Andrew Conway's reviews
Welcome Show
"...Vova and Olga were looking angry and depressed on stage. Since they are
quite professional enough not to look angry and depressed on stage unless they
want to, I suspect that this is the setup for a joke. They are still the best
club passers of all time...
...Vova wanders over to talk to me, so I ask him why he and Olga looked so
pissed off in the welcome show. He says they weren't trying to look pissed off,
they were trying to look like athletes. I think this juggling as athletics thing
cold go too far..."
Junior Clubs competition (Rules: Competitors must be 16 years old or younger. Competitors must perform their routines to music that is exactly 3 minutes in duration.)
"...In the club competition, however, he [Leo James] is clearly second to Olga Galchenko, who starts a little shakily with three clubs, but comes into her own when she gets up to five. I think she is the only competitor today to score more than six points, which means she would have won the intermediate clubs competition if she had entered that as well..."
Women's Division (The WJF Women’s Division Championships will exhibit some of the world’s best female jugglers competing against each other for the title of the 2004 WJF Women’s champion.)
"...Olga opens the women's section, with basically the same routine she did
in the intermediate clubs. This time there are fewer drops until late in the
routine, but she still seems down and depressed. In any event, she scores 8.28.
Gena rocks with three and five clubs, including some great
kickups. Some of her tricks are of Anthony difficulty, and she looks much better
doing under the leg with five clubs than Anthony does. That's because she keeps
her knee straight and her toe pointed. Can’t you people think about anything but
sex? She scores a stunning 9.83.
Cindy Marvell closes the show. She does three, four and five
clubs. I particularly like her four club work, but it's not really in the same
class as Gena. She scores a respectable 7.09..."
3 club 360's (Rules: A total of 5 competitors will have 1 minute to get as many 3 club 3 up 360's as possible. Any amount of rotations of the club is accepted. Two stage 360's are not acceptable. Multiple spins under all 3 clubs is acceptable. For example, a 3 up 720 will be accepted as two 360's.)
"...Why is it that every single person in the three club pirouette competition is doing pirouettes with single spins? OK, two people did triples, including Gena, reprising the red fishnet tights, who came second. Vova came first with 37 pirouettes in on minute. As he put it, "No vomiting, no sweating, just perfect pirouettes." Oh, yes, and he seems to be using his grown up name, Vladimir, now..."
5 club 360's (Rules: A total of 5 competitors will have 1 minute to get as many 5 club 5 up 360's as possible. Any amount of rotations of the club is accepted. Two stage 360's are not acceptable. Multiple spins under all 5 clubs is acceptable. For example, a 5 up 720 will be accepted as two 360's.)
"...The five club pirouette competition (five high) was a bit of a joke. Jason tried hard, and with a couple of drops got seven. Gena did one, perfectly, because she did not want to embarrass the men by beating them. Tomas Deitz did six and then started goofing around. Vova did ten, perfectly, and stopped at the forty five second mark. Penn asks him, "What is the Russian for smug?"..."
Main Club Event (Rules: Each competitor will have 3 minutes to execute a club juggling routine.)
"...Jason is the first competitor in the advanced
clubs competition. I thin we are seeing a pattern developing here. He drops a
lot with three, gets it together with four and only drops once with five. He
weighs in at 7.86 decibels.
Peter Gerber is big on flats. He manages a Mills Mess, back crosses, four clubs,
and five clubs with flats. He also shows us five club back crosses and a bunch
of great and original three club moves. There are too many drops in his routine
however, and he only manages 7.08 on the laughometer.
Toby Walker also demonstrates three, four and five clubs with singles and flats,
as well as some strangely ugly four club patterns in which each club appears to
have a random number of spins unrelated to the other clubs in the pattern. He
finishes with a run of six clubs and lurches in the lead with a respectable
8.74.
Now it's Vova's turn. He puts in an amazing performance with three to six clubs.
His five club tricks include going straight from a five high pirouette to five
club singles, and then doing a three up pirouette, all with singles. There may
have been a drop or two in there but I don't remember them. He gets Kirschel
number 9.41.
Thomas Deitz is still having far too much fun. He shows us some great five club
moves, along with some excursions into three and four, but he is no match for
Vova. He tips the scale at 8.14 stone.
