Mar. 28, 2004 0:26

Chait, Sakhnovsky sensational in comeback at Worlds
By LIONEL GAFFEN

For Israel's top winter athletes, Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovsky, a year of training and competing around the world came down to the final four-plus minutes in the closing Free Dance of the International Skating Union (ISU) World Championships in Dortmund, Germany.

"Incredible, fantastic, sensational, an amazing performance," were just some of the words used in describing their Free Dance in the final performance for the season. The former world bronze medallists skated to "Clowns" a selection from Fellini soundtracks, as they attempted to make up ground that was lost due to an unfortunate fall in the Original Dance that had dropped them to eighth place overall, going into the final Free Dance, which is worth 50 percent of the total score.

With uncanny speed and footwork, along with a combination of daring lifts and amazing intricacy, they were able to garner points for Technical Merit and Required Elements ranging up to 5.6, and up to 5.8 for Presentation, which moved them ahead of Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon of Canada into seventh place.

Although their Free Dance scores were also higher than the sixth place duo, Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France, they weren't able to overcome the deficit lost from the Original Dance, leaving them in seventh place overall.
Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletsky, Israel's married No. 2 Dance duet, skated a fine Free Dance to the opera "The Barber of Seville" by Rossini, which was highly innovative – a "bold move", according to the Eurosport commentator, "and demonstrated fantastic showmanship, but technically, a little empty," but slipped to 15th place in all, down one from last year.

Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov of Russia, with a plethora of perfect 6.0s for Presentation, captured the gold, while last year's bronze medallists, Bulgaria's Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski had to settle for the silver, although they also received a couple of 6.0s for presentation, while home crowd favorites Kati Winkler and Rene Lohse of Germany, making a comeback appearance after a lengthy injury absence, took the bronze.

"Galit and Sergei's Free Dance showed everybody just how well they can do, particularly after the Original Dance," Boris Chait, chairman of the Israeli Ice Skating Federation, told The Jerusalem Post from Germany."As far as the fact that some of the judges continually give them lower scores than they deserve, this is something that we hope will be corrected with the New Judging System, if it's implemented properly next year, with complete accountability. This has been a year of learning for us, since it's the first time we've been able to come to a world competition with a complete team, and we're looking forward to continue preparing for the [2006] Winter Olympics."