What happens in Nice, stays on ontd
From you special envoy in the land of skating obsessives.
At last I find time to write! And yes it's going to be another massive article, I don't know how else to express my feelings!
The Orange Team and a few add-ons such as myself went to Worlds and I'm going to try and remember all the exciting and lulzy stuff that went down...It's tough because I spent the whole weekend (I could only make it to Nice late friday) in such a state of whelmedness, I don't know how some of the girls, who stayed the whole week, survived!
First, I won't be telling you stuff like "we saw thingy then bumped into so-and-so", because we were pretty much surrounded by skaters past and present, their coaches and families, the whole time. The layout (arena plonked in between the two hotel buildings where everyone was staying) helped, but even when wandering around the old town we couldn't shake them loose. I seemed to walk straight into Gachinsky and Amodio especially often (separately, you know, don't go imagining things, I know what you guys are like). Btw, I'll do another post for actual competition notes, I'm giving you what you really want first :P
Saturday morning, stupid o'clock
OK, it was only 8am, but it felt violently early after not sleeping much due to high excitement levels.
We went to men's LP practice, and I got in late because I had to blag a pass. I couldn' t find the girls at first, and stood quite low in the stands near the rink, just as Adam started his LP practice, and was right in his line of vision for his start and end pose. I was sorely tempted to wink or pull out my tongue or do something equally silly, because I have the sense of humour of a 5 years old. Fortunately I decided that just staring into his eyes was better. The only thing I didn't want to see, but got a whole lot of, was the 3A telegraphing, it hurt my soul.
I located the ontd crew -in the best seats, known in French as the "Luxury Gold Quarter", PML- and got down to more snarking, cooing and ogling of shapely butts. We were right where most skaters did their jumps and were quadded, 3-3 comboed and Ripponlutzed at for a good 15 minutes. Most guys were in their actual outfits which disappointed me as I have a thing for practice clothes. Jeremy was quiet and extremely focused, I was extremly focused on his highlighted hair which looks odd from a distance but OK up close. Life priorities: I has dem. D10 and Chambermaid Swing Kevin were OK but left early, baby Yuzu had a superlative practice marred only by one of his scary brutal falls that leave him winded and unable to get up for several seconds, pretty much the same one he had in the LP...
Dai and his magic blades entertained us next, he was on and looked confident. Jewbear was wearing his favourite gay bar black mesh top and seemed to be really enjoying himself, I was so shocked to see him looking, you know, relaxed.
Surprise 2nd Brezina had a sketchy practice, he barely ever looked up from the ice. He was either feeling the pressure or our total lack of love for him. SuperJavi was in middling form, but fiercely in the zone.
Confession time: I was Chiddyholmed during practice. I knew it would end the moment his LP scores came up, but his skating is velvet for the eyes, and when he's quietly focused and un-cocky, my admiration stops being grudging. He stayed last on ice. Not having a 30 points lead does wonders for him.
Cutting straight to...
Saturday evening
With everything said and done, it was time for some drinking! I went to the hotel bar with bananrama, while the orange gals lay in ambush in the lobby, ready to catch more skaters for the card game. The bar is very tiny, which is great when you're being brushed past by Max Trankov in a very low cut tank top, showing us a whole lot of muscly arms. The Finnish delegation was having a quiet, dignified little reception in the restaurant area, and lemme tell you they were the only people to whom the words quiet and dignified applied. Here's what the others did:
DUNK-O-METER:
- His Oiliness Morozov: drinks, but has such a hardened liver that it doesn't show. He's obviously cut down though, it hurts to say so, but he looks quite good. Both he and Philippe Candeloro took time off their busy schedules to very obviously ogle my legs as I was smoking in the outside bar area. Short skirt is short, OK, but you could try and be discreet about it! Slightly shaken at being examined by His Oiliness and His Greasiness (his hair...) in the space of 5 minutes, I went back in. Bananrama started telling me about Brezina basically being a flirtatious nuisance with anything in a skirt, including in front of his girlfriend -they were both chatting in a group behind us. As if to prove her point he started looking in our direction, I deliberately caught his eye, and do you think he'd look away? You'd be wrong...