I guess Vova is too young to rate an air kiss, but he gets the medal anyhow..."
5 Club Moves (Rules: A total of 5 competitors will have 3 minutes to attempt their most difficult moves with 5 clubs. Competitors will get credit for as many moves as they pull off. Drops do not count against the competitors. Only successful attempts will be credited. The competitor who demonstrates the greatest total point value by executing the most difficult moves will win.)
"...Next up is the five club moves competition. At
this point the battery in my laptop died, so my we're relying on my memory of
what happened next. My memory is one part forgetfulness, one part acid
flashback, one part wishful thinking, and I can't remember the other part.
I seem to remember that once again Jason goofed around and blamed his props,
Vova was stunning, Thomas (or was it Toby) did a couple of cool things, and Gena
did one trick but it was way cool. She balanced a club on her face, juggled
four, and then did a two up pirouette while maintaining the balance. She nearly
pulled off a four up pirouette with the balance, too. Vova won of course..."
6 Club Passing (Rules: A team consisting of 2 jugglers will have 3 minutes to execute enough levels of difficulty with 6 clubs passing to qualify for the competition.)
"...Next up is six club passing. Vova and Olga open
with a flawless and incredibly difficult routine. It's pretty similar to the
stuff they did in Buffalo, but I think the nine club singles is new. They only
score 9.95 because they caught one of the clubs by the wrong end or something.
In fact the judges have given up the computerized scoring system (nobody but Ben
can understand it, and he's still mewling and puking) and they are just making
up numbers as they go along. I guess they need the spare 0.05 in case Anthony
Gatto and the ghost of Enrico Rastelli enter at the last minute. Olga tells me
later that she and her brother have not really practiced together in four
months. I have kids of about the same ages, and the thing that amazes me is that
they still speak to each other from time to time.
After that, the other two teams can relax and have fun as they have already
lost. Thorsten Barucha and Philip Prochnow are great solo jugglers, but they
have only been working together for four months. They have some cool tricks, but
drop on too many of them. Sorry, I didn't write down their score.
Team Rootberry are Team Rootberry. They can't help being entertaining even when
they are trying to be athletic. They're obviously having lots of run, too..."
7+ club passing (Rules: A team consisting of two jugglers will have three minutes to execute enough levels of difficulty with a minimum of 7 clubs (no upper limit).)
"...On to the last competition of the day. It's the seven and more club passing orgy. Olga and Vova put in another perfect routine with up to ten clubs. The judges must be getting blasé about this, as they only get 9.8someting this time, and once again Thorsten and Philip and Root and Berry can show off without any fear of winning anything..."
Vova Exhibition & Olga Exhibition
"...Today was exhibition
day. All the official TV cameras are gone from the theater. Various top jugglers
got an hour or so to show off the tricks that only work some of the time...
Vova is next up. He juggles three to five clubs. One three club move I liked was
going straight from a double pirouette three high into solid Albert throws. With
five clubs someone suggests that he try a three stage pirouette: throw five
high, pirouette, catch two, pirouette, throw two, catch two, pirouette, throw
two, catch the fifth club and go back into five clubs. It's insanely difficult,
and he's never done it before. He tries it several times. We can see him getting
closer and closer it. He starts getting tired, and sometimes kicks the last club
backstage if he can't catch it. He's obviously hangs out with Jason too much.
Finally, after about twenty five minutes, he pulls it off.
Listen, Vova, I know you're reading this. That was the ugliest three stage
pirouette I've ever seen. And that's no way to practice. Break the trick down
into its component parts, work on each part separately, and then put them back
together. Don't just go straight for a trick that is right at the limit of your
ability, you will spend too much time just reinforcing bad habits. Do you really
practice like that when you are on your own, or were you just trying to impress
a bunch of jugglers by learning something most of us could never dream of doing?
Oh, and congratulations on getting it. You impressed the hell out of me, anyhow.
Vova used up all the stage time that was allotted to his sister, as well. That
was fine with her, as she did not really want to perform. In spite of being one
of the greatest club passers of all time, one of the best teenage jugglers in
the world, and one of the best female jugglers in the world, (not to mention
cute as a button) she has this idea that nobody is interested in watching her.
