Meryl Davis/Charlie White (USA) dance to the lead in Short Dance
World Champions Meryl Davis/Charlie White (USA) danced to the lead in the Short Dance. Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte of Italy came second while Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani (USA) placed third.
Davis/White’s Foxtrot, Quickstep and Foxtrot to “My Fair Lady” was highlighted by fast twizzles and intricate footwork. The two-time World Champions picked up a level four for the twizzles, the two Finnstep sequences and the rotational lift to earn 75.70 points. „We put out a good performance. It wasn’t perfect. We feel like we have a lot of room to grow. We worked really hard to show that ballroom feel off and I think that we accomplished that. Technically we improved from our last competition on the Finnstep, which is important. It is a great place to get a lot of points. Overall the feel of the program is heading into the right direction”, White told the press.
Cappellini/Lanotte danced to a Quickstep from “42nd Street” and to the Foxtrot “Lullaby of Broadway”. The Italian Champions earned a level four for all elements and scored 69.88 points, a new personal best. “In the future we want to focus more on the improvement of our performance, because tonight it definitely was not a 100 percent, it was just the beginning. But we are very, very pleased with scores and performance tonight”, Lanotte said.
Shibutani/Shibutani’s program to Foxtrot and Quickstep by Michael Buble included level-four twizzles and a level-four rotational lift, but the Finnstep was graded a level two. The brother-and-sister team received 61.26 points. “I think we brought a lot of energy to the ice today, which was really our biggest goal. Our music is so much fun for us to skate to and so we hope the audience enjoyed it was much as we did”, Alex Shibutani commented.
Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue (USA) are currently ranked fourth (60.71 points) ahead of Julia Zlobina/Alexei Sitnikov (AZE) at 54.53 points and Cathy Reed/Chris Reed (JPN) at 54.28 points.