- Viktor Petrenko: he'd already been enjoying ze wodka for a bit when we turned up, as when we walked past him he did a kind of unvoluntary 3-turn on the patio floor! this is what happens when the mother in law is away. We wanted to go to the other hotel bar to see what the action was like there. The one we were in was for European delegations, the other hotel had everyone else. When we got there it was like a Japanese funeral, so we went back to the hopping Euro bar. More power to us!
- Artur Gachinski totally wins however. He was in the lobby with a group of skaters including Misha Ge, the Shibutanis, Kozuka, speaking broken english to everyone, mock fighting his friend, running around doing some sort of chicken impression, and generally being comedy gold. So the russians/ukrainians win the drinking competition by a landslide. What a surprise.
However, after this everyone went to the skater party at some club in the old town, I stupidly didn't because I kinda lost faith we'd ever get there -we actually waited with the skaters but I gave up when everyone got into taxis. One orange girl went though! She told us everyone was roaring drunk, including some local guys who picked on Morgan Cipres, attacked him and gave hime a black eye and some bad cuts and bruises. If you wonder why he and Vanessa weren't in the Gala, that's why...
Random Stuff:
Most sightings: Nikolai Morozov. The man is everywhere.
Gwendal Peizerat. Bananrama took a picture of his ass. Life priorities: I'm not the only one who has dem.
Florent Amodio. Broing with guys, looking at girls, strutting around, he's been a busy man.
Fabian Bourzat and his Big Black Beanie. Mooching around in a tight top for your viewing pleasure.
Least sightings: Yuka -only saw her once but she's so little and cute I wanted to hug her! Meryl and Charlie rushing into the hotel at
lightning speed.
Mao, who took the same tram as me as I left sadly for the train station, and sat across from me the whole way. She
looked a bit down and I didn't want to bother her.
Special achievement award goes to Stephane Lambiel, whom the girls were determined to run to earth but who
managed to elude their efforts the whole week! Apparently he was in one of his diva moods and said "non!" to photos
and autographs. Vilain garçon!
BREZINAWATCH: Blatantly trying to attract attention and not getting enough of it for his liking...
- Saturday afternoon, walking to and fro between the hotel patio and the VIP entrance to the arena, hoping to be asked for photos or autographs, while a mob of frenzied fans are swarming around BJou, unaware of Michal's very existence.
- Later on saturday: exiting the hotel front door as we come in, Michal looks straight at us and slowly lowers his flash mirror-lens sunglasses like he's Arnie in Terminator or something. We explode with laughter.
- Even later on saturday: standing in the bar with a group of russians, trying to project his presence and being easily outshone by just about everyone.
- Much much later on saturday/early on sunday: spotted cradling a 1.5l bottle of vodka like it was a baby, at 3am. This is what happens when you have no friends.
FUZZY FEELINGS AND MORE AMAZINGNESS COMING YOUR WAY
My non-competition highligh definitely was getting Jeremy to do the card game on sunday morning. Because the Orange Team has been working hard for you people! They have new videos and photos of the card game with not only Jeremy but Misha Ge, Samuel Contesti, Javier Fernandez and Valentina Marchei! There may be more but those are the ones I know of!
We wondered if Jeremy would turn up as this was the morning after the party, but he did and appeared hungover-free. He's every bit as sweet and friendly as I thought he'd be, it's always good to have your good opinion of someone confirmed! I'm still very whelmed. When I asked him if he was on hols now, he said he still had the World Team assignment in two weeks, as well as some other stuff I forget, so despite this not being up on the USFSA page yet, it seems to be official he's going, you read it here first ;)
Well I think that's it, if I've forgotten anything major I'll add it on to the Free Skate post when I get around to writing it!
