uk nationals 97

�Jeanine Mathews

Short Program

Steven skated last in the short program, knowing that Neil Wilson, last year's sliver medallist had skated a program, that while clean, was not as difficult technically as the one he has planned. Skating to a jazz medley,  Steven fell out of the triple axel, but managed to put the triple toe on at the end of it. His step sequences were, as always, superb, as was his camel spin with a change of foot, but he seemed to lose speed leading up to the change. His triple lutz was ablsoutely textbook, a joy to watch, and he nailed the double axel. There were no problems with the flying sit spin, although there was a little travel in the final combination spin. The judges were split 4-3, but Steven won the short program, with Clive Shorten in second place and Neil Wilson in third.

Long Program

The costume that Steven wore here was the same one he wore at Skate Canada, but was changed before worlds. Instead of a blue denim shirt, here he wore a tight black T-shirt. Personally, I'd have stuck with the T-shirt, but that's just me. The music, I'm told was an Elton John medley of three songs, Tonight, Take Me to the Pilot, and Burn Down the Mission.He opened well ,with a nice triple lutz, but what really struck me was how long he sits on the edge before he jumps. I know that everybody has a long glide into the lutz, but his seems longer than most, and it leaves him very close to the boards which may or may not be deterimental to jump combinations.

The camel spin was nice, but he doubled a planned triple axel, and offered up no combination as was planned. As the music changed, to the sound of bells, he really used the music to tell him what kind of movements he
should be doing. The choreography of this routine, I should just say, is brilliant. Even if he goes out and turns into the human zamboni doing it, it's still a highly watcheable routine. He made a triple toe-double toe combination, and followed it with a footwork sequence that had me gasping.

Disaster struck in the next couple of jumps though, when he doubled his flip and badly popped the second triple axel into a single.His combination spin was fabulous - camel to sit, change foot, camel sit, and fast! He did a nice spiral and used that as an entry into a triple salchow and threw in a triple toe with another camel spin to finish. Looking at these routines to write these reviews, I've got to say he's got a fabulous camel spin. Good position in the body, legs and hands, good speed. I could watch it all day. The judges were not generous to the defending champion at first with marks of 5.1-5.3 for technical, but 5.5 to 5.8 for presentation. It wasn't enough to hold off a great skate from Neil Wilson, who won the free, and thus the title as he and Steven were equal on ordinals. Clive Shorten came third."

My thanks to Jeanine for these reviews!