International Figure Skating April 2022

There are so many great moments to reflect on from the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. New champions were crowned in all four disciplines, and not the ones most of us expected in two of them. What transpired with the Kamila Valieva doping issue cast a cloud over the Games for skating fans. But with so many other positives and individual achievements to celebrate, we chose not to let that one negative dampen our enthusiasm and cheered on all the other skaters. Despite the tight restrictions and daily testing, we did not hear one complaint. Everyone seemed genuinely happy and grateful that the Games was actually taking place. Our coverage this issue recaps all the action of what transpired on the ice as well as what took place behind the scenes.…

After winning the 2022 Canadian men’s title in January, Keegan Messing was excited to have a second opportunity to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. But the 30-year-old never bargained that it would require an Olympic marathon to even make it to Beijing. Arriving in Vancouver from his home in Alaska on Jan. 25 with two negative COVID test results in hand, Messing seemed all set for the Games. But just four days before he was scheduled to leave, he tested positive for COVID-19 and was not permitted to board the flight with his figure skating teammates. Messing said he had no idea how or where he contracted the virus, and that he was “stupidly careful” not to be around anyone. Following his victory at Canadians he had not even…

Following his performance in the long program portion of the Team Event, which helped Team USA capture the (provisional) silver medal, Vincent Zhou suddenly found himself sidelined and alone. On Feb. 7, in a heartfelt video posted to Instagram, Zhou announced he had tested positive for COVID-19, which forced him to withdraw from the men’s individual competition and move to an isolation hotel. “I’ve isolated myself so much that the loneliness I’ve felt in the last month or two has been crushing at times,” Zhou explained. “The enormity of the situation, just the pain of it all is pretty insane.” After recovering and emerging from quarantine on Feb. 16, the ISU invited Zhou to perform in the gala. But later that evening, in a final blow to his already fragile…

Four years before the 2022 Olympic Winter Games opened to the world, China began searching for foreign talents with Chinese backgrounds, as part of the country’s “Morning Road” initiative to recruit top athletes to represent it at its home Games in Beijing. One of those was the American-born figure skater Zhu Yi (Beverly) who renounced her U.S. citizenship in September 2018 and became a Chinese citizen. Zhu won the 2018 U.S. novice title but had no international experience before switching to represent China. She won the right to compete at the Games following a skate-off against two other women who were born and raised in China. Though that nation did not qualify a woman for the Games, as the host nation China was granted one spot in the women’s event.…

The fairy tale that has been the Yuzuru Hanyu story the past eight years did not end quite the way he had hoped at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. The 27-year-old headed into the competition looking to make history by winning a third consecutive Olympic title. But that was not to be in Beijing. Hanyu finished a distant eighth in the men’s short program after popping his opening quad Salchow. He later stated his blade caught a rut, which prevented a take-off of the jump. Backstage, obviously upset, Hanyu was struggling with what had just transpired. “My rhythm felt right, and you saw that in my other jumps. It’s mind-boggling because the preparation to get here … Everything had gone right until now. I felt razor sharp during the six-minute…

On Feb. 8, rumors began swirling at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing that an as yet unnamed figure skater had tested positive for a banned substance. When the Team Event medal ceremony was postponed twice without explanation, all eyes were focused on the medal-winning teams: the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) claimed gold, the United States won silver and Japan earned the bronze. International media began investigating the rumor and the postponement of the medal ceremony, and shortly thereafter reported that the skater in question was 15-year-old Kamila Valieva, the diamond of the ROC figure skating team. Due to Valieva’s age, the International Testing Authority (ITA) — which acts on behalf of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at all Olympic Games — initially abstained from publicly disclosing the case in…