Michelle competed in the Japan Open on Tuesday. As always, I won't post the results here in case you don't want to be spoiled. It airs in early Feb. Check my TV schedule for more details. Michelle skated to "A Day in the Life" for her short program, and her new program, "Hands" for the interpretive free program. You can see pictures from this new program below. You can also see in the pictures that her hair is growing out. I really like the way it looks. :-) For more information on the competition, check out the following articles, reports, and pictures:

• Spoiler Articles and Reports (contain results)
  • Wonderful Odyssey
  • AP article
  • Short Program Results (contains marks and ordinals)
  • Interpretive Free and Final Results (contains marks and ordinals)

   

• A Day in The Life pictures (no spoilers)
  • Pose
  • Spiral

• Hands pictures (no spoilers)
  • Another spiral

• USFSA Winter Pro-am Results
• AP article

Now, info on Michelle's new short program for the 1999-2000 season! She is skating to the Jeff Beck version of the Beatles song "A Day in the Life." Listen to a real audio clip of the music. You can also listen to the full Beatles version of the song. According to the AP article, her costume is a "sparkling red dress with silver slashes."

Magenta wrote the following review of the program on the MK Forum. (Thanks Magenta!)

Her short program was to a contemporary music and somewhat to an upbeat tone. There are parts that the music slows and soften and there are parts that soar and more upbeat/fast/powerful...I found her program to be very powerful and sexy. Sexy moves like shrugging her shoulders (same as Carmen) several times, snap glances, quick turns were all throughout the program...Her footwork is in straight line, fast steps. Her layback spin is gorgeous. This time, her free-extended leg position was done all the way through without putting down like that of R&J program. IMO, this is much better. However, her arm position is still the same as that of R&J program, which is wrapped around her waist. She did her usual sit spin, martini glass spin, extended arm position spin variations nicely. Her spin was so centered that you just gasps for breath by watching. I found her spins to have improved so much this season, not only the positioning but the speed of her revolution is much much faster than we used to see from her. Her Kwan Spiral was placed after the last jump and as it is known to be the highlights of her program, was executed with such elegance that it was indeed beyond comparison.

Her costume is gorgeous!! It is in scarlet red!! Very elegant, somewhat sexy and more show bizzish. Left arm is sleeveless and the right arm is in long sleeve. Imagine the costume Maria Bute has for her tango number wherein one arm is in red and the other side is gray. Michelle's was sleeveless instead of gray. The top part of the costume is very nicely designed. It has this "big eye shape" carved all over the top with some kind of organza fabric (still the same scarlet red) underneath instead of directly her flesh, and then these "eye shapes carved" has red sequins sewn around the carves. The red sequins glitters nicely as she skates. Her skirt is somewhat similar to the Rach outfit. The entire outfit is in scarlet red, with a soft light clingy fabric. It is very flattering on her because it emphasized her gorgeous supermodel figure. I assure you all, you are going to like this one!!

For her interpretive free (the skaters only skated one program), Michelle skated to Kissing You, from the 1996 movie William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet sung by Des'ree. Listen to the song on Real Audio! Here's what someone said on rssif about Michelle's program:

The Romeo and Juliet number was a female vocal with guitar background. Very soulful...Her dress was lavender. Gauze (lavender) fabric covered covered the top of her outfit and flowed into long sleeves.

Check out two pictures Caroline sent me of Michelle's new program, Kissing You, from the Keri Lotion Classic. You can also check out a another picture of Michelle, courtesy of Linda, housed by Jenny's server.

The following elements were done in Michelle's program, according to Eda, posted on FSW:

Michelle did 2 axel, 3 lutz, combination spin with 2 different "shotglass" variations, circular spiral sequence, 3 sal, layback regular into a more extended [straightened out] leg position, 3 toe, Charlotte back split spiral into back attitude position into another spin.