I have often thought of how a coach works with more than one elite skater, how he can hide his preferences, are there any. And I confess that I am more than impressed by the top coaching trio in ice dancing at the moment – Marie-France Dubreiul, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer. Another interesting question is whether judges can be fair in a judging sport such as skating. We answer the two questions after checking the protocols from the Grand Prix Final. In it, Gabriela Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron (France) won with 202.16 points, leaving behind the 2010 Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (Canada) – 199.86.
Tessa and Scott stayed with silver four years later in Sochi, where the Canadian media accused their coach Marina Zueva in preference towards Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
After their come back Tessa and Scott chose to work with their friends Dubreiul and Lauzon. The specialists had already established themselfes with Papadakis and Sizeron.
In the final, the two top teams stood up against each other for the first time in the season and recorded a great presentation on both racing days. From the published protocols we see an interesting fact. For short and free dance, both teams have the same planned difficulty – 31.80 and 41.90 points. Levels of difficulty are also the same. So the outcome of the race is not solved in advance, but left at the feet of the couples. Great job by the coaches.
