Last Sunday I was in Lecco to see the first national dance competition, where Fede & Massi debuted their new FD. Luckily enough the competition was held a week later than originally scheduled, otherwise I would have missed it - I came back to Italy only on Saturday, and I'm going to stay here just for a week, then fly back to England for 2 more months [but this time I'll bring my laptop with me, eh eh ;) ].
It seems that every time I go to Lecco some kind of accident happens to me... this time a dog kept following me while I was walking to the rink, barking menacingly, and the stupid owner of the dog didn't do anything to keep it away from me, I feared he was going to bite me!.... Anyway, I managed to reach Palataurus safely :p Lots of people were still outside the rink, as the competition would have started about half an hour later, so I met with two friends and went to say hi to Barbara FP and her parents; her beautiful and sooooo cute baby Giorgia was there too, she's really an angel as she's always so quite and never cries.
My other friends were already inside the arena, and showed me some pics from the practice... so that I could prepare myself to Fede & Massi's costumes ^^;;
Ehm, what to say, ehm... my first reaction was like "Oh my goodness, what are they wearing??????????????" But once you get used to that colours the costumes don't look that awful anymore :p I mean, I'm not really convinced about their choice, especially for Massimo's trousers, but at least the cut of Federica's dress is very nice ;) *trying to find something positive to say*

Warm up
Warm up
Warm up
Warm up
Warm up

Let's move onto a much more important topic, that is, the new FD! As you probably already know, Federica & Massimo have chosen for this season's FD musics by Aretha Franklin [I don't remember the first piece, the 2nd one for the slow part is "natural woman" and the 3rd one is "think"]. This program has a different style from their previous FDs, it's like the single elements are more highlighted; they have a better posture, for example during spins, I'd say they pay more attention to little details. I love the choreographies, this FD has lots of energy in it! Overall it was a good performance, considering that it's still early in the season and that they've plenty of time to improve before the first GP competition. Maybe the first section should be faster, as the last one is, but they can work on it. The twizzles were ok; I especially like a spin where first Massimo is in Biellman, then in the second half of it Federica is in split position. Of course there's also a reverse lift [this is the 3rd version I see of it, they kept changing it to make it more difficult], with Federica in spread eagle, so that it can be counted as a level 3.

At the end of their skate it was time for another debut, the one of the new mascotte my friends and I made for them [to replace the chicken that Valter Rizzo used to throw to them after the FD]!!! Well, it should be a bunny, but somehow it looks like a mouse :p Each of us made one of the patches attached to the shirt or to the trousers, drawing, embroidering or just writing a message to Fede & Massi. We had already told them to wait for the new mascotte [the day before they were given the "instructions" to use it :p], so they were really curious to find out what it was, especially Federica. So, after their FD I threw the puppet to them, they posed with it for a pic, and after they left the ice Massimo kept bringing it everywhere!

Fede & Massi with the mascotte

The puppet also reached the podium, sitting in Massimo's cup while posing for the official photos ;) It seems they liked it a lot! They told us "It's a masterpiece!" lol !! The mascotte has already received its first present: Fede & Massi put around its neck one of their medals with the name and date of this competition, so that we'll remember its debut ;) Now it's up to them to find a name for it!

Podium
Podium
Podium
Podium - with the puppet!
Podium
Group pic
Group pic

The puppet with its 1st present!
Fede & Massi
Group pic

I'll add a few words about the rest of the competition. Agogliati & Pedrazzini came in 2nd, with a clean but not so difficult program skated to the notes of "Le feuilles mortes", which is quite nice, but not for the entire lenght of the FD... it becomes too monotonous and boring, especially if the program doesn't have many highlights. They looked elegant but a bit too slow.
Aureli & Vaturi ended 3rd, skating to "Fame" for their FD. Unfortunately they had some mistakes, especially Andrea, and this is a pity as the program is definitely more difficult than the one of A&P. The choreographies suit them perfectly and they have very interesting lifts. They were already 3rd after the OD - I haven't seen it, but people who were there thought they should have been in 2nd place. 
I think this is all, I'm very glad I could see Fede & Massi's FD, and can't wait to go to Paris to watch Trophée Bompard (but I keep calling it Lalique... ^^;;)!