Month: June 2007

Wow! Some big surprises and incredibly close finishes in the finals. Looks like the indoor play led to super clean performances. Your 2007 world champs are:

Open Pairs: Jake Gauthier/Matt Gauthier [video]
Open Co-op: Piccio Cusma/Andrea Meola/Fabio Sanna
Women’s Pairs: Sylvia Caruso/Eleonora Imazio
Mixed Pairs: Lisa Hunrichs/Matt Gauthier

Some early video is already coming in:

TV News Story Featuring Sarah Bergman & Paul Kenny

Day 1 Montage

Days 2 and 3 Montage

Open Pairs

The Gauthier brothers come through to defend their Open Pairs title. I believe they are undefeated since they won in Berlin last year. This was no cakewalk, however, as the top four teams were all within 2.2 points, and all had a 9.0 or greater average execution score. Larry Imperiale/Fabio Sanna edged Dave Lewis/Pat Marron for second place by only 0.1, with Tommy Leitner/Reto Zimmerman another 0.7 back in fourth. It looks like the only thing holding Dave and Pat back from winning the pairs title was Artistic Impression. They won execution and trailed the Gauthiers by only 0.3 in difficulty, but the judges put them 2.0 back in artistic. Like many people, I’ve been a fan of Jake and Matt’s game for a long time. It’s cool to see them building a dynasty. Congratulations Jake and Matt!!!

Open Co-op

The top 4 teams were within 1.1 points of each other. Let me repeat that. The top 4 teams were within 1.1 points of each other. The winning margin was 0.6 points as Antonio Piccio Cusma, Andrea Meola and Fabio Sanna won their first open division title over Pipo Lopez, Tommy Leitner and Pat Marron. It’s the first all-European team to win in the open division, which means Fabio Sanna has been part of the first all-European winning teams in both Open Co-op and Mixed Pairs.
This has to be frustrating for Pipo and Pat, who finished 0.3 away from the title last year. So many close calls. Joakim Arveskär, Clay Collera and Reto Zimmerman were another 0.3 points back to grab third by 0.2 over Dave Lewis, Dave Murphy and Dave Schiller. Basically, it was a one drop difference between first and 4th place. Incredible. Congratulations Andrea, Piccio and Fabio!!!

Mixed Pairs

The Gauthier brothers swept the top two spots of this division too. Lisa Hunrichs and Matt Gauthier outscored Lori Daniels and Jake Gauthier in difficulty and artistic to overcame Jake and Lori’s sick 29.1 execution score. Defending champs Eleonora Imazio and Fabio Sanna finished 1.1 points back in 3rd. Congratulations Lisa and Matt!!!

Women’s Pairs

In maybe the biggest upset of the tournament, Sylvia Caruso and Eleonora Imazio crushed the women’s field by 6.2 points to take the women’s crown. With a super clean round (29.1 ex score), they gained 8 points over Lisa Hunrichs and Lori Daniels, then backed up their squeaky clean performance by winning difficulty. Congratulations Sylvia and Eleonora on being the first all-European team to win the Women’s Pairs title!!!

The scores – format is Total (Diff, Ex, AI):

Open Pairs Final

1. Jake Gauthier/Matt Gauthier 66.9 (21.4, 27.1, 18.4) [video]
2. Larry Imperiale/Fabio Sanna 65.5 (20.2, 27.2, 18.1)
3. Dave Lewis/Pat Marron 65.4 (21.1, 27.9, 16.4)
4. Tom Leitner/Reto Zimmerman 64.7 (20.4, 27.0, 17.3)
5. Dave Murphy/Dave Schiller 61.6 (20.8, 25.1, 15.7)
6. Paul Kenny/Sune Wentzel 61.3 (18.4, 27.3, 15.6)
7. Toddy Brodeur/Pipo Lopez 60.2 (18.0, 27.6, 14.6)
8. Antonio Piccio Cusma/Andrea Meola 57.2 (17.8, 23.7, 15.7)