Big luv to you all!
At last I find time to write! And yes it's going to be another massive article, I don't know how else to express my feelings!
The Orange Team and a few add-ons such as myself went to Worlds and I'm going to try and remember all the exciting and lulzy stuff that went down...It's tough because I spent the whole weekend (I could only make it to Nice late friday) in such a state of whelmedness, I don't know how some of the girls, who stayed the whole week, survived!
First, I won't be telling you stuff like "we saw thingy then bumped into so-and-so", because we were pretty much surrounded by skaters past and present, their coaches and families, the whole time. The layout (arena plonked in between the two hotel buildings where everyone was staying) helped, but even when wandering around the old town we couldn't shake them loose. I seemed to walk straight into Gachinsky and Amodio especially often (separately, you know, don't go imagining things, I know what you guys are like). Btw, I'll do another post for actual competition notes, I'm giving you what you really want first :P
Saturday morning, stupid o'clock
OK, it was only 8am, but it felt violently early after not sleeping much due to high excitement levels.
We went to men's LP practice, and I got in late because I had to blag a pass. I couldn' t find the girls at first, and stood quite low in the stands near the rink, just as Adam started his LP practice, and was right in his line of vision for his start and end pose. I was sorely tempted to wink or pull out my tongue or do something equally silly, because I have the sense of humour of a 5 years old. Fortunately I decided that just staring into his eyes was better. The only thing I didn't want to see, but got a whole lot of, was the 3A telegraphing, it hurt my soul.
I located the ontd crew -in the best seats, known in French as the "Luxury Gold Quarter", PML- and got down to more snarking, cooing and ogling of shapely butts. We were right where most skaters did their jumps and were quadded, 3-3 comboed and Ripponlutzed at for a good 15 minutes. Most guys were in their actual outfits which disappointed me as I have a thing for practice clothes. Jeremy was quiet and extremely focused, I was extremly focused on his highlighted hair which looks odd from a distance but OK up close. Life priorities: I has dem. D10 and Chambermaid Swing Kevin were OK but left early, baby Yuzu had a superlative practice marred only by one of his scary brutal falls that leave him winded and unable to get up for several seconds, pretty much the same one he had in the LP...
Dai and his magic blades entertained us next, he was on and looked confident. Jewbear was wearing his favourite gay bar black mesh top and seemed to be really enjoying himself, I was so shocked to see him looking, you know, relaxed.
Surprise 2nd Brezina had a sketchy practice, he barely ever looked up from the ice. He was either feeling the pressure or our total lack of love for him. SuperJavi was in middling form, but fiercely in the zone.
Confession time: I was Chiddyholmed during practice. I knew it would end the moment his LP scores came up, but his skating is velvet for the eyes, and when he's quietly focused and un-cocky, my admiration stops being grudging. He stayed last on ice. Not having a 30 points lead does wonders for him.
Cutting straight to...
Saturday evening
With everything said and done, it was time for some drinking! I went to the hotel bar with bananrama, while the orange gals lay in ambush in the lobby, ready to catch more skaters for the card game. The bar is very tiny, which is great when you're being brushed past by Max Trankov in a very low cut tank top, showing us a whole lot of muscly arms. The Finnish delegation was having a quiet, dignified little reception in the restaurant area, and lemme tell you they were the only people to whom the words quiet and dignified applied. Here's what the others did:
DUNK-O-METER:
- His Oiliness Morozov: drinks, but has such a hardened liver that it doesn't show. He's obviously cut down though, it hurts to say so, but he looks quite good. Both he and Philippe Candeloro took time off their busy schedules to very obviously ogle my legs as I was smoking in the outside bar area. Short skirt is short, OK, but you could try and be discreet about it! Slightly shaken at being examined by His Oiliness and His Greasiness (his hair...) in the space of 5 minutes, I went back in. Bananrama started telling me about Brezina basically being a flirtatious nuisance with anything in a skirt, including in front of his girlfriend -they were both chatting in a group behind us. As if to prove her point he started looking in our direction, I deliberately caught his eye, and do you think he'd look away? You'd be wrong...
