edge quality and line, but I need more.

[Mel On Ice]

Shen and Zhao any day. T&M have only shown heart in their performance since the accident.

[babyballerina]

You can download hundreds of skating performances from Soulseek
http://www.slsknet.org/
Go here and then select the "room" called "iceroom"

Also, sometimes people sell videos/Dvds on ebay.

If you can get Eurosport coverage they often show the entire lot of 30+ skaters in full. For the recent European Championships they hired Gwendal Perzerait to interview the skaters. What more can you want ;) ?

(Note that if you purchase a DVD or Video from Europe it may not work on your player in North America. Check before ebaying!)

I totally love Totmianina & Marinin but this might be because I have seen them live multiple times. Often i find skaters have a much better audience connection in real life. I totally agree T&M have improved a lot in this aspect recently (so have S&Z. Look back to 1998) I've only seen Shen & Zhao once and I like them live better than on TV but they are not my favourites. I like the Zhangs the best of the Chinese pairs. (I know they are not technically the best - yet. but I really enjoyed their performance at worlds.)

It seems to T&M get a lot of hate directed towards them (not from this board. But look in other places) by people who are still sore about the whole 2002 pairs scandal. They are "evil Russians" who must be punished. T&M were 4th in 2002. The whole situation had nothing to do with them. All of a sudden they get a bit of sympathy because of the accident at Skate America. Maybe this will help them in a strange way?

I think connecting with the audience during a show or exhibition and connecting during a competition are two different things. No-one connects as much during a comp (even Michelle)because it's got to be perfect and they are concentrating.

[tdnuva]

It seems to T&M get a lot of hate directed towards them (not from this board. But look in other places) by people who are still sore about the whole 2002 pairs scandal. They are "evil Russians" who must be punished. T&M were 4th in 2002. The whole situation had nothing to do with them.

Hm. Another one here in this thread expressed the same as my feelings are. T&M don't lack in technique usually, but for me they lack in interpretation. In connection - and for me this is mainly between the two skaters rather than to the audience. I did not hear anybody say they are "bad" cause they are Russians. So maybe you could just avoid to tear everything to this national thing? The Chinese were also no crowd favorites before they improved on the interpretation. And they improved a lot. Which I like. They also have innovative lifts now and then. On the other hand they really need to fix their spins. Still. Sadly. T&M are technically superb, but often their skating just leaves me cold. No emotions can be seen, and I miss that. This is my main critique on them. Maybe this accident last autumn even helps them in that department. That they have to think about why they go on doing this e.g. Maybe they will now show off that they enjoy skating (I hope).

Btw - concerning innovation - I hope that Zagorska & Siudek get rewarded for what they try to do at worlds.

[LauraH]

To everyone who replied: thank you!

I didn't know about the 2002 "scandal." I only just started watching figure skating again completely by accident when I was channel-surfing last September or October 2003 and stumbled across a pairs program and
remembered why I loved it so much years ago and how I missed watching it!

I do recall the Winter Olympics from maybe 2001...maybe January 2002?...when a lot of people thought Sale & Pelletier should have won the gold? But I'm not familiar with the details. I don't know what became of that contention, either.

I have only seen T & M perform on tv, but I felt they were technically...flawless!...I hesitate to use this word because I am not a skater, myself, but every jump, lift, spins, all looked very clean and well-executed. I have seen S & Z perform on tv several times, and they had one lackluster skate where both fell on jumps, but they were my favorites and "clearly the best" (interpret that however you will) until I saw T & M a few days ago and thought the latter might well give S & Z a run for their $ in terms of technical ability. But again, I've only seen T & M once, so I'm not sure about their consistency--that's why I checked their records. They impressed me though, also because they are much younger than S & Z.

So, I REALLY look forward to seeing them compete against each other--will both teams be at Worlds this March, do you all know?

babyballerina: I clicked on the link but I am clueless as to how to navigate to this "ice room?"

[dbny]

It seems to T&M get a lot of hate directed towards them (not from this board. But look in other places) by people who are still sore about the whole 2002 pairs scandal. They are "evil Russians" who must be punished. T&M were 4th in 2002. The whole situation had nothing to do with them. All of a sudden they get a bit of sympathy because of the accident at Skate America. Maybe this will help them in a strange way?


That is really a surprise to me. I don't visit other boards often, and have never heard of any animosity directed towards Russian teams because of the 2002 Olys. I attended SOI last year, in which both Oly pairs teams participated, and there was a huge positive response to Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze, as well as to Sale & Pelletier.

[danibellerika]

LauraH, if you ever want to download some S&Z performances, you can get a few of them here:

http://www.cruelladekwan.com/otherskaters/s&z.htm

Their magical 2003 worlds LP is there as well.

[NJSk8Fan]

LauraH, it was the 2002 Olympics where a big judging "scandal"(controversy, whatevery you want to call it) happened. It was between the pairs of Sale/Pelletier and Berezhnaya/Sikhurlidze. They both skated really well but there was at least one flaw by Bereznhaya/Sikhurlidze that caused a big uproar over the fact that the judges put them in first place over Sale/Pelletier. The skaters themselves had nothing to do with it and they took a terrible misfortunate incident and made it into a good thing by becoming friends and they both skate with The Stars On Ice Tour now. Also, a second gold medal was given, so B/S & S/P shared the gold podium that Olympics.

I'd never heard of any animosity or anger towards Totmianina/Marinin over the 2002 Oly's either.

T/M are growing on me but I still prefer Shen/Zhao over them. A couple things you might want to watch for with Shen/Zhao---their throw jumps cover a huge amount of the ice and their triple-split throw is huge in height and usually caught very nicely with no collision. Both teams are quite good, tho.

[LauraH]

Thanks to dani and others for responding. I just downloaded and watched T/M and S/Z in the 2003 Worlds. To me S/Z were the clear winner--beautiful to watch! T/M looked just about technically on-par (their throws seemed to cover just as much ground and height), but I'm not a skater so I had to rely on the commentary to judge the difficulty of their lifts. One thing that impressed me about S/Z were the lifts--amazing speed.

I follow all 4 types of skating: Pairs, Dance, Male & Female Singles, but to me Pairs is most exciting and beautiful to watch. Which other teams are you all fond of and would like to see more of in the future? Comments on any other teams, past or present (or future--in terms of who you expect to see great things from in the next few years)?

I am very fond of Orscher/Lucash from the US. Anyone know how they overcame Inoue/Baldwin this year to win the Gold at US Nationals? (Previously Inoue/Baldwin were 2-time defending champs so I thought they had it in the bag.)

Pang/Tong from China have amazing height on their throws, but look a bit awkward and their landings aren't as clean and polished.

Also, on an unrelated note, who are your favorites in Dance?
To me Belbin/Agosto look just as good as Navka/Kostomarov, but the latter pair has always won Gold.

Comments?

I really enjoy reading all of these replies. As a non-skater it is helpful to know what to look out for, since clean jumps are not everything!

Thank you!
Laura

[KGF]

You guys forget about Canadian pairs.
Langois and Archetto was beating Chinese pairs, Pang/Tong and Zhang/Zhang couple of years ago, also the Rusuain pair Obertas/Slavnov. They were capable for skating at the same level with these two top paris you talk about.
Had they won Canadian National, the could have won a medal last year.

[NJSk8Fan]

Laura, I'm a non-skater, too, and besides reading the different skating forums I've joined since getting a computer, I found that listening to the commentators really helped me learn about the sport. I know a lot of people complain that the commentators talk too much, but when I first started watching skating, listening to Dick Buttons really educated me. I wouldn't know an axle from a spiral if it weren't for him! He also helped me to realise that the parts of skating I like best, the in-betweens, poise, grace, musicality, stretch, extension, good positions, etc., are as important as the jumps. Those things are what make skating so pleasing to watch.
As for dance, at first, I used to not pay attention to it. I enjoy it a lot more now than I did at first, but still don't know all the fine points as to what makes one move or performance better than another. As far as who I like, amongst the eligibles, I prefer Belbin/Agosto and Denkova/Stavyiski(SP?) over Navka/Kostomarov. I also enjoy Winkler/Lohse and the now-defunct teams of Lang/Tchernychev and Bourne/Kratz.