Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2019 i International Figure Skating

Welcome to 2019! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed the time with family and friends. The 2018 Grand Prix Finals (senior and junior) provided an exciting conclusion to the first half of the season. Nathan Chen, who claimed his second consecutive title, was the only repeat champion It was refreshing to see new faces at this competition, gaining experience and, for some, achieving surprising results. Japan’s Rika Kihira stole the show in Vancouver. Her unexpected victory was, without a doubt, the most talked-about result not only by those in attendance. The skaters that competed in the Junior Final were so impressive, with new champions crowned in all four disciplines. With the first half of the season in the books, we are now gearing up for…

“There are two sides to our sport — the athletic side and the artistic side.” Kristi Yamaguchi was the guest of honor at the annual Ice Theatre of New York (ITNY) benefit gala and home season opener at New York City’s Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers on Oct. 15. Moira North, ITNY founder and director, had wanted to honor Yamaguchi’s achievements — on and off the ice — for years, but finding dates that worked with her busy schedule had always been a challenge. “We’ve been trying for a while, but it’s always fallen on a date that I couldn’t make work,” Yamaguchi explained. “So this year Moira said, ‘you pick the date.’” Every year, ITNY celebrates the life and career of a notable member of the skating fraternity who…

The true breakout star of the 2018 Grand Prix Final was a softspoken 16-year-old from Nishinomiya, Japan, whose skating speaks louder than her voice. Rika Kihira made the competition hers from the moment she landed her first clean triple Axel in the short program — emphatically and effortlessly. Not even the reigning Olympic champion, Alina Zagitova, could block Kihira’s relentless drive toward the top step of the podium in her senior debut at the Final. While she did not begin the season with thoughts of reaching this competition — let alone winning it — Kihira was buoyed by the confidence she gained in mining gold at NHK Trophy in her homeland and a second victory at Internationaux de France, where she clinched her spot in Vancouver. “Th is season, the…

OBITUARY The skating world lost one of ifs best when French coach Jean-François Ballester passed away on Dec. 2, at his home in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, following a heart attack. The 53-year-old had just returned from a competition in Tallinn, Estonia, where one of his pairs teams claimed its first gold medal. Ballester had been Bruno Massot’s coach since he was a child. When he teamed up with Aljona Savchenko, Ballester became an integral part of their coaching team. Massot moved to Switzerland in the spring of 2018 to work as an assistant to his coach. In a heart-rending message posted on Instagram, Massot wote: “… you are not only my coach, you are my mentor, my friend and confidant, my 2nd dad… you taught me everything and together we…

▶ PROPOSALS Former Canadian pairs skater Dylan Moscovitch proposed to his longtime girlfriend Sharon Fichman while visiting the Christmas Market in Toronto’s Distillery District on Nov. 18. Moscovitch tweeted he was the “luckiest man on earth.” Fichman responded: “Easiest decision I ever made (was to say yes).” Kimmie Meissner, 29, announced her engagement to long time boyfriend Josh Heyne on Oct. 28. “Four and a half years ago, this guy asked me out. I said yes. Three months later he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes,” the 2006 World champion from Bel Air, Maryland, wrote in an Instagram post. “He’s asked me to travel with him, laugh and cry with him, rock climb, scuba dive, and everything in between with him and I always say yes. So…

Yuzuru Hanyu was sailing through the 2018 Grand Prix Series, scoring runaway victories and making history each step of the way until an unexpected fall at his second Grand Prix event knocked the wind out of his sails. Hanyu racked up another historic notch at his first Grand Prix in Finland when he landed a quad toe-triple Axel combination in his long program. His total score at that competition (297.12) put 39.14 points between him and the runner-up, Michal Březina of the Czech Republic. Two weeks later, Hanyu headed to Rostelecom Cup in Russia. He claimed the lead in the short program with the highest score awarded so far this season (110.53 points). But exactly one year and eight days after Hanyu injured a lateral ligament in his right ankle…

When Mariah Bell moved from her Colorado home late in the summer of 2016 to train with Rafael Arutyunyan in Lakewood, California, he asked her to give him two years of hard work and patience. Now in her third year of training with his group, Bell is starting to see the fruits of her labor and is beginning to blossom on competitive ice as she becomes more in tune with Arutyunyan’s methodology. “Anybody who comes to me after 15 or 16 years old, I ask them to give me two years to help them understand my philosophy of training,” Arutyunyan explained. “It doesn’t matter who it is — they are coming to me because something isn’t working well. For me, it’s not about a specific way to jump or spin,…

Russia’s Sergei Voronov, one of the oldest men competing on the international circuit, has often been overlooked by his federation in favor of younger skaters. This season, the 31-year-old was the only Russian man to earn a place at the 2018 Grand Prix Final. He finished sixth in his second consecutive appearance. Voronov earned a trip to Vancouver by finishing third at Skate America and second at NHK Trophy. In the short program in Japan, he trailed Shoma Uno by just 1.12 points. “I really wanted to prove something to those who were skeptical about me changing the short program. This is my best score ever,” he said in reference to switching from “Appassionata” by Secret Garden to Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude No. 5 in G minor.” But it is his long…

Sara Hurtado and Kirill Khaliavin hope to follow in the footsteps of Javier Fernández, the Spanish trailblazer who put his nation on the figure skating map, rewriting history each step of the way. Hurtado and Khaliavin took their first step in that direction when they claimed Spain’s first Grand Prix medal (silver) in ice dance at 2018 Rostelecom Cup. Sara Hurtado’s ice dance career began with Adrian Diaz in 2008. Th ey were the first Spanish team to compete internationally and the first to represent their nation at an Olympic Winter Games (2014), where they finished in a respectable 13th place. In 2015, Hurtado and Diaz parted ways and both continued their careers with new partners. Kirill Khaliavin, the 2011 World Junior champion who formerly represented Russia with Ksenia Monko,…

Every season, the Junior Grand Prix Final provides insight into what lies ahead in the world of skating. This year, the talented group of Grand Prix finalists showed just how competitive this event has become, with many executing elements and earning scores that would rank in the top 10 at the senior level. One of the most talented young stars to hit the junior ranks this season is Canada’s Stephen Gogolev, who claimed the men’s title in Vancouver in a runaway victory. The Toronto teenager won the Junior Grand Prix event in Slovakia in his international debut and seemed on track to claim a spot in Vancouver. However, things fell apart at his second competition in Canada, which left him in a distant fifth place and out of the running…

Denis Ten was honored in a solemn ceremony in his hometown of Almaty on Nov. 7. City dignitaries, the Consul General of the Russian Federation and many others attended the unveiling of a memorial plaque on the wall of the building where Ten was born and lived until his untimely death on July 19, 2018. Legendary Russian coach Tatiana Tarasova and Elena Radionova, a good friend of Ten, also attended the ceremony. “This is a great boy. He wanted to live only in this country, to glorify this country,” said Tarasova with tears in her eyes. “He glorified his homeland. Millions of people who watched all his performances and his whole life journey searched on the map for Kazakhstan. Not everyone knew where the country was located, but everyone learned…