thestar.com

At their opening event, Trophee Lalique in Paris, Grishuk and Platov were warned by judges that their freedance had too many illegal lifts and not enough footwork. "So we destroyed the lifts," Platov said. The couple re-jigged 30 per cent of their "Memorial Requiem" and came back to win NHK in Japan, over Bourne and Kraatz.

Grishuk and Platov have chosen Memorial Requiem, a dramatic theatre piece that casts her as some kind of avant garde Joan of Arc. Krylova and Ovsiannikov present a unique interpretation of the skating staple, Carmen. And Bourne and Kraatz are gambling that the rapid footwork of cultural phenomenon Riverdance will be as successful in Japan as it was in Hamilton, where they received six 6.0s, the first perfect marks of their careers.

Bourne and Kraatz switched from Montreal's to Dubova to expand their technical and artistic horizons, but also because she has been on the inside of the Russian ice dance pentagon. She originally coached Platov and Grishuk before turfing them when Grishuk was having an affair with teammate Alexander Zhulin, who at the time was world champion with his then-wife Maia Usova.