Sunday, December 16, 2001
Sale, Pelletier skate perfect Love Story
By STEVE BUFFERY -- Toronto Sun
KITCHENER -- Love conquered all last night or, at least, Love Story conquered the pairs competition at the ISU Grand Prix final.
Reigning world pairs champions Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada performed a near-perfect Love Story freeskate program and received a standing ovation from the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium crowd and first-place scores from the judges, including two perfect 6.0s from the American and Canadian judges for presentation.
Sale and Pelletier moved up from second after Friday's first freeskate to first overall, dropping Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia to second.
The performance last night pretty well guarantees that Sale and Pelletier will perform Love Story at the Salt Lake City Olympics and not the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 freeskate, which they unveiled this season on the Grand Prix circuit. The couple hinted prior to this weekend's event that they would go with whatever long program had the best feel here. And while the Rachmaninov number was good, the Love Story number last night was spectacular.
"We're excited about (Love Story), but we're also excited about (Rachmaninov) because it's taking our skating in a different direction," Sale said. "Obviously it's the impact the program will have on the audiences, because you know the audience has a big impact on the judges, the way they clap. (Last night) they were screaming, and the judges are saying, 'How can I not give that a 6.0?' "
All told, Sale and Pelletier, who train in Edmonton with coach Jan Ullmark, laid out a near-perfect routine, which included excellent side-by-side triple toes, a throw triple salchow, double Axels, double toes and a throw triple loop.
The Russians, world champs in 1998 and '99, sealed their fate as also-rans when Berezhnaya hit the ice on a throw triple salchow.
Alexei Yagudin performed a brilliant freeskate to overcome fellow Russian Evgeny Plushenko and take first place.
Irina Slutskaya of Russia edged out American rival Michelle Kwan to win the women's singles event.
2002 Games Figure Skating Coverage