Open Co-op Final

1. Antonio Piccio Cusma/Andrea Meola/Fabio Sanna 71.4 (21.0, 28.5, 21.9)
2. Tom Leitner/Pipo Lopez/Pat Marron 70.8 (21.9, 27.6, 21.3)
3. Joakim Arveskär/Clay Collera/Reto Zimmerman 70.5 (22.1, 26.1, 22.3)
4. Dave Lewis/Dave Murphy/Dave Schiller 70.3 (22.7, 25.2, 22.4)
5. Toddy Brodeur/Larry Imperiale/Paul Kenny 66.3 (20.2, 23.7, 22.4)
6. Matteo Feller/Matteo Gaddoni/Valerio Occorsio 56.4 (20.8, 18.5, 17.1)
7. Carsten Heim/Flo Hess/Jan Schreck 55.8 (20.2, 19.9, 15.7)
8. Filippo Cavalca/Giovanni Coppo/Paulo Magni 55.6 (19.7, 20.1, 15.8)

Mixed Pairs Final

1. Lisa Hunrichs/Matt Gauthier 67 (18.8, 28.0, 20.2)
2. Lori Daniels/Jake Gauthier 62.5 (16.1, 29.1, 17.3)
3. Eleonora Imazio/Fabio Sanna 61.4 (17.6, 26.0, 17.8)
4. Bethany Sanchez/Toddy Brodeur 56.4 (16.1, 25.5, 14.8)
5. Sarah Bergman/Paul Kenny 53.9 (16.5, 23.2, 14.2)
6. Bianca Strunz/Markus Hein 49.3 (14.9, 23.2, 11.2)

Women Pairs Final

1. Sylvia Caruso/Eleonora Imazio 64.8 (17.1, 29.1, 18.6)
2. Lori Daniels/Lisa Hunrichs 58.6 (16.8, 21.8, 20)
3. Sarah Bergman/Mary Lowry 52.1 (15.2, 20.8, 16.1)
4. Bianca Strunz/Simon 49.2 (12.3, 23.0, 13.9)

Mixed Pairs B Final
(Top 2 teams advance to finals)

1. BethanySanchez/Toddy Brodeur 59.9 (18.5, 26.4, 15)
2. Bianca Strunz/Markus Hein 58.9 (17.1, 26.8, 15)
3. Sylvia Caruso/Enrico Bersanti 56.1 (18.4, 23.9, 13.8)
2. Terry Bogenhagen/Dave Schiller 54.3 (17.9, 23.6, 12.8)
3. Mary Lowry/Dan Yarnell 54.1 (17.6, 22, 14.5)
4. H Bogenhagen/Andrea Meola 51.4 (15.6, 25.3, 10.5)
5. Anne Goh/Steve Scannell 49.3 (15.3, 22.9, 11.1)
6. Cristina Nicolardi/Carlo Perrone 48.4 (15.4, 21.4, 11.6)
7. Ilka Simon/Jascha Wollman 41.6 (13.4, 19.3, 8.9)
8. Gloria Alessandrini/Matteo Gaddoni 0 (0, 0, 0)

Okay, this must have been a long day of indoor play. Mixed Semis, Women’s Semis, Open Pairs Semis and Open Co-op Semis.

Hard to make educated commentary just on the scores. It’s impossible to get past my expectations and substantial biases without actually seeing the performances, but that’s not going to hold me back. Here goes:

1. Mixed Pairs

Defending champs Fabio Sanna and Eleonora Imazio may have their work cut out for them, as they tied Paul Kenny and Sarah Bergman for first in their pool while scoring almost two points higher in execution. Meanwhile, Lisa Hunrichs and Matt Gauthier crushed the other pool by more than 10 points with a super clean (28.2 execution) performance. That indoor play really makes a difference, huh? Fabio and Eleonora could very well have held back some surprises for the finals. We’ll see tomorrow. Four teams qualified for the finals – Bergman/Kenny, Imazio/Sanna, Hunrichs/M. Gauthier and Daniels/J. Gauthier. The other ten teams will battle it out tomorrow morning for the final two positions.

2. Women’s Semis

Looks like Lisa Hunrichs and Lori Daniels have this one well in control as long as they play solid. They hit a solid but not stupendous execution score (26.4 – about 4 drops) and still beat Eleonora Imazio and Sylvia Caruso by 4 points.

