Answer:
Judge and series creator Nigel Lythgoe agrees. "I love Cyrus. If it were just an out-and-out personality competition, he would have won hands down," Lythgoe said. "He celebrates dance. He is the epitome of the American dream for me. ... I think what America did with their votes there was say, 'OK, it's favorite dancer, and Chehon is more of a complete dancer.' So You Think You Can Dance has always been about, 'You're good at this style, but can you do all of these styles?'"
Murphy hopes the results bode well for future seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. "Well, I'm certainly hoping that we're going to get more [ballet] people trying out for the show because it's probably 1 percent that try out from ballet as compared to contemporary," she said. "Also, I hope that young people having an appreciation for what Chehon and Eliana do will be going to the ballet. I think they get it now."
Check out our interview below with the champs themselves:
Congratulations! What were your first thoughts when you heard Cat Deeley announce you were the winner?
Eliana Girard: "What's my name? Wait, what's my name? What just happened? What...?" I didn't expect it at all. I did not believe it. It was so unreal. You watch the show and you dream about it, but you never imagine it actually happening.
Chehon Wespi-Tschopp: I was like, "Oh my God, that was my name." I didn't expect to be the winner. I would have been fine with the runner-up position too because I feel it's a special place on this show making it as far as the finals. Any runner-up on this show has been an incredible dancer.
You've had an emotional time on the show. How has it changed you?
Wespi-Tschopp: I think the show did everything to me that I had hoped. It really turned me upside-down. It definitely helped me overcome my fears that I had. I left home at quite a young age, 13 or 14. I went to a ballet school that's extremely prestigious, and it was so hard for me. I had just started ballet and everyone else had been dancing for eight years. So I had catching up to do, and I was without my family, so I had to grow up pretty quickly. It kind of caused me to shield off a lot.
Fall TV: Must-see new shows
What routine or genre was the most challenging for you to tackle but turned out well this season?
Wespi-Tschopp: The samba and cha-cha because it's everything that I'm not. I feel like it's flamboyant, it's danced to music that I usually don't ever dance to. I don't even dance in a club. I stand there with my phone and a drink awkwardly. You've got to have confidence when you dance those kinds of Latin ballroom styles. I'm more of a paso doble, an Argentine tango person. I gained a lot of respect for any ballroom dancer.
Girard: What was really an awesome challenge was the group piece by Mia Michaels with the straps because I'm an aerialist. I absolutely love it. It was a really hard rehearsal because you have to choreograph certain wraps and do things right. It's a hit or miss. It's so painful. You get burns, you get bruises.
And you got to do a pole dance!
Giarad: Pole is one of my favorite apps. That was so amazing, kind of like a homecoming to where I am now. A misconception about pole-dancing: It's not sexual. Yes it's been used with that connotation, but what we do is not that. It truly is an art. There's transition and it has passion and the tricks — you've got the flexible tricks and the power tricks — it really is something that's underappreciated right now.
Can you look back and remember why you tried out for the show? Were you discouraged at the beginning?
Wespi-Tschopp: I was unfulfilled trying to dance in the ballet company. It was a big risk giving up my whole career to try out.
Girard: Oh my gosh, that audition line! That was so ridiculously long. I was in one of the last groups to go. But to have two ballet dancers win: It's fantastic, it's amazing, it's incredible, it's ridiculous. What I intended and hoped was that America would enjoy ballet the way we do, and that they would get a new eye-opener to it and see how amazing it is.
Step-by-step explanation: