Soucisse and Firus 18th at European Championships
Carolane Soucisse (29) and Shane Firus (30) have finished in 18th place for Ireland at the ISU European Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn, Estonia this afternoon.
In the rhythm dance, the pressure was on for the two-time Irish national champions and they faced a battle in a deep field to secure one of precious berths in the final round. There was a dicey moment when it looked like their advancement was in question.
Soucisse and Firus began their routine to music by James Brown and Betty Davis with a confident Level 2 midline step sequence. However, in the sequential twizzle sequence that followed Soucisse put a foot down to steady herself and the duo received a negative grade of execution for the element. To their credit, they did not let the error affect the rest of their programme and earned a Level 1 for their pattern type step sequence, strong grade of execution scores for their choreographic rhythmic sequence and a powerful Level 4 rotational lift to close. Their score of 61.56 points was well down on their season best, but they were philosophical about it after they ended.
“There were definitely some highs and some lows,” Firus said. “There was a mistake on the twizzles so that was disappointing. We’re happy that we didn’t let it affect the rest of the programme and made it through to the free so that was good.”
“I think everything else went great,” Soucisse said. “If there is something to be happy about, it’s that we didn’t let go and we got in all the points that we could. That saved us to go through to the free.”
Soucisse and Firus skated second in the free dance portion of the event out of the twenty teams that qualified from the rhythm dance. Performing to music from the “When Harry Met Sally” soundtrack, the husband and wife duo produced a Level 4 stationary and rotational lift combination to open and continued with Level 2 one foot turns for Soucisse and Level 1 for Firus. They next included a choreographic step sequence and a Level 4 dance spin. Their serpentine steps were Level 2 and they next reeled off Level 4 synchronised twizzles. They ended with a choreographic assisted jump, a Level 4 straight line lift and a choreographic dance lift. Their score of 100.20 was the 17th highest score of the event and it gave them a final total of 161.76 points.
“It felt very good,” Soucisse said of their performance. “Overall, we’re really happy with how the programme turned out. It’s been really solid for us this season so we just kind of wanted to keep that train going and get a bit more feedback on certain elements that we changed. It was a little bit tough out there. It was a bit dry, but other than that it was good.
“We had a lot of fun,” Firus added. “The crowd really got behind us and there were lots of Irish flags. We really felt the support and that was great.”