3. Open Pairs Semi A

To be honest, I’m a little surprised that Imperiale/Sanna outscored Lewis/Marron by so much given how clean Lewis/Marron played. Not having seen the round, I’ll have to reserve judgment until I see the video. Fabio and Larry have a strong routine with difficult elements. They pulled it off and won the pool on the basis of a higher artistic score. I have my personal biases of course given my longtime teammate was in this battle, but I would have expected the scoring to be closer. The #3 (Meola/Cusmá) and #4 (Kenny/Wentzel) spots were expected. Could have gone either way. Both are standard finals teams. I thought Bo Bul and Hartmut Wahrmann had a shot at the finals, especially given the indoor setting, but they came about 4 points short in 5th place.

4. Open Pairs Semi B

Both Pairs pools were tough, but Pool B was more top heavy on paper. Last year’s champs (Matt & Jake Gauthier) and runners up (Tommy Leitner & Reto Zimmerman) plus legends Dave Murphy and Dave Schiller. You would expect those three teams to battle it out for the top three positions, and everyone else to fight it out for the last finals spot. That’s almost what happened. Tommy Leitner and Reto Zimmerman clearly kicked ass, winning by almost five points. Tommy and Reto have really gel’d as a team. They seem to get stronger with every tournament. Schiller/Murphy and defending champs Gauthier/Gauthier actually tied for second, but Brodeur/Lopez nearly snuck in there to spoil their fun. They were only 0.3 back. The closest other team – Clay Collerá/Joakim Arvesk‰r – was more than five points back.

5. Co-op Semi A

The top seeds held in Pool A as Lopez/Leitner/Marron won their pool followed by Cusmá/Meola/Sanna. Dan Yarnell/Matt Guathier/Steve Hays missed the finals cut, but from their execution score (17.6) it looks like they had a very rough round. Rising to the occasion were Paolo Magni/Filippo Cavalca/Giovanni Coppo and Carstein Heim/Flo Hess/Jan Schreck. I believe it’s the first FPAW finals for all six players, and each team has an interesting story. Last year, Paolo and Filippo were part of the Aloha Award winning team with Philipp Lenarz. This year they are in the finals, but Filippo had to overcome a separated shoulder in April that kept him out of Paganello. Flo Hess and Carsten Heim had planned to play with Christian Lamred. Christian was unable to make FPAW due to a work/school commitment, which opened the door for my Paganello teammate Jan Schreck to jump in and make his first FPAW finals.

6. Co-op Semi B

All four top teams were pretty much expected to make the finals, so there weren’t any huge upsets, though Sanchez/Willett/Meier had a legitimate shot at a finals spot, youth prevailed as Matteo Gaddoni, Valerio Occorsio and Matteo Feller played solid to make the finals. It’s the first finals for Valerio and Matteo, and I think Gaddoz has made one before. The top two teams were only 0.1 apart. Brodeur/Imperiale/Kenny edged Lewis/Murphy/Schiller primarily due to a cleaner performance and a few extra tenths in artistic.

Continue reading “2007 FPAW – Day Three Results”

Looks like the weather has wreaked havoc with the worlds schedule, and they’ve decided to just stay inside for the rest of the tournament rounds. Some first impressions just scanning through the results:

1. Lopez/Leitner/Marron hitting an execution score of 29.7. One bobble routine? Need to see that video immediately!

2. Andrea Meola/Piccio Cusma winning their pairs prelim pool over Dave Lewis/Pat Marron with an Execution score of 28.5. Looks like a one drop routine.

3. Imperiale/Sanna, Kenny/Wentzel and Murphy/Schiller finishing within 0.6 of one another in Pool A. Pairs could be a huge dogfight as we progress. Then again, prelims can be deceiving as teams play with a variety of prepared routines vs. jams. We’ll get a much better idea of the depth of the field in the semis Saturday.

4. Small margins in three of four pairs prelims to make the semifinals. Sanchez/Meier snuck by Occorsio/Coppo by 0.3, Hays/Hess scored only 1.1 more than Willett/Lo-a-sjoe, and Galliani/Cappelman were only 1.2 ahead of Apriani/Torzolini.

