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'Skating With the Stars' reveals professional partners, host, color commentator
"Skating With the Stars" premieres on Nov. 22, and though ABC is keeping mum about the judges' panel, they've revealed 8 key players in the upcoming freshman season.
Team USA's all-time winningest ice dancer, Tanith Belbin, brings her expertise as color commentator, and British TV personality Vernon Kay will host. (For those not familiar with Kay, he's basically the male version of Cat Deeley).
As for the six professional skaters who've already been training with their celebrity partners, here they are:
Ethan Burgess and Bethenny Frankel: Burgess took bronze and pewter medals at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships 2004 and 2005 in pairs before playing Jon Heder's stunt double in "Blades of Glory."
Brooke Castile and Jonny Moseley: Castile took home the U.S. pairs title in 2007.
Keauna McLaughlin and Brandon Mychal Smith: McLaughlin won the same medals as Burgess, as the two used to be partners. She now competes, winning national titles, with Rockne Brubaker.
Fred Palascak and Rebecca Budig: Along with wife Melanie Lambert, Palascak is a two-time United States Eastern Sectional champion, who previously participated in the UK's similar series, "Dancing on Ice."
Denis Petukhov and Sean Young: Petukhov took home silver medals at the U.S. Championships for ice dancing from 2004 to 2007 and competed in the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.
Jennifer Wester and Vince Neil: Wester was crowned the 2007 Nebelhorn Trophy champion, which, we're told, is very prestigious.
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Photo credit: ABC
Team USA's all-time winningest ice dancer, Tanith Belbin, brings her expertise as color commentator, and British TV personality Vernon Kay will host. (For those not familiar with Kay, he's basically the male version of Cat Deeley).
As for the six professional skaters who've already been training with their celebrity partners, here they are:
Ethan Burgess and Bethenny Frankel: Burgess took bronze and pewter medals at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships 2004 and 2005 in pairs before playing Jon Heder's stunt double in "Blades of Glory."
Brooke Castile and Jonny Moseley: Castile took home the U.S. pairs title in 2007.
Keauna McLaughlin and Brandon Mychal Smith: McLaughlin won the same medals as Burgess, as the two used to be partners. She now competes, winning national titles, with Rockne Brubaker.
Fred Palascak and Rebecca Budig: Along with wife Melanie Lambert, Palascak is a two-time United States Eastern Sectional champion, who previously participated in the UK's similar series, "Dancing on Ice."
Denis Petukhov and Sean Young: Petukhov took home silver medals at the U.S. Championships for ice dancing from 2004 to 2007 and competed in the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.
Jennifer Wester and Vince Neil: Wester was crowned the 2007 Nebelhorn Trophy champion, which, we're told, is very prestigious.
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Photo credit: ABC
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Who?
Hmph. Never heard of any of those pros. But then, I never heard of any of the pro dancers on DWTS either.
Hahaha - I said "Who?" also. I would rather see Tanith Belbin as one of the professional instructors. I was excited to watch this, but now am thinking it might be a snoozefest.
Anyone who's been watching elite figure skating in the past few years should at the very least know Brooke and Keauna, since they're both national pairs champions. It's just that pairs is probably the least watched of all the competitive figure skating disciplines. Tanith is a retired ice dancer, not a pairs skater, and from what I've seen of previous iterations of this show, it's going to be a pairs competition. It's much, much harder to learn how to skate in a short amount of time than it is to learn how to dance...getting used to the skates can take years. I predict a train wreck.