Dance Fever

There's a delicious duel for global ice dance supremacy already brewing.
And we're still a month away from the Tokyo world championships.
Yes, I'm talking about ice dance.
And no, this isn't a misprint.
Consider what's gone on at the two major competitions that act as table setters (although not necessarily predictors) for the world championships. Two weeks ago, reigning world ice dance champs Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski finished third at the European championships in Warsaw. Knocking them off were gold medallists Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France, and the newest Russian sensations, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, who took the silver.
The Bulgarians were third in all three phases of the event. Domnina and Shabalin won the free dance, while the French were tops in the compulsories and the original dance.
Now, there's tonight's result in Colorado Springs, which saw Canadians Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon recover from a stumble in the original dance (that knocked them back to second) to take the gold in a sizzling battle with Americans Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto.
To build the intrigue a little more, let's line up the scores (and you can do that now with the current system) that the Fab Five posted at the two major competitions.
Europeans: Delobel/Schoenfelder, 199.47; Domnina/Shabalin, 199.16; Denkova/Staviski, 193.73.
Four Continents: Dubreuil/Lauzon, 198.59; Belbin/Agosto, 196.98.
In other words, one misplaced step here or there, and you can go from first to fifth in a hurry.
So yes, it's looking very much like race for the 2007 world crown is — wait for it — wide open.
And when's the last time we could say that about ice dance?
Yes, ice dance.