5. Lori Daniels and Bianca Strunz making waves in pairs. They passed through the qualification round yesterday. Today they placed third in their pairs pool to move to the semifinals.

Continue reading “2007 FPAW – Day Two Results”

Skippy Jammer reported on Jammers On The Net that today was a rainy first day at FPAW. Only the Open Pairs qualifier was completed. 30 teams played for 16 available spots in the Prelim round. The number of legendary players battling in the qualifier – Skippy Jammer, Rodney Sanchez, Dan Yarnell, etc. – speaks to the depth of the competitive field. Whoever advanced out of today’s round has their work cut out for them in the Prelims.

With the exception of Pool A, it looks like there was a clear gap in scores between teams who advanced and those who didn’t. Pool A was pretty close, only 1.4 points, though nothing like last year’s heartbreaking gaps of fractions of a point. It’s great to see players like Anton Capellman, who was on the wrong side of one of those heartbreaking gaps last year, come out on top this year.

There were four pools, and the top four teams advanced from each pool. Teams that advanced are listed in bold. The scores are listed as Total Score (Diff/Ex/Artistic)

Pool A

1. Rodney Sanchez/Roger Meier 62.2 (19.0/25.6/17.6)
2. Rainer Doerr/Dominique Weissenberger 60.1 (18.4/24.1/17.6)
3. Manuel Cesari/Andrea Poli 59.9 (18.1/23.5/18.3)
4. Jens Friebe/Andreas Jaderyd 52.4 (17.5/21.4/13.5)
5. Frank Lejuene/Michael Otte 51.0 (14.9/24.8/11.3)
6. Jacub K/Jacuk Hosek 49.2 (14.4/21.9/12.9)
7. Jan Zahradicek/Jakub Zahradicek 41.5 (8.6/20.9/12)
8. Peter Van Gool/Bram Maassen 30.2 (9.1/16.6/4.5)

Pool B

1. Valerio Occorsio/Giovanni Coppo 63.2 (17.1/25.9/20.2)
2. Dan Yarnell/Sascha Scherzinger 61.4 (18.1/25.0/18.3)
3. Filippo Cavalca/Sergio Arrighi 60.9 (16.6/24.8/19.5)
4. Steve Scannell/Z Weyand 60.1 (16.7/26.0/17.4)
5. Oren Meron/Ofek Agmon 56.7 (14.9/23.7/18.1)
6. Pavel Baranyk/Jan Struz 52.3 (11.6/25.5/15.2)
7. Matteo Ceresa/Allesandro Berra 48.6 (12.9/22.1/13.6)
8. Oliver Baczko/Marconi Serge 43.0 (10.9/19.9/12.2)
9. Paul Seifert/Dom Weber 41.9 (9.2/22.2/10.5)

Pool C

1. Jonathan Willett/Gregory Lo-A-sjoe 58.7 (18.8/25.1/14.8)
2. Skippy Jammer/Doug Korns 55.5 (17.2/24/14.3)
3. Enrico Caruso (aka Enrico Barsanti)/Fabio Caruso 51.7 (16.9/23.4/11.4)
4. Markus Goetz/Niki Thoma 50.2 (16.1/22.3/11.8)
5. Dave Bolyard/John Titcomb 42.5 (13.6/18/10.9)
6. Rafaelle Pilla/Fabrizio De Rossi 41.4 (12.8/19.3/9.3)
7. Kyrre Kristiansen/Espen Furhatt 0 (0/0/0)
8. Paul Seifert/Dominik Weber 0 (0/0/0)

Pool D

1. Ramon Galliani/Anton Capellmann 52.9 (16.9/22.4/13.6)
2. Angelo Mancarella/Carlo Perrone 51.3 (15.3/24.1/11.9)
3. Lori Daniels/Bianca Strunz 51.0 (14.1/24.5/12.4)
4. Philip Lenarz/Markus Hein 50.3 (13.8/24.9/11.6)
5. Urs Hardegger/Baba Brak 41.9 (10.9/21.7/9.3)
6. Ronny Koch/Robert Dittrich 37.9 (9.0/21.4/7.5)
7. Holger Hill/Andrea Hillmann 36.6 (10.0/18.8/7.8)