Shameless Self Promotion

As a part of the technology class I'm taking that spurred on the creation of this blog, I have also created my very own Wikipedia article on Jan Ullmark, who coached Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier (and who made an appearance in the end of their video here).

Unexpected problems: I have discovered I seem to know more than currently available internet resources.  I found at least two articles that incorrectly credited Jan Ullmark with helping Sale and Pelletier win their 2001 World Championship.  Trust me, they didn't switch coaches until the summer after winning Worlds--I distinctly remember the panic my 13-year old self experienced when they announced they were changing coaches right before an Olympic Season.  For further proof, see the end of their short program from 2001 Worlds below.  The man in the Kiss and Cry below is not the same man who appears in the Kiss and Cry in Salt Lake City.

A Story from the Days of Yore: The 6.0 Judging System

                We’re down to 284 days until the Olympics, and if we’re ever going to understand the new judging system, it’s time to get started.

                Of course, we can’t simply leave behind almost a century of the 6.0 judging system without giving it some credit.

                Yes, that’s right.  The 6.0 system.  No, a 10 was never a perfect score in amateur figure skating.  The perfect score was the 6.0.  A 5.9 was exceptional and a 5.7 or so would usually land you on the podium.  Unless, of course, you were a junior skater, in which case the scores were usually between 4.8-5.2, and you could easily wipe out the competition with a 5.3.  One of the greatest benefits of this system was the fact that in all four disciplines, a good score looked the same.  5.9 in pairs was just as good as 5.9 in ladies.  Not so today—but we’ll get to that later.  Today, we discuss the swan song of 6.0

                It was February of 2002, and the Winter Olympics were being held in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The Pairs long program was going on.  Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze (for the record, I spelled both of those names right on the first try, 11 years after the event—it’s a shame they don’t have a Russian Last Name Spelling Bee) had just skated, and had one small error.  Their chief rivals, Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, were about to take the ice.  Here’s what happened:

                Eleven years later, and we have a new judging system.  There’s not a doubt in my mind the system is the direct result of the media hype that exploded after that evening.  Many opponents of the new system have blamed commentators Sandra Bezic and Scott Hamilton for overreacting and misleading the American public, and to some extent, they were right.  Close results like this weren’t unheard of in skating, and Salé and Pelletier had the easier program.  At this point in time, there’s no going back to those olden days, so get ready to do some math to figure out the winners in 2014.  More on that in another post.

Have we found the new Michelle Kwan yet?

No.

And lest you doubt my objectivity, Frank Carroll agrees with me.  I suppose you could doubt his objectivity, too, but Kwan did dump him as a skating coach less than a year before the 2002 Olympics.  If anyone has a reason to hold a grudge against her, it's Carroll.  Or Sasha Cohen--I'm thinking she's pretty peeved that she never won Nationals until Kwan stopped showing up.

So, until that next skater of a generation comes around, I leave you with these.  Enjoy!  How could you not?

The Ladies

Ladies’

Michelle Kwan.  Sasha Cohen.  Tara Lipinski.  Nancy Kerrigan.  Kristi Yamaguchi.  Debi Thomas.  If American figure skating is known for anything (aside from our pair teams splitting up after a year and a half of skating together), it’s known for having strong ladies’ skaters.  The Vancouver Games in 2010 were the first Olympics since 1964 that there wasn’t a ladies’ skater on the medal podium—and in 1964, US Figure Skating was still recovering from a devastating plane crash in 1961 that killed the entire team to the World Championships that year.  In the last 20 years, American ladies’ skaters have won almost half (42%) of the Olympic medals.

                However, no American woman has medaled at Worlds since 2006.  That said, you can’t count the American women out of contention entirely.  They’ve placed as high as 4^th several times in that span, and the two women at Worlds this year, Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold, placed 5^th and 6^th, respectively.  They’re likely the best chances American women have for a medal, but it’ll be tough.  Reigning Olympic Champion Yuna Kim has staged her own comeback, and it’s been quite successful, as she won Worlds last month.  Italy’s Carolina Kostner seems to be skating quite well over the past few seasons; she was 3^rd in 2011, 1^st in 2012, and 2^nd this year.  Mao Asada, who has had a longtime rivalry with Kim, is also a force to be reckoned with.  Whichever three ladies make up the American team, they’ll have a tough battle to medal at the Olympics.

The Olympic Forecast: Small Chance of Men

In 2010, there were no American ladies on the Olympic podium.  The same year, American Evan Lysacek took the gold medal in the men's event.  How will it play out in 2014?  For today, we'll tackle the rather sad state of men's skating.

Men

            Despite having the reigning Olympic champion in the men’s discipline, the US hasn’t had a single man on the podium in the last four World Championships.  After Evan Lysacek won in 2010, he appeared in Dancing with the Stars and enjoyed some time off.  He’s been working on a comeback, and his coach, Frank Carroll, recently confirmed on an interview by The Skating Lesson that they’ve been working together twice a week.  He had hoped to compete during the 2012-2013 season, but was sidelined by an injury and surgery to address it.  Frank Carroll report that he has all of his triple jumps back except the triple axel (which actually has three and a half rotations, not just three).  Comebacks in figure skating are hard to find success in—when the likes of Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Elaine Zayak, and Gordeeva and Grinkov all competed in the 1994 Olympics, only one entity (Gordeeva and Grinkov) managed to win.  If Lysacek can pull it off, however, he’ll be America’s best bet for a medal.

