International Figure Skating December 2022

The 2022-2023 campaign is now in full swing and if the early competitions are anything to go by, this season is shaping up as one that will be full of surprises. At every stop on the Junior Grand Prix Series, talented young stars emerged, and every competition was a hard-fought battle. If you missed that Series, we have short recaps of each of the six events, along with photos of the skaters you will see at the Junior Grand Prix Final. The senior Grand Prix Series is now underway. Unfortunately, due to the late publication by U.S. and Canadian networks of the respective television and online schedules, our Media Guide listings for the Series begin with the third event in France. As I noted last issue, there will be a…

The 2022 Challenger Series opened with the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic in Lake Placid, New York, in early September, immediately followed by Lombardia Trophy in Egna, Italy. Ilia Malinin, competing on home soil, made his season debut count by becoming the first man to land a clean quad Axel in an international competition. The event did not get off to a great start for Malinin, who suffered two falls on back-to-back quads in the short program, which left him in sixth place heading into the free skate. But the 17-year-old stepped up to the plate in the long program, delivering not only the historic quad Axel, but four more quads, with just the Lutz marred by a fall. Having landed the elusive quad Axel in practice many times, Malinin…

The first six stages of the 2022 Challenger Series produced some interesting results in the ice dance discipline. One of the standout teams so far this season has been Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson who train at the I.AM Academy in Montréal. The duo has been rising steadily through the ice dance ranks the past two years, finishing 10th at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and sixth at the subsequent World Championships. But this season, it is a whole new ballgame for this team whose goal is to be the best in the world. Fear and Gibson opened their campaign on home soil at the inaugural Brittania Cup in late August, claiming the title in a runaway victory. At their first Challenger Series event, the U.S. International Figure…

Canadian ice dancers are enjoying a successful start to the season at both the senior and junior levels. Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha got the ball rolling at the senior level with a win at Nepela Memorial in Bratislava, Slovakia in late September. The duo won the rhythm dance by a 3.48-point margin but sailed away in the free dance, closing out the competition with a personal best combined score of 193.35, which gave them a 14.66-point cushion over Eva Pate and Logan Bye of the U.S. who finished second. It was the first senior international victory for the 2019 World Junior ice dance champions, but neither was celebrating. “It was O.K. for a first skate despite a little mistake,” said Lagha, 23. “We don’t want to make mistakes anymore.”…

For much of her life, her journey had a defined direction. With dreams of becoming a figure skating champion ever dancing in her head, Kaetlyn Osmond knew precisely what she needed to do to achieve the goals she had set for herself. In the final two seasons of her career, that singleminded laser focus paid off with a silver medal at the 2017 World Championships, and Olympic bronze and a World title in 2018 — the first global crown for a Canadian woman in more than four decades. And then suddenly, everything changed when Osmond closed the door on it all in 2019, calling it a career at age 23. The purpose that had been the guiding force in her life was gone and with it, much of the identity…

Rarely seen without a smile on his face, Japan’s Kazuki Tomono is one of the most popular skaters among his peers and a global fan favorite. Watching him compete, his love of skating is obvious, performing programs that reflect his upbeat character, and his exhibition numbers are always something special. Tomono made his international debut in 2011 at age 13, finishing seventh at the Asian Open Trophy at the junior level. In the 2017-2018 season, he moved into the senior ranks, making his Worlds debut in 2018, following the withdrawal of Yuzuru