2001 World Championships
March 17-25, 2001, Vancouver/CAN
Winkler/Lohse finish 7th at Worlds
Kati Winkler/Rene Lohse finished 7th at Worlds in Vancouver.
Their Gospel free dance "Message of Hope" was well received
and the capacity crowd went really into it by the time the music
got fast and entertaining. "This was our best season so far.
We reached the Grand Prix Final", said Kati. "For next season,
we'll need a good idea for our programs again. It's not so easy
to find always something new and different that nobody had done
before. I think this (the Gospel) was the best free dance we
ever had. We'll fight again next year to move up, and we'll
start our preparations earlier. I really enjoyed skating our
program, each minute of it."
Rene added: "I was nervous at the beginning, but as soon as
the music started and the audience got into it, it felt easy
to skate. It will be important to do very well in the first
competition next season."
Winkler/Lohse were awarded marks ranging from 5.1 to 5.5 for
technical merit and marks from 5.4 to 5.6 for presentation.
They had two six place ordinals (from France and Germany), four
seventh place ordinals (Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain)
while the Ukrainian and the Hungarian Judge had them eight.
The judge from Azerbaijan didn't like the dance at all and put
the Germans as low as 9th.
Winkler/Lohse in 7th after the OD at Worlds
Kati Winkler/Rene Lohse sit in seventh at Worlds in Vancouver,
following the Original Dance on Thursday (March 22). The Germans
produced a strong OD set to the rhythms of Charleston and Quickstep.
The funny program was only slightly marred by a little unison
problem in the side by side straight line footwork. Winkler/Lohse
received four sixth place and five seventh place ordinals, thus
loosing only by one judge to the Israelians Galit Chait/Sergei
Sakhnovski.
"One more step has been done. We came well through, and the
audience was on our side", said Kati. "We now want to show our
best in the free dance and to enterain the audience. As we already
saw in practice, they like the gospel music (their free dance
music)", Rene added. "Our timing was a bit off, I was a bit
faster", he commented on the unison problem. "I didn't realize
it while we skated, I was focusing on myself. Our coach told
us afterwards. It was the only thing, everything else was really
good."
Winkler/Lohse fourth in the qualifying group at
the World Championships
Kati Winkler/Rene Lohse placed fourth in both their
Compulsory Dances in Qualifying Round B on Tuesday (20 March)
at Worlds in Vancouver. The compulsories were used as a qualifying
for the first time in history. Like the single skaters, the
dancers were divided into two groups A and B. From each group,
the top 15 couples advance to the Original Dance.
Winkler/Lohse skated both dances strong. Their Rhumba was lively
and their Tango expressive and right on the beat. The Germans
received all fourth place ordinals in the Rhumba and six fourth
with one third place ordinal in the Tango. Their group was the
harder one, since they competed against Fusar Poli/Margaglio,
Bourne/Kraatz and Lobacheva/Averbukh.
"Our main goal is to qualify for the Olympics, which means we
have to finish 8th here (according to the German NOC regulations)",
Winkler said. "It's fun to skate in Canada. The audience is
very fair, and we also got a lot of applause." (On the qualifying
groups for ice dance) "It's not a bad idea. It means, you finish
early and there isn't such a long wait between the two dances
for us. It's also easier for the judges, they don't have to
sit through a marathon."
"We worked on the compulsories with a ballroom dancer, especially
for the Tango", Lohse added. We felt confident and relaxed in
both dances. We are there on the top, fighting with the top
contenders. You can see that in our marks, they are quite close
already. (On the qualifying groups) The groups come together
later anyway. But our group was harder."
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