- Viktor Petrenko: he'd already been enjoying ze wodka for a bit when we turned up, as when we walked past him he did a kind of unvoluntary 3-turn on the patio floor! this is what happens when the mother in law is away. We wanted to go to the other hotel bar to see what the action was like there. The one we were in was for European delegations, the other hotel had everyone else. When we got there it was like a Japanese funeral, so we went back to the hopping Euro bar. More power to us!
- Artur Gachinski totally wins however. He was in the lobby with a group of skaters including Misha Ge, the Shibutanis, Kozuka, speaking broken english to everyone, mock fighting his friend, running around doing some sort of chicken impression, and generally being comedy gold. So the russians/ukrainians win the drinking competition by a landslide. What a surprise.
However, after this everyone went to the skater party at some club in the old town, I stupidly didn't because I kinda lost faith we'd ever get there -we actually waited with the skaters but I gave up when everyone got into taxis. One orange girl went though! She told us everyone was roaring drunk, including some local guys who picked on Morgan Cipres, attacked him and gave hime a black eye and some bad cuts and bruises. If you wonder why he and Vanessa weren't in the Gala, that's why...
Random Stuff:
Most sightings: Nikolai Morozov. The man is everywhere.
Gwendal Peizerat. Bananrama took a picture of his ass. Life priorities: I'm not the only one who has dem.
Florent Amodio. Broing with guys, looking at girls, strutting around, he's been a busy man.
Fabian Bourzat and his Big Black Beanie. Mooching around in a tight top for your viewing pleasure.
Least sightings: Yuka -only saw her once but she's so little and cute I wanted to hug her! Meryl and Charlie rushing into the hotel at
lightning speed.
Mao, who took the same tram as me as I left sadly for the train station, and sat across from me the whole way. She
looked a bit down and I didn't want to bother her.
Special achievement award goes to Stephane Lambiel, whom the girls were determined to run to earth but who
managed to elude their efforts the whole week! Apparently he was in one of his diva moods and said "non!" to photos
and autographs. Vilain garçon!
BREZINAWATCH: Blatantly trying to attract attention and not getting enough of it for his liking...
- Saturday afternoon, walking to and fro between the hotel patio and the VIP entrance to the arena, hoping to be asked for photos or autographs, while a mob of frenzied fans are swarming around BJou, unaware of Michal's very existence.
- Later on saturday: exiting the hotel front door as we come in, Michal looks straight at us and slowly lowers his flash mirror-lens sunglasses like he's Arnie in Terminator or something. We explode with laughter.
- Even later on saturday: standing in the bar with a group of russians, trying to project his presence and being easily outshone by just about everyone.
- Much much later on saturday/early on sunday: spotted cradling a 1.5l bottle of vodka like it was a baby, at 3am. This is what happens when you have no friends.
FUZZY FEELINGS AND MORE AMAZINGNESS COMING YOUR WAY
My non-competition highligh definitely was getting Jeremy to do the card game on sunday morning. Because the Orange Team has been working hard for you people! They have new videos and photos of the card game with not only Jeremy but Misha Ge, Samuel Contesti, Javier Fernandez and Valentina Marchei! There may be more but those are the ones I know of!
We wondered if Jeremy would turn up as this was the morning after the party, but he did and appeared hungover-free. He's every bit as sweet and friendly as I thought he'd be, it's always good to have your good opinion of someone confirmed! I'm still very whelmed. When I asked him if he was on hols now, he said he still had the World Team assignment in two weeks, as well as some other stuff I forget, so despite this not being up on the USFSA page yet, it seems to be official he's going, you read it here first ;)
Well I think that's it, if I've forgotten anything major I'll add it on to the Free Skate post when I get around to writing it!
Big luv to you all!