Sartorial Shuffle - Sheffield

There wer pleny of *ahem* interesting fashions for us to get our teeth into at the ISU European Championships in Sheffield. It was a BIG event and the stars of the circuit certainly rose to the occasion. So without further ado, let's review some outfits people.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's that time of year again everyone. It's Valentine's day! And once again the boys of Sports Wall are on hand to bring you a handy guide to the art of love. There are many ways to catch the eye of the object of your affections,



perhaps buy a card or gift?



maybe buy a snazzy new outfit?

 You could call up your wing man

you could try some gentle flirting

you could get romanticor get a little more 'intense'

or maybe you could go all out and re-enact a scene from their favourite movie?

Whatever you do Ruth's Sports Wall wishes you a happy boy love day.

The King of all comebacks

I said previously but I'll say it again. Holy Crap. Oh my goodness. The men's free programme was something else. In the big daddy of all shocking comebacks Evgeni Plushenko skated out of his skin and scored his best mark ever to win the European title for the seventh time. Seriously there aren't enough italics in the world for me to properly convey my surprise and awe at this situation. The man is unbelievable. His free skate to an amazing arrangement of 'el tango de Roxanne' was just fabulous, full of power, drama and attack and despite not having skated in a while he still looked close to swaggering, imperious best. Artur Gachinski came second, once again rediscovering the sort of form he showed at last year's Europeans. Noow he seems to have pulled it together, I really do like Gachinski's 'interview with the vampire' routine, it has a lovely flow to it and his feathered outfit is just divine. Florent Amodio took third place and celebrated as if he'd won again, it was adorable he started crying and everything. There's just something about it when someone with a face that beautiful starts crying, it was just so sweet. And the way his coach just picked him up was so lovely. There were strong performances from two of my favourite competitiors 'Lovely Brian' Joubert and my Italian eccentric Samuel Contesti. I love Samuel. He's a born entertainer. He always puts so much personality into his performancess and they're always a little different to everyone else. All in all it was a great competition and I think all the people that I really like did well and landed in the toop ten. With Plushenko's massive rreturn I think worlds is going to be absolutely stellar. Can't wait.

Shocks in Sheffield

It's that time again folks, ISU European Championships time! This year it was held in Sheffield which isn't that far away from where I live (in the 'grim' North) and I had really hoped I could have gone. I was desperate to be there but unfortunately it was not to be. But of course I did catch as much as I could on  Eurosport. I started out with the pairs competition. Aliona Savchenko and Robin Solkowy and Alexander Smirnov and Yuko Kavaguti were missing in action due to an injury to Robin and appendix surgery for Alex. However it was still a  great competition. Maxim Trankov and his partner Tatiana finally got the recognition they deserve and after a couple of stellar performances deservingly claimed the gold medal. Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov took the silver despite  the misgivinngs of (your friend and mine) Nicky Slater about their costtumes; "Its like a practice outift!" And Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov made it a hat-trick and an all Russian podium. I was lucky enough thatt on the end of my paris coverage Eurosport had scheduled the highlights of the men's short programmes. And boy did I get a shock. Plushenko is back. YES. Plushenko is BACK. As I said at the time (rather loudly) Holy Crap. I didn't know he was due to be back. It was so  exciting. And boy did he knock it out of the park. His short program still had the old Plushenko crazy showmanship element but somehow it wasn't as frantic, it was more controlled but still mega dramatic. It's just always a pleasure to watch Evgeni, he's so expressive and always draws your eye. Artur Gachinski (coached by the same man as Evgeni) also pulled it out of the bag, fnding the consistency he lacked around Grand Prix time. Tomas Werner put in a solid performance, way better than I'd seen it at the grand prix. So it's all very well poised ahead of the long programme.