Australia’s ice dance competitors at the 2004 World Figure Skating Championships have performed well in the Compulsory Dance qualifying round. Dancing to the “Midnight Blues”, Natalie Buck and Trent Nelson Bond are placed 25th leading into the second round – the Original Dance. They need to finish in the top 24 to make it through to the Free Dance final on Friday evening.

Leading the field are the Russian team of Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov and Bulgarians Albena Denkova and Maxim Goncharov.

In the Men’s Short program, Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko leads the field, from Frenchman, Brian Joubert and Germany’s Stefan Lindermann. Canada’s Emanuel Sandhu and Russian Ilia Klimkin both missed compulsory elements and have slipped in the field, while Johnny Weir and Michael Weiss from the USA pulled up, as did Switzerland’s Stephane Lambial.

Today, the Ladies event commences. Australia is represented by Miriam Manzano who is skating strongly in practice. Miriam has had a good competitive year and is keen to regain the form which saw her place 16th at the 2002 World Championships. (Story courtesy of Michael Santer, OzSkater Magazine)