Maxim-um enjoyment

Well well well Skate Canada turned out rather good didn't it? The men's contest was not only surprising but totally brilliant. In the short programme Javier Fernandez pulled off an absolute stunner of a performance with a flawless quad (oh yes), some perfect triples and some charming choreography to sort of french themed music to storm into the lead. I've liked Javi since I saw his weird cartoon themed skate last year so to see him get a silver medal in the end was lovely. Then there was Daisuke Takahashi's mind-blowing blues themed free skate. Good God can that boy dance. He just oozes style, his movements are so fluid and slinky. As my friend text me shortly afterwards 'that guy was amazing.' Indeed. It says something for the strength of the field that this genius only got third.
The winner was of course Patrick Chan. Even with some uncharacteristic mistakes, he's just a consummate showman. He just makes everything look very smooth and very easy so he's always a joy to watch. There were a couple of brilliant funny little moments in the 'kiss and cry' too. Firstly Javi got the wonderful gift of a sombrero from a fan which looked very fetching as you can see. (source)

Then Daisuke got buried under a small avalanche of gifts. That's a stuffed banana under his arm there. (source) In the ice dance contest home favourites Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were outstanding, with the choreography in their performance earning perfect tens. Their theme was Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in 'Funny Face' and it was sweet and endearing and pitched just right. Also a couple I've been a fan of for a long time Luca Lanotte and Anna Capellin came good and won bronze with a charming performance to 'La Strada' soundtrack with lovely monochrome and red french stylee outifts. The pairs introduced yet another couple to my growing list of favourites with Sui Wenjing and Han Cong performing a beautiful flamenco with him in particular throwing himself into the style of it all. And another enduring favourite of mine did brilliantly. Maxim Trankov. Maxim. Oh Maxim. What a wonderful man. The routines he did with his partner Tatiana were exceptional. Both of them were quite gothically themed which was fun and a rather sexy look for Mr Trankov. Hilariously modernity seemed to elude Eurosport's Nicky Slater when faced with their music. High level comedy ensued as he said 'is it tchaikovsky?' then took to plaintively repeating 'bring me back to life....by...effanessance??' Sterling work sir.