As The Skates Turn Ask Anyone Involved In Ice Dancing: It’s As Much A Fiasco As It Is A Sport

Pasha used to be named Oksana but she was tired of being mistaken for the other Oksana, the Oksana that is fat, criminal and bad, at least that’s what Pasha says.

Maia smashed Pasha’s face into the bar one night when Pasha was still Oksana and had carried on an affair with Maia’s husband, at least that’s what Maia thought. But Maia isn’t here. Angelika and Oleg are here though and Angelika and Oleg and Pasha and Evgeny don’t like each other much so sometimes they skate really close together during warmups and maybe somebody’s skate blade “accidentally” slashes somebody else’s arm and when it does, Pasha says her muscle is torn but she skates anyway.

Shae-Lynn and Victor are here too. Pasha’s aunt says Shae-Lynn and Victor are “so far from second it is not funny,” and Shae-Lynn nearly cries. Victor says Pasha and Evgeny only dance to sad music every year so that “all they have to do is change the sad expressions on their faces” but Pasha says she can learn Shae-Lynn and Victor’s River Dance “in a day, maybe less.” Victor hisses “So why doesn’t she?”

Shae-Lynn and Victor’s coach says the judging is rigged, that these Olympic dance medals were determined at a cozy gathering called the European Championships in Milan last month when the judges, “a lot of old friends together had lots of time in Milan to discuss the places someone will be on the podium.”

Pasha said she turned down the starring role in the next Robert DeNiro movie, a role conceived especially for her, just so she could be skating here at White Ring even though Pasha really, really, really wants to be famous and says she expects to be nominated for an Academy Award in the next four years. And she is constantly on the phone with the director John Frankenheimer.

Welcome to The Dance. Ice dancing has started at the Winter Olympics where platinum hair is as good as orange hair and everybody wants to know what the heck that giant cross is on Pasha Grishuk’s costume?

There may be no Academy Award in Grishuk’s future but DeNiro could conceive of no better role for Grishuk than to have Grishuk star in the life of an ice dancer.

Ice dancing: sport or Hollywood fantasy? You be the judge. Someone has to be.

After a night of compulsory dancing, in which 24 couples did the same two dances, the Golden Waltz and Argentine Tango, over and over, those results that Natalia Dubova, coach of the Canadian team of Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, said were decided in Milan were: Russians Pasha Grishuk and Evgeny Platov, winner of 22 straight competitions, first; Russians Angelika Krylova, who sideswiped Grishuk in Milan during practice, and Oleg Ovsyannikov, second; Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France, third, and Bourne and Kraatz and Russians Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh tied for fourth.

Ever since a confrontation at Champion Series Finals in Munich in December, where a woman identified as Grishuk’s aunt stood up in a news conference and berated the Canadians as being unworthy of even second place and for not even doing rock and roll in the original dance, and rock and roll was required, the state of ice dancing has been uproarious.

Grishuk, who once had her head slammed into a bar by Maia Usova, whose husband and partner Alexander Zhulin Grishuk she had once tried to steal, claimed she had no idea how her aunt had infiltrated this gathering. It turns out Grishuk herself had gotten the aunt a pass.

Since then the Canadian camp has been on a rampage, accusing the dance judging corps of conspiring to keep North Americans off this Olympic medal podium. Dubova’s theory is that the French and Italian judges have joined with the Russian camp to prop up Anissina and Peizerat at the expense of Bourne and Kraatz, who are the defending world bronze medalists and who had started this season with legitimate hopes of challenging the Russians for a gold or silver medal.

“What happened tonight,” Dubova said, “is a joke. I don’t know how else to call it. There are two umbrellas, the Russian umbrella and the French-Italian umbrella and there is no room under that umbrella for us.”

It so happens that an Italian couple, Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio, passed Americans Liz Punsalan and her husband Jerod Swallow. Punsalan and Swallow, who were sixth at last year’s world championships, are seventh behind Fusar-Poli and Margaglio.

Is dance judging equitable, Swallow was asked? “Hmmm, equitable?” Swallow said. “I don’t know. This sport has been this way since its inception. As far as equitable goes, it is very frustrating. It drives a lot of couples crazy. Luckily me and Liz have each other.”

None of this seems to affect Grishuk, who says that she and Platov’s original dance for Saturday “is very, very difficult,” in case the judges were wondering.

As important as talking about the dance for Grishuk was talking about her prospective Hollywood career. She loves the movie “Casino”, which happened to star DeNiro and her idol Sharon Stone. Pasha, who changed her first name from Oksana because she was too often confused with singles skater Oksana Baiul, gold medalist in 1994, arrested for drunk driving in 1996 and now overweight according to Grishuk, says she has “many names in mind of great actors I would like to star with but I do not want to name anybody because I do not want to offend anybody.” Yep, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, whoever wasn’t picked would be offended.

And in the meantime, the “competition” continues. Swallow says the atmosphere is very warm and friendly here at White Ring, “as long as you’re facing away from the judges.”

Do not expect the Americans to be moving up in the standings in the original dance and free dance.