(March 25, 2004)

The audience at the Dortmund Westfalenhallen was rock’n as the ice dance teams took to the ice for the original dance on Thursday afternoon at the 2004 ISU World Figure Skating Championships.

This year’s designated original dance was the high tempo swing combo, which had the fans clapping along to the catchy music.

Canadian Ice Dance Champions Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon skated a solid dance that featured moves of an increased level of difficulty since they first performed this original dance earlier this season.

Dubreuil, 29, and Lauzon, 28, both of Montreal, placed 10th at last year’s ISU World Figure Skating Championships, and they hope to improve on that placement this year.

The judges awarded Dubreuil and Lauzon marks ranging from 5.1 to 5.7 for technical merit and from 5.3 to 5.8 for presentation for their original dance.

The duo currently stands in seventh-place after the original dance.

“At the beginning of the season we had trouble with that program because the two footworks were only level one, but since then we changed it a lot and we made it more difficult and faster,” said Dubreuil. “The elements are really strong, the spin is eight revolutions almost, the lifts are good. We really put a lot of attention and work into this program.”

Standing in first-place after the original dance is the Russian team of Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov, who were awarded one 6.0 for presentation.

The Bulgarian team of Albena Denkova and Maxim Stavisky, who won the bronze medal at last year’s World Championships, are in second-place, and Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov are in third.

Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe, the Canadian silver medallists, also performed well and are currently standing 11th. Wing, 28, and Lowe, 29, both of Vancouver, placed 12th at the 2003 World Championships, and their goal is to make the top-10 this year.

Wing and Lowe’s marks ranged from 4.7 to 5.3 for technical merit and from 4.7 to 5.6 for presentation.

In their first appearance at the World Championships, Josée Piché and Pascal Denis placed 24th in the original dance and are standing 24th overall heading into the free dance.

Their marks ranged from 3.7 to 4.2 for technical merit and from 3.8 to 4.4 for presentation.

Piché, 29, of Le Gardeur, Que., and Denis, 28, of Repentigny, Que., have been skating together for 17 years and are excited to be competing in the World Championships.

“We've waited so long for this opportunity that we want to make it special,” said Denis.

The free dance is set to take place on Friday evening. Piché and Denis will skate third, while Wing and Lowe have drawn to skate last in the third group, and Dubreuil and Lauzon will skate first in the second last group.