You rock Olga. We all want to watch you..."
"> You rock Olga. We all
want to watch you.
Second the motion. And I have a daughter Olga's age who thinks she's the coolest
thing ever." (Greg Phillips)
"And I`m sick of other teenage male jugglers telling me how much they're in love with her. Get a life, guys." (Stephen Bent)
Individual Endurance Competition (Rules: A total of 5 competitors for each prop category will attempt to juggle more objects than their opponents for a longer period of time. Each competitor will have 2 minutes to get their best run with whatever number they are attempting.)
"...Next there is a numbers juggling competition. The rules are pretty similar to the IJA, except that runs that are longer than qualifying are supposed to be timed and not counted. However, after the six club part, the judges give up on timing and go back to counting. The best times with six clubs are Vova with 32.9 seconds, Thomas with 21.0 seconds, and Toby with 17.6 seconds and a clean finish. Everyone moves on to seven clubs, where Toby gets 30 catches. I think Vova gets a qualifying run as well, but it was less than 30 catches and the judges did not announce the count..."
Vova & Olga Exhibition
"...The morning starts with a Vova and Olga demo. They
pull off some amazing stuff which I will describe later, and are clearly barely
on speaking terms. Having two teenagers of similar ages myself, I think it's
impressive that they are willing to be in the same room with each other, let
along juggle together. At one point an extremely rule heckler tells them to
smile. Vova manages a grimace, but Olga completely ignores me. They really need
to take Thomas's workshop on having fun on stage.
On to a partial list of the tricks.
* Eight club singles, throw all eight high, both pirouette, back into eight
singles.
* Nine club one count
* Nine clubs back to back, then Vova takes five of them an goes into a
synchronous siteswap which Mistress Siggy assures me is (6x,4)(4,6x).
* Ten clubs, throw six high, both pirouette, continue ten clubs
* Seven club one count with single spins.
* Five club runarounds, then change direction and go the other way.
* Eight club one count with Vova doing continuous back crosses.
* Ten club one count with Vova throwing triples and Olga singles.
* Olga stands behind Vova, both juggling five clubs, then they exchange clubs.
* Eleven clubs. I counted 48 passes caught, and a clean finish.
* Simultaneous kick ups from eight clubs to ten clubs.
* Nine club one count with single spins.
They finish at my request with a reprise of their competition routine..."
"...Earlier today Thorsten, Vova and Toby made attempts on the six club world record. The best attempt was Vova with an unofficial time of 36 seconds, just ahead of Throsten with 35 seconds. There may be more record attempts in the gym after the show tonight."
Club Passing Competition (Rules: A total of 5 competitors for each prop category will attempt to juggle more objects than their opponents for a longer period of time. Each competitor will have 2 minutes to get their best run with whatever number they are attempting.)
"...The club passing competition was won by Vova and Olga with a run of 23 seconds with 11 clubs. I counted 86 passes caught, but I may be out by one or two. Peter Kaseman and Darin Marriott were second with a run of 60 or 70 passes caught. I lost count on that one and the time was not announced..."
"...I take Olga Galchenko out to dinner at an Italian
restaurant at Circus Circus. While we are waiting for a table, we wander round
their indoor theme park and the midway with the free circus acts...
Olga and Vova are currently living in Boulder with Peggy Reuss. Olga misses her
parents, especially her father, but she talks to him often and she is very glad
she came to America. She says that school here is really strange. The teachers
and pupils are friendly, and the pupils do not treat the teachers with respect.
Her favorite subjects are mathematics and physics, because they just make sense.
We agree that biology and chemistry are not as good because you have to remember
stuff.
She is not sure if she wants to be a juggler when she grows up. She would like
to get paid for doing mathematics. I suggest that she consider computer
programming, which at its best is remarkably like mathematics and pays a lot
better..."
Highlights Show
"...After Jason, Vova does a solo act as a medical
experiment. Every time he drops the mad scientists feed him more drugs...
Olga proves that she can smile on stage, as she and Vova do their act with the
stage characters they used in Buffalo. She looks very perky in her pink dress,
and they get a well deserved standing ovation..."