Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i International Figure Skating

Back in the fall of 2021, it was uncertain whether the Olympic season would go ahead as planned — and if it did, how would it play out? Ultimately, it was better than probably any of us could have imagined, with all the competitions taking place as scheduled and so many of them contested at the highest level. The World Championships in Montpellier, France, was one of those competitions. That was, in part, due to the non-attendance of skaters from a particular country. Without their presence and the endless quads and triple Axels in the women’s event, skating returned to its pure form, something many of us reveled in as we watched many amazing performances. I also found it refreshing to finally have a competition that had no predictable winners…

IT WAS A MOMENT about a year in the making, the very thing that Vanessa James and Eric Radford had been striving to achieve ever since forming their unlikely partnership. Everything they had done in this fastpaced journey — since that audacious thought of returning to competition became reality in March 2021 — led the team to an emotional free skate at the 2022 World Championships in Montpellier, France. It was the performance they had been searching for all along, and it finally happened at the last event of the season. It was also a performance that elevated James and Radford to a bronze medal finish in the pairs event, Canada’s only medalists at the Championships. They could not have asked for a better way to finish the campaign. “We…

AWARDS POSTPONED In light of the difficult circumstances presented during this past season, including but not limited to the war in Ukraine and its consequences for International Skating Union (ISU) competitions, Council decided the presentation of the 2022 ISU Skating Awards will be postponed. The ISU will combine the 2022 Skating Awards ceremony with the one for the 2022-2023 season. MEMBERSHIP UPDATE In early April, the ISU Council granted full membership to the figure skating sections of the Peruvian Skating Federation and the Skating Federation of Vietnam, with immediate effect. Provisional membership was extended to the figure skating section of the Portuguese Winter Sports Federation. SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE In a communique published on April 5, the ISU Council stated it was following “with disbelief” the developments in Ukraine and “condemns…

ALYSA LIU Her catchphrase could be “I did it all.” Though Alysa Liu never won any major titles, she crammed a lot into the two seasons she competed on the international stages. Liu first came to the world’s attention as a 13-year-old when she won the 2019 U.S. national title, making history in that nation as the first female to land three triple Axels at one competition and the youngest American ladies’ champion. Liu made her international debut in the junior ranks in the 2019-2020 season. At her first competition in the summer of 2019 — a Junior Grand Prix event in Lake Placid, New York — she again made history as the first female skater to land a quad jump (Lutz) and a triple Axel in the same program.…

There were so many feelings. It was my first time putting everything together at an event. It was a call he hardly expected to receive, but it may end up being the conversation that changes the trajectory of Camden Pulkinen’s figure skating career in a major way. In the wake of a fifthplace finish at his country’s national championships in January, the 22-year-old was listed as the second men’s alternate for the American team headed to the 2022 World Championships in Montpellier, France. As such, Pulkinen dutifully kept up training his programs at his home base in Colorado Springs, just in case his services were needed — even if, in Pulkinen’s mind, it seemed like the longest of shots. The United States had sent a formidable trio of men to…

I had to challenge myself with five quads, and this win is something I am overjoyed with.—Shoma Uno The short program set the pace for the men’s event, with many laying down their best performances of the season and for some, their careers.  Just four falls were recorded among the 24 men who qualified for the free skate, with the top 16 all remaining vertical. In such a tight race, those that stumbled and fell found themselves buried in the middle to lower end of the pack at the conclusion of the segment. Many expected Yuma Kagiyama to top the field, but at the end of the day it was Shoma Uno who landed in top spot, leading a Japanese sweep with Kagiyama in second and Kazuki Tomono in third.…

After a two-year hiatus, the World Junior Championships returned to the skating calendar in 2022. Given the long break, no one knew what to expect from the new generation of young stars that would take to the ice, but they came out firing in Tallinn, Estonia, with new champions crowned in all four disciplines. The competition opened with the men’s short program. Ilia Malinin, one of the few skaters at this event we had seen throughout the season, was the only man with a multi-quad arsenal, which made him the odds-on favorite to take the title. Determined to atone for his disappointing result at senior Worlds three weeks earlier, Malinin kicked off his campaign by earning 88.99 points in the segment, a new junior World record. Canada’s Wesley Chiu finished…

With the people responsible for all the turmoil and drama at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games not in attendance at the World Championships in Montpellier, the women’s competition had a refreshing aura surrounding it. For the first time in years, quads and triple Axels did not dictate the conversation, but rather it was the quality of performances laid down by many of the competitors that made for an exciting event from start to finish. A field of 33 took to the ice for the women’s short program. Skating third in the final flight, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan whipped through her routine, set to “Now We Are Free” from the “Gladiator” soundtrack, with impressive speed, reeling off a double Axel, triple Lutz, and a triple flip-triple toe combination. She racked up…

Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France had dominated the ice dance discipline all season. Following their Olympic victory, they were without question the oddson favorites to win a fifth global crown. The French duo established their dominance by delivering a perfectly in-sync performance of their waacking rhythm dance set to John Legend’s “Made To Love” and “U Move, I Move.” Both earned Level 4s for the twizzles, the Midnight Blues pattern and the stationary lift, but Papadakis lost a level on the pattern dance step sequence and the midline step sequence was also graded Level 3. Those slight technical deductions made no difference, with the judges awarding the team a World record score of 92.73 along with 24 perfect 10.00’s for program components (performance, composition and interpretation). “Our performance…

INTIMIDATION TACTICS On March 16, the U.S. Justice Department announced criminal charges would be laid against Chinese government agents who have been intimidating critics living in the United States. Arthur Liu, the father of two-time U.S. champion Alysa Liu, was one of the people targeted. Now a lawyer and political activist in the San Francisco Bay area, Liu helped organize prodemocracy demonstrations in China during the 1990s. In 2021, Matthew Ziburis, a former Florida corrections officer, was hired by a New York businessman to visit Liu’s home to obtain his Social Security number and a copy of his passport. Once inside the home, Ziburis asked to check his family’s passports to ensure he and an unnamed family member were set for international travel. Liu saw through the ruse and angrily…