Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder's "The Piano" movie soundtrack

This week's theme is Le Fantastique Français (The Fantastic French.)

Dear readers,

Due to time constraints, I won't have time this evening to go as in-depth with my post about Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder as I have about the other French skaters I've written about this week. That is in no way a reflection on Isabelle and Olivier being less interesting,accomplished, and wonderful than the others. I hope to write about Isabelle and Olivier another time in the future, at which point, I can give them a write up that they deserve.

Isabelle, born in Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme and Olivier born in Belfort, France, began skating together at a young age. They skated together for more than two decades before announcing their retirement after the Olympics in Vancouver in February. Isabelle and Olivier are the 2007 European Champions, and the 2008 Grand Prix Final and World Champions. They missed the 2009 skating season due to Isabelle's shoulder injury, and then Isabelle announced that she was pregnant, causing the team to miss training and all of the season leading up to the Olympics last fall. Isabelle gave birth to her son, Loic, on Oct. 1, then resumed training for the 2010 Olympics, where they finished 6th. It was not the placement they were hoping for, but with the circumstances, it was respectable.

Isabelle and Olivier skated this beautiful, intricate free dance to the poignant, haunting soundtrack of the movie "The Piano" to capture the gold medal during the 2008 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweeden.

The film "The Piano," according to Internet Movie Database is about "a mute woman along with her young daughter, and her prized piano, are sent to 1850s New Zealand for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, and she's soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation."

Isabelle and Olivier stayed very true to the film in their on-ice portrayal. I haven't seen the film, but apparently one of the characters in the movie has a tattoo on his neck, which is why Olivier has (an artificial) one on his neck for this program. Isabelle and Olivier also include sign language throughout this skate. At the start they both sign, "Watch our program, we will tell you our story." I love the sign language. Love the music, love the skating, love the edge control, love the program!! One of my favorite highlights is around the 1 min. 8 seconds to 1 min. 14 seconds mark where they both become parallel to the ice. Tres beau! J'adore!

Amusez-vous!