#but they have had a rough off-season. and traditionally they usually work the kinks out by nationals

[beautifulstorms]

‘Their face to face holds have never been good’ is even less of an acceptable excuse for L/L’s empty free dance for me lol…top 5 teams aiming for the podium shouldn’t be able to get away with being poor at the fundamentals of the discipline. If they’d been competing in 2010 the code would’ve forced them to get better at it, so it’s not entirely their fault when the incentives aren’t there, but they can’t possibly be hailed as the best team in the world - which many fans already do! - when many pairs teams are doing more difficult partner work. The diagonal step sequence is absolutely egregious this season, they’re so far apart it should counteract the GOE they get for the speed. I want to be able to root for them! But at least T/V are attempting more than the barest of bare minimums.

the thing is that no top teams are really skating in closed hold, even the ones that can do it well (i.e. g/f), even the team doing a tango. it's hard to penalize l/l for having poor closed holds when in 2024 it's barely even a feature of the sport. what they do have is better edgework / speed / projection than the teams above them, qualities that are still assessable in today's programs and valued by the scoring system. for me it's not according to what ice dance should be but rather what ice dance currently is.

that being said it does feel like that over six seasons the field collectively gave up on difficult skating and the ISU let it happen. and I do wish some team would shake up the status quo with challenging, intricate footwork in close hold. but I don't really expect it of anyone since there's no advantage in it