Ice Dancers Tanith Belbin And Ben Agosto Take Aim At Fifth Straight National Title

With an Olympic silver medal and a bunch of U.S. titles already in their collection, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto would seem above the boring old basics.

Not so. Belbin and Agosto spent part of the off-season working on the very same things as tots who've just taken up ice dancing: warmup exercises, stroking skills and, those tedium of tediums, the compulsory dances.

"It's nothing that's very exciting or very fun to do," Agosto said. "But it's very important and, I feel, very beneficial, and I feel it's really paid off this season."

Considering everything Belbin and Agosto have accomplished, they'd be the last candidates for a refresher course. In addition to their silver from Turin - the first Olympic medal by a U.S. dance team since 1976 - they've medalled at the last three world championships. They haven't finished lower than third at an international competition since the 2004 world championships, where they were fifth.

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Source: The Canadian Press