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?