Vana Tallinn Trophy 2006

The Vana Tallinn Trophy was the most fun competition this year. Being smaller than Mountain Cup, it had the warm, homely friendship between skaters. Not that Mountain Cup lacked friendship, but I can imagine a new-comer being lost in the masses!

It was good to see that more Estonians were taking part (compared to the previous years). I would have loved to have interacted with more of them, but language certainly was a barrier, and we all sunk into our comfort zone with our group of friends that spoke a similar language. There were, however, a few who made the effort to chat with us, shared our locker room, and shared chocolates with us. It was lovely!

The 6.0 judging system was still in use, and it was sort of comforting to be using a system I had understood. I attempted the double loop, which was as usual not landed. I must have under-rotated my double toe too, and then messed up my double Sal. I got through the program all the same, and when I got off, somebody congratulated me on a good program. I was feeling, at that time, that I had just skated a crappy program - I didn't feel it was good, but I suppose from a spectator point of view, it all flowed well, albeit the lost doubled. I'd really like to get my hands on a video of that program at Tallinn... wonder if anyone took it.

Dance was later in the day. I had talked about this in another entry Last-minute partner for Dance.