Olympic Recap, Day 10: Free Dance

Belbin and Agosto win the Silver Medal!!!

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

After the excitement in the original dance round last night, tonight's free dance was a bit anticlimactic. There was no movement in the final standings among the top five couples. Russians Navka and Kostomarov won gold, Americans Belbin and Agosto took silver, and the Ukranian team of Grushina and Goncharov won the bronze.

In the free dance, the couples can pretty much skate to any piece of music they desire. It should have a dance or dramatic character. The routines typically fall into one of three categories: traditional (clear dance rhythm, closest to ballroom), dramatic (balletic "story pieces" like Romeo and Juliet), or modern (avant-garde stuff).

Navka and Kostomarov skated a stylized Paso Doble to Bizet's Carmen. It had great energy and expression at the start, but lost a little something as it progressed. The crowd really got behind the music, and their program had some nice dramatic moments, but they didn't sustain the energy. Carmen is a very powerful piece, full of potential. I didn't feel that their rendition capitalized enough on that potential. Kostomarov had an opportunity to ham it up a little and really own this free dance - a Paso Doble is one dance which lets the man express and be more of the center of attention than the lady. Still, it was a well-executed dance full of difficult elements. It was the best dance of the night and the Russians certainly earned their gold medal.

Belbin and Agosto skated to a flamenco medley that flowed well. Though technically demanding, the Americans made it look easy and carefree, giving the dance a playful quality. Belbin and Agosto related well to each other on the ice, but they could have been even more expressive. I would have liked to see some more dramatic leans during the slow section, and I felt they could have lifted their heads a bit - at times they seemed focused too much on the ice. They did have good speed throughout, and did a good job of adjusting their skating to changes in the music's tempo. There were a few small mistakes (including an uncharacteristic touch down by Belbin during a twizzle), but they were still able to score enough points to hold onto the number two spot.

Grushina and Goncharov skated a solid program to Peter Gabriel's The Feeling Begins. It was a little slow, and looked like they skated cautiously. Given the recent slips and falls by many competitors last night, it's understandable; still, it lacked the attack that many of the other couples had in their free dances. Their performance wasn't particularly captivating, and it seemed that the crowd had difficulty getting behind the music or the program. Grushina and Goncharov's program was clean, if not inspiring. But Grushina wins tonight's award for absolute worst costume. The commentators remarked that she was "pushing the envelope" in the costume department. But as Honor puts it, they didn't push the envelope - they tore up the envelope and then burned it in effigy. And please, stop wearing headbands. Goncharov's outfit, while more decent, definitely doesn't win any fashion awards; it looked like something out of the back of Siegfried and Roy's closet.

Delobel and Schoenfelder of France and Denkova and Staviyski of Bulgaria rounded out the top five. Fusar Poli and Margaglio, the Italians who led after the compulsory dance but plummeted in the standings after a fall during their original dance, wound up in sixth place.

The other two American dance couples, Gregory and Petukhov and Silverstein and O'Meara, finished fourteenth and sixteenth respectively.

Dubreil and Lauzon, the Canadian team who suffered the worst in the original dance, did not skate tonight.

Full results here.

With the exception of Grushina, most of the costumes were more reasonable tonight. But black and red seemed to be the predominant theme. In the final flight of skaters, four different dance teams wore costumes combining those two colors.

The worst music choice for the night goes to Chait and Sakhnovski of Israel for choosing to skate to Ravel's Bolero. Not that there's anything wrong with the music per se (though it is a difficult piece to skate to), but it is the piece to which Torvill and Dean skated a groundbreaking performance (perfect 6.0s in artistry across the board) to win their gold medal in 1984. By choosing Bolero, the Israelis immediately drew comparisons to one of the most memorable ice dance performances of all time, skated by one of ice dance's all time greats. Though they skated a good program, the music selection set unrealistic (and quite unnecessary) expectations in the minds of most viewers. For more on the music used for the free dance by tonight's competitors, click here.

All in all, the free dance wasn't as exciting or as enjoyable as the original dance round, but it was still entertaining. And Belbin and Agosto lived up to the pre-Games hype to take home the silver. Their achievement ends a thirty year Olympic medal drought in the sport for the United States; the last American team to win an Olympic medal in ice dance was Collen O'Connor and James Millns - they won the bronze in 1976, the same year that ice dancing was introduced to the Winter Olympics. See a list of all ice dance Olympic medalists here.