            So what about those other guys?  The ones who have been, you know, competing for the last four years instead of winning mirrorball trophies?  Well, Jeremy Abbott, 3-time National Champion, has struggled immensely since the 2010 Olympics.  Despite his National record, he’s never placed above 5^th at a World Championships, and he didn’t even make it to Worlds this year.  While Abbott has fantastic skating skills and gorgeous jump technique, inconsistency has plagued him.  2013 champion Max Aaron won in only his second year at the senior level, and though he shows lots of promise, he placed only 7^th at Worlds and will be more likely to factor into the 2018 Olympics.  The national champion in 2011, Ryan Bradley, has shifted his focus to show skating, which he is extremely well suited for.  Unless Lysacek successfully completes his return, American hopes for a medal—much less a gold one—do not seem likely to be fulfilled.

American Contenders: Pairs and Dance

US figure skating has been in a state of flux in the past four years, particularly in the disciplines where it's traditionally had success.  Ice dance, in which the US won no Olympic medals between 1976 and 2006, is actually the discipline where the US is most likely to medal.  Medals in pairs will be a long shot—if not an impossible shot.

Pairs

          It’s hardly even worth mentioning American medal hopes for pairs; those hopes are pretty much non-existent.  American teams placed 9^th and 13^th at this year’s World Championships.  2012 National Champions Caydee Denney and John Coughlin didn’t compete due to Coughlin’s injury, but if they’re healthy for the Olympics, they’ll likely improve on those placements.  Those improvements won’t be enough to approach the medal podium, though—not with the significantly stronger Canadian, German, Russian, and Chinese teams in the mix.  2011 National Champion Caitlin Yankowskas (who won with Coughlin) is also hoping to compete next year with her new partner, Joshua Reagan.  They were also sidelined by injury this season, but their biggest problem is likely not the injury—rumors have been flying for the past month that the couple on and off the ice has split (both on and off the ice).  The state of US pairs does not bode well for a medal.  Thankfully, we have ice dance to keep our hopes going.

Ice Dance

          Five-time US National Champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White are just coming off of their second world title.  They beat out training partners and close competitors Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (of Canada) for this year’s gold, but Virtue and Moir beat them out in 2012—as well as at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.  Davis and White are a virtual lock for one of the top two spots and are the closest thing to a sure thing the Americans have for a medal in Sochi.

          The US could even have a shot at the bronze medal, though it’s not quite clear which of the other US teams is likely to snag that medal.  2011 World bronze medalists Maia and Alex Shibutani have lost ground this past year to American cohorts Madison Chock and Evan Bates.  While Davis and White, Virtue and Moir, and the Shibutanis are all under the coaching direction of Marina Zoueva, Chock and Bates have had most of coach Igor Shpilband’s attention since Zoueva and Shpilband ended their coaching partnership last summer.  This attention has helped them tremendously in the past year, but will it be enough to help them improve upon their 7^th place finish at Worlds this year?

Are there any other American contenders in pairs or dance that you see missing from this equation?

295 Days Out

It’s time.  One month ago today, the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships in London, Ontario, ended.  Just last week, the final event of the 2012-2013 season concluded with the World Team Trophy, a competition meant to pit all of the world's top figure skating nations against each other.  This competition will have its Olympic debut in Sochi for the 2014 Olympic Games—the same Olympics Games that are now the focus of the skating world’s attention.

So what does the casual viewer need to know going into this Olympic season?  Who should they expect to hear about?  Have we found a new Michelle Kwan yet?  And what the heck is going on with that judging system?

We’ll get to each of these questions and many more in time, but for today, let’s start with the casual viewer’s overview. 

What do I need to know about figure skating before the Olympics?

            The most important thing to know about figure skating is the different types of figure skating.  There are four disciplines in Olympic figure skating: men’s, ladies’, pairs, and ice dance.  Each of these disciplines has its own event at the Olympic Games—two events actually, with a short program (or short dance for ice dancers) and long program (or free dance).  The men’s and ladies’ categories are probably the most commonly known.  Picture one individual out on the ice, skating to music, jumping, spinning, twizzling (which is, I have to inform you, a technical term), and occasionally falling.  That’s your men’s and ladies’ events.

            Pairs and ice dance are somewhat easier to confuse with each other.  They both consist of a couple, one man and one woman, on the ice skating together to the same music.  The difference lies in how they skate to that music.  Pair teams more closely resemble their men’s and ladies’ counterparts.  They jump, spin, and complete additional moves called lifts, throws, and twists.  These last three moves are some of the most dangerous in figure skating.  Lifts involve the man lifting the women over his head in some sort of absurd looking acrobatic position while he completes footwork—a series of turns and steps on the ice.  Throws are based on the same standard jumps in figure skating, but instead of each person jumping individually, the man throws the woman into the jump, allowing her to get more height and speed than a singles skater can get on a jump, before she lands the jump on her own.  Twists begin the same way—the male skater launching the female skater into the air, where she rotates independently—but involve the man catching the woman and assisting her in the landing.

Finally, ice dance is the newest discipline in Olympic figure skating—it wasn’t included in the Olympic Games until the 1970s.  This discipline has its roots in ballroom dance, though those roots are becoming increasingly further removed.  Unlike pairs skaters, ice dancers don’t complete the traditional jumps of figure skating, nor do they complete any throws or twists.  Instead, the two skaters skate together, as a couple, frequently in ballroom dance holds.  Ice dancers do perform lifts, but lifts do not involve the male lifting the female’s entire body above his head.  Instead, lifts are conducted closer to the ice.  Occasionally, ice dancers also include ‘gender bender’ lifts, where the woman lifts the man.  Ice dance is the most dramatic and controversy-filled of the four disciplines, particularly because there’s not the same objective level of jumps that can be used to compare dancers.

            Tomorrow we’ll cover the Olympic contenders you can expect to hear about in the next year!  Who do you expect will challenge for medals?