Figure Skating

The Grand Prix has kicked off so the skating season has finally begun! Well, the senior season...the juniors have been going for a month now. Anyway, Skate America is almost over and I find myself really, really annoyed that NBC isn't showing more of the competition, and that I don't get Universal Sports or Ice Network.

Curious to see the new crop of Russian baby ballerinas seeing as how Yu Na Kim and Miki Ando have announced they're sitting out the season. Will this be Mirai Nagasu's year to step up and be the face of ladies skating in the US? Will Davis and White be able to defend their World gold medal?

I love the Virtue/Moir and Davis/White rivalry. I really think its positive and makes them both work harder.

Also I am one of the few people who likes Patrick Chan. And I really home Mirai gets it together. I love her.

I absolutely love Virtue and Moir and thought their free dance during the Olympics was genius. They and Davis/White are my favorite ice dance teams.

Curious to see how the pairs competition ends up at Skate America. Seems Savchenko/Szolkowy tried to do a throw 3Axel and botched it. Did they learn nothing from Inoue/Baldwin??

Oh Inoue/Baldwin. Well, they are a much better team then them. Not that its THAT difficult to be.

I am sad Dube/Davison ended their partnership. They never fulfilled their potential imo, but when they were on they could be stunning to watch, because of their emotional connection. The gossiper in me wonders what role their actual break up two years ago played in it. I've heard a lot of rumor about it.

I continue to hope Czisny can get two clean programs in a row together.

So are Virtue/Moir dating? Because they are super-cute.

They claim they are not and hes dating Dube but everyone know they are in love and will end up married with a bunch of figure skating progeny.

So, anybody watching the Grand Prix Series? I just watched the FD at Cup of Russia. I like W/P's dance, overdramatik! excess and all. Love D/W's FD, uberconservative though it is. I admired V/M so much for branching out last year, doing something different. And now they've fallen back into this "smoothness, elegance, romance" thing they have. They're brilliant at it, no doubt. It just seems that they've done too many variations on that throughout their career...

I'm sorry, I think Patrick Chan is an amazing skater, and I do think he should have won the Men's gold, but not by THAT MUCH. Daisuke Takahashi was brilliant during his LP (not counting the quad toe) and should have won that portion of the competition. I just don't understand why the judges think Chan can do no wrong.

And in more Canadian scandal (were rarer words ever spoken?), Scott Moir mouthed off in an interview and basically insinuated that he and Tessa Virtue were better artistic skaters than Meryl Davis and Charlie White and should have won the Dance title. Obviously forgetting that he fell on his butt during the short dance and D/W did not make mistakes. Sorry, but I love D/W and their original dance this season and they skate it lights out. Not that I don't like V/M and their Astaire program, I do, I just think they're being outskated.

I think the problem with the judging for Chan comes in when he faces someone like Takahashi who for me is in no way inferior in skating skills, choreography (I think he's superior there, actually...), performance, technique etc. yet still the judges insist on giving Chan more at all times. Not much more, but more. IMO that's wrong.

As for Moir...I don't get this, to be honest. They lost the FD by such a little margin, it was basically a tie. And he did fall in the SD. When two pairs are this close in skills, a mistake like that is deadly. As for them being superior "artists" than D/W...perhaps a few years ago. Though I would argue that they were always smoother and more elegant, while D/W had a tendency towards too much wildness. I'm not sure I agree that they were ever "better" at interpreting their programs, just different. IMO D/W have gotten more controlled in their skating, and improved on other aspects as well, so now the judges basically seem to see the two pairs as tied. I'm sorry that V/M had setbacks through injuries etc., but just because V/M were clearly better at one point, doesn't mean that they are now. They can be again, why not? But, for me at least, they aren't at the moment.

Takahashi's "Blues For Klook" LP is swoon-worthy. I know some people who don't like the music, but DT makes it work. And I think he's only one of a handful of skaters that could. The choreography is just...yummy. LOL Also, color me extremely impressed with Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu and Spain's Javier Fernandez. Fernandez can rip off quad jumps like they're nothing. He's also becoming a Brian Orser mini-me which is kinda cute.

Normally I'm least interested in the men's skaters, but there are quite a few guys this season I really enjoy watching. I think my least favorite discipline this quad is going to be pairs. The US sucks in pairs and when we do get two skaters together that have potential, they have a spat and break up. It's really annoying.

The ladies are also letting me down and not just in the US. While I've really disliked Carolina Kostner in the past, her programs this season seem to be much improved and she's also improved her technique to where she doesn't look like a deer in the headlights. I hope Mao Asada will be able to rise above the loss of her mother and continue competing, but I could completely understand if she decided to hang it up. Bless her heart. Much as I love Alissa Czisny and Mirai Nagasu, who knows if their heads will be screwed on straight at Nationals? Rachel Flatt needs to retire and go to Stanford. Trying to do both isn't working.

Michelle Kwan is the only inductee this year to the USFS Hall of Fame. I wish Rudy was getting inducted this year too because the ceremony will be in San Jose and that's where he won his National title the same year MK won her first. But I can see why the USFS decided to induct Michelle alone. She'd overshadow any other inductee this year no matter how worthy they are. Plus, I imagine they're looking forward to not having to deal with e-mail after e-mail asking why Michelle isn't in the HoF yet.

Worlds is now over and the only bright spots for US skaters were Davis/White and Ashley Wagner. (Okay, the pairs teams weren't bad...both finished in the top 10 so that's certainly an improvement.)

I have no idea what's going on with Alissa Czisny, but finishing in 22nd place is unacceptable. I don't know if she's injured or if it's something psychological, but I think it's time to retire. She's got two national titles and a Grand Prix Final win. It's more than a lot of skaters get. Time to join Stars On Ice and not worry about jumps or competition anymore.

Same statement goes for Jeremy Abbott. I know he's not injured, but he can't compete either. And I'm getting tired of the USFS sending delicate headcases to major competitions.

...Holy crud, I was so preoccupied with my new job that I forgot about Worlds. I missed Worlds for the first time since 1990.

I missed Daisuke's Blues for Klook! I love that music. Usova and Zhulin's exhibition version of their Blues for Klook program is one of my all-time favorites.

I'm going tomorrow to Nationals to see the women's free skate! I've never seen live figure skating before. I'm excited. And super rusty/not up on my figure skating. Anyone in particular I should be watching out for? I think I'm going to try and seriously bone up at lunch.

Ashley Wagner is the two time defending champion. She's currently in fourth place. Gracie Gold leads after the short. Gracie has impressive jumps but they can abandon her in competition. Gracies switched coaches at the beginning of the season to Frank Carroll. Those two got the US that third spot back last year and seem to be the consensus candidates for the Olympic team but with COP you never know. I'd be very surprised if they didn't make it though.

Mirai Nagasu is in third place and she is maddingly inconsistent. When that girl is on she can very charming and charismatic - she came in fourth at the Vancouver Olympics--but she also has a tendency to give up on a program rather than fight if she makes a mistake. She has problems with underrotating her jumps.

I'd like to say I'm jealous and I wish I was there. Like, a lot.

Watching all the skaters live is incredible but it's usually the last six skaters who will be competing for the medals and Olympic team placements. So keep a close eye on Gracie Gold, Polina Edmunds, Mirai Nagasu, Ashley Wagner, Ashley Cain, and Christina Gao.

I figure Wagner is a lock for the team (even if she is currently sitting in fourth) due to her being the most consistent US ladies skater the last quad. Gracie looks on par to get her first national title if she doesn't choke tomorrow night. It's the third spot where it's going to be really interesting. If they skate lights out, do they send Mirai, who finished just off the podium in Vancouver and who judges will happily score high if she'd fully rotate her jumps but has been a major head case since 2010; or Polina, who has monster jumps and has done very well on the Junior Circuit this season but has no Senior international experience? And what happens if they bomb and Ashley Cain or Christina Gao skate a blinder?

In today's non-shocking news, Ashley Wagner is going to the Olymlpics, despite falling twice, not medaling, and scoring 8 points less than Mirai.

I think if they were going to shaft somebody (which, if Ashley didn't make the top 3, seemed fairly inevitable), it should've been the 15-year-old who just moved up from juniors. She did do an amazing job with both programs at nationals, but she also has years of competition ahead of her, and doesn't have the experience, plus only just makes the age cutoff. It would just look slightly less... predetermined.

At least Wagner was in 4th and not 10th.

Well, I guess we have our answer. So, last night was really fun, and Mirai Nagasu got a standing ovation and seemed so happy to be in third and then today she got bumped for Ashley Wagner. I am far from an expert, clearly, but I did really enjoy her program (part of it was probably relief that SOMEBODY DIDN'T FALL DOWN FINALLY). I was happy she got a medal (also: what is a pewter medal? Did they just invent that off the cuff last night so Ashley Wagner could be on the podium?) and sad that she got bumped, but I'm quite sure that's also my bias since she's been around long enough that she's the most familiar to me.

It was a very cool experience. It was so much fun seeing all the excited little girls (when a program finished there would be this like, swarm down all the aisles of little girls running to the front to try and give the skaters something or hug them), I got a kick out of watching the kids who pick up all the stuffed things thrown onto the ice (something broke at the end and there were like 10 little girls frantically trying to pick up what looked like pieces of confetti), and I mean, obviously the skating. I kept catching myself watching the jumbotron instead because I'm so accustomed to watching it on TV. Being above it and really able to see the speed and how close to the edge they get and watch the coach (one coach literally jumped up and down when his skater landed a jump), and hear the crowd start cheering to pump them up if they weren't doing well -- it was really great. Although tense when everyone started screwing up in the final group. And it was all very emotional. My sister and I have this joke about reality shows where someone's crying and the camera goes right up in their face -- I think it started when we were watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. When that happens on TV one of us would make our hand into an imaginary camera shape and put it like a centimeter from the other one's face. So TWICE last night someone was crying and there was a camera right in their face and I turned to put a pretend camera in my sister's face and she was ALSO crying. Thus making it so I was actually doing to her (minus the actual filming of course) what I was joking that the cameras were doing, heh. I felt so bad but it was very funny.

I did spend a good part of the evening being mad about Michelle Kwan, hee. I'LL NEVER BE OVER IT. They showed a whole montage of figure skating because it's the 100th anniversary and I kept being like LIPINSKIIII!!! But she was there in the press box or whatever and so I got to be in the same room as Michelle Kwan so that was cool.

I didn't think to DVR it and now I REALLY wish I had! Because I was dying to hear what the commentators were saying.

Scott Hamilton yelled a lot, as he does.

The pewter medal's existed before, but it really does seem like a consolation prize ("well, you almost made it!"). I always forget it exists, though, until I hear about someone getting one.

At least from what I saw at home, the crowd was totally NUTS for Mirai. It looked like her standing ovation began before she'd even finished the program. I don't know if they were showing it on the jumbotron, but the one thing worth seeing on the broadcast was how they kept cutting to Wagner sitting in the lounge with her very forced straight face, every time someone who skated after her got their scores.

I haven't been to any live skating since I was 3 and my parents took me to Disney on Ice. (All I remember is Ariel had to get her legs because obviously mermaids can't skate). I'm glad to hear it's so fun, and that being in proximity to Michelle Kwan is possible without being a weirdo stalker. One of these days!

Mirai is apparently appealing the decision. She won't win, but I don't fault her for doing everything she can to try to get on the team. It's the Olympics, after all.

I think what's going to screw her over is the fact that a) over the last four years she's been super lackluster and even rumored to be lazy, not wanting to train like she needed to and then trying to make up for lost time at the last minute; b) has a reputation for not fully rotating her jumps and getting downgrades galore; and c) she came to this competition with NO COACH. Michelle Kwan couldn't even do that successfully, so why Mirai thought this was a good idea, I don't know. I think that may be the biggest reason why she got passed over for Polina Edmunds...no coach to politick for her and persuade USFS officials that someone with Olympic experience might be better than a 15-year-old junior who's never even been to a senior international competition.

So she's got two options here. One: she takes this opportunity to really decide, once and for all, if she wants to be a champion skater and do whatever it takes to stand on top of the podium at every competition no matter how big or small. She's only 20 years old and I think she's got the skills to be a force in Pyongchang in four years, but she's going to have to WORK.

Or Two: she tells everyone to kiss her ass and retires. I mean, if you're going to burn your bridges, bring a rocket launcher, not a match. Go out with a bang, I say.

I'm annoyed because while I like Ashley Wagner and I think Mirai Nagasu has been super patchy the last several years, shes the only US female figure skater that actually excites me tbh.

I would have probably bumped Polina. She did great, but like its been said shes so young and she has no seniors experience. I mean yes she did great this year, but does anyone else remember Caroline Zhang or Naomi Nari Nam? Or Kimmie Meissner?

I think the one argument I've seen in favor of Polina is her Russian connection may help her in Sochi. (Which, I truly love figure skating, but if "her mom is Russian!" is a possible argument for sending someone to a major international competition, let alone the Olympics, your sport Has Issues.)

ETA: Also, can we take a moment to talk about Jason Brown's Bielman? It is so great. Dude may not have a quad, but he sure can spin. Nice footwork, too.

Polina's coach is also Frank Carroll. So politics.

I suspect Mirai may have gone coachless due to finances.  Her parents own a restaurant and I doubt she's getting a lot of federation funding which has never been that much.  It doesn't look like she's getting much endorsement money either.  

I think Polina was kept on the Olympic and World team to get her international experience in high profile events in a low pressure situation.

Why couldn't Ashley have just saved everyone the headache and skated well enough to get on the podium?

I felt completely confident that if they decided to shove somebody off the team to make way for Ashley, it would be Mirai. For the same reason they'd want to put Ashley on the team: past performances. If they're going to knock somebody off the team, they're not going to choose Polina, who doesn't have Mirai's very uneven competitive record. Based on the last few seasons, Mirai likely won't produce; Polina is a question mark. Some question marks win Worlds ... like Kimmy Meissner.

I wish they had just gone with the top three finishers at Nationals, though. The only reason I find compelling enough to disregard the placements at Nationals is if a top competitor withdrew due to injury.