She isn't favoured by Robin. I think he's very rude to Hayley about her 'fake face'

Beth to win? Not beyond the realms of possibility, seems popular with the public despite seeming to have performed below par.

Ray's good without doubt but there's something very grating about him.

Kyran Bracken's remarks on This morning about the marking and who should win were interesting

What did he say?

He said that Ray is fantastic and not to take anything away from him but Kyran felt Sam is under marked and has the complete package. (I disagree to some extent as he lacks connection with his partner IMO and lacks personality). He also said that Beth obviously has a good public vote and could be a surprise winner. This view was undermined rather when they revealed the viewer poll where Ray had 73% of the viewer vote. Polls are not necessarily indicative of course of actual votes but that is a high percentage! Kyran also said he felt that Suzanne was the one who could have challenged Ray in a Bolero!

from his comments today and tweets i've seen by Suzanne and pros i think people feel Sam is the better skater, I don't I agree

Jeff Brazier criticized Ray for the lack of lifts but I get tired seeing too many lifts

I would dismiss anything Jeff Brazier says frankly - why they have him as the tame expert defeats me! Ray doesn't need big lifts at all - he can DANCE on ice! Most routines get disjointed with lifts which do not necessarily fit the music anyway. Everyone should play to their strengths IMO.

I saw the DOI section on This Morning but have not read the tweets, however, there seems to be a bit jealousy in the DOI camp which is a real shame.

Jeff annoys me, every week hes gone on about how good Ray is and then this week said Sam is the best

I agree about the lifts, Kyran seems to think Sam is the better skater but then I think Kyran focuses on lifts too much. Its hard to know as Kyran has been skating for a long time and knows a lot but I find it weird that Robin and Karen would not pick up on it if Sam was skating better

Ray can do lifts, we've seen them but he tends not to do them and i enjoy watching him because of that, his routine this week never stopped with steps and feel that would have been ruined if big lifts were included.

Its not like with Hayley where the performance is a substitute for skating, he skates with great difficulty. and Robin commented on that last night. I don think Ray should have had more content in the solo but then that isn't his fault.

I would be interested to see what Chris and Jayne thought about the level of difficulty of routines

Ray has responded to Jeff on twitter saying he'll lift Maria more, I hope he does just to silence some of his critics.

http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/suzann...103526429.html Suzanne saying similar to Kyran in a way, that Sam is equal to Ray in skating. Basically saying it should have been a Beth and Hayley skate off.

He also talked about puzzling marking with routines of increased difficulty being marked lower than performance strong easy routines even when they miss a whole lift out.

I disagree too with Jeff about Ray and lack of lifts. He can dance on ice so why do lift after lift? Watching the ice dancers in Sochi I was surprised at how few lifts they do relatively. Ray, I think, resembles their style the closest. Mind you, the Olympjc Ince dancers didn't seem to gurn or do jazz hands either!

Usually I find the lifts the least interesting part of the routines. They're too often used as a get-out for male contestants with no rhythm but plenty strength, and females who aren't great skaters or dancers but can strike a lovely pose. I'm not suggesting there is no skill in lifting - and a great, well-timed lift is fabulous - but I think they're over used on DOI.
The 'flying' is even worse, though. Loads of posing and very little skating. Why do they bother?

What's Jeff Brazier's area of expertise anyway, aside from being the former partner of the late Jade Goody?
Ray is getting trained by Torvill and Dean and being marked (very highly) by Robin Cousins and Karen Barber. If they're satisfied with the content of his routines, I think perhaps Jeff's professional advice can be confidently dispensed with.

Jeff was a contestant on dancing on ice once but I agree that he does not have the expertise.

It was more Kyran and Suzanne's comments i noticed. If Robin and Karen weren't giving such high marks to Hayley then I wouldnt question their marks but as it is I find it hard to trust their marks

Competitive ice dancers don't do high lifts. Pair skaters do.

DOI has never been specifically ne or the other. More like adagio skating, which is something of a hybrid.

They're giving him judge pleasing routines, and audience pleasing ones. His vote has not been tested to know if they are also viewer pleasing.

What they are not giving him are routines that truly test him, IMO.

How do we know that though? To the uninitiated or non-expert audience it may seem so, but I was interested to hear Robin say after Ray and Maria's pairs skate that "that was so difficult and so pushed through"! So clearly there are more and more technically difficult things he is doing which are being picked up by the skating judges and which are maybe subtle and not so obvious? It is not just big lifts and jumps which are more difficult although clearly from his 80s routine he can do a wide variety of jumps and he can do lifts too. Changes of edge, flow and speed across the ice are maybe among the things the skating judges are picking up on?

I just think too much time is wasted on gyrating, posing, etc. it's a waste of his apparent talent.

I don't think there is a conspiracy to give some skaters rubbish routines and others "crowd pleasing" easy ones: it's just too complicated and time consuming. Why alienate the public? What's the benefit of that? In the end, they will vote as they wish, so why try to influence this - it makes no sense at all.

It's my belief that 'they' tend to give them what they can do (when the contestants aren't choreographing their own routines, which seems to go on a fair bit.) Kyran wasn't much of a dancer but was excellent and carrying partners around upside down and going very fast. Hayley isn't as good a skater as some of the others but is good at the performing/acting side - hence so much toe-pick dancing and lifts. Beth: not a great dancer but a decent skater and - surprise, surprise - wonderfully agile in lifts and tricks, so we've seen quite a lot of her doing those. Sam and Ray are the best dancers (IMO), and Sam is taller and seems stronger than Ray, so handles lifts well, too. Ray does great jumps and spins. I'd say that Sam was given the most 'crowd-pleasing' routine of the season so far last week - to Happy. Unfortunately for him, the public just doesn't seem to like him, which is a great pity.

See above - I think Sam looks like he's being tested whether the is or not because a lot is packed into the routine that is visible as being about skating. Ray seems to get a lot of posing, gyrating etc to do - I really don't understand why, if he is indeed so capable.

By that analysis, though, Sam is being given the crowd-pleasing routine that's packed with impressive content, while Ray is just 'posing and gyrating'.
Certainly there was posing and gyrating in Ray's routine, but there were also very difficult spins and jumps that I haven't seem from the others. For what it's worth, I think that Sam deserves to be in second place with on the leaderboard and in the votes, but sadly for him that's not happening.

Looking at the solo skates last night neither girl was anywhere near the quality of the boys. It will be a farce if either of them wins this competition, I hope the GBP remember that it is supposed to be a skating competetion not a popularity poll. Sadly I think they wont.

He made top 5 the year Sam won and actually went out to Sam in the skate off

Ray is so good that he makes it all look easy, That doesn't mean that he isn't being tested.

I can and do deny that he is a fantastic skater.

He may be the best DOI has seen, but that doesn't make him a fantastic skater.

Adagio skating takes the difference between pairs and ice dance even further, rather than being a hybrid or somewhere in between. From Wikipedia:

Adagio skating, a form of pair skating most commonly seen in ice shows, where the skaters perform many acrobatic lifts but few or none of the other elements which competitive pairs must perform.