Siblings face tough act to sizzle on ice

They bicker like any other brothers and sisters but several ice dance couples will have to put aside sibling rivalry to perform some passionate routines at the Vancouver Olympics.

This year's compulsory dance is the Tango Romantica, a sizzling story more suited to lovers than blood relatives, and four family couples will have a lot of acting to do when they perform it in the first of the three parts of the ice dance combination.  

"It's more problematic to show romantic dances as brother and sister," Roman Zaretsky, who represents Israel with his sister Sasha, said. 

"But there are so many positive things about skating together -- we don't need to talk sometimes, we just squeeze each other's hands if we need to change something in the competition and that's because we know each other so well." 

British siblings John and Sinead Kerr actively avoid the romantic dances where they have the choice in the original and free dances, this year portraying a hitch hiker and truck driver in one dance and a recovering drug addict in another.

"It tends to make you look for different ways to show something on the ice, you almost try to steer clear of the more romantic dances and try and think of a different way of showing a relationship on ice, we''ve done aliens before," said John. 

Skating together for most of their lives makes their coordination more intuitive, Germany's Christina Beier said about working with her brother William. 

"We don't have to work for the similar movement, it's just we are brother and sister and we know each other and we do everything the same on the ice," Christina said. 

The pair split for a season and competed with different partners after Christina came back from injury but joined up again last year when they realised they worked better together.                                           

"With another partner, we had to work hard, watch videos and our legs are not the same. All this we don't have to work at, it's natural," she said.                                           

The Beiers said siblings probably argued more than other couples as they know what buttons to press to annoy the other and the Zaretskys said the main thing was not to bring disagreements to training. 

"Everybody argues -- husbands and wives, couples, skaters, partners, coaches. Whatever happens on the ice we don''t bring it home and the opposite, whatever happens at home we don't bring it on to the ice. There is a trust between us," said Roman. 

The other sibling couple competing in Vancouver are American-born Cathy and Chris Reed, who are representing Japan while their sister Allison goes against them in the same competition representing Georgia.

No brother and sister team has won Olympic gold in ice dance although siblings Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay took silver at the 1992 Albertville Games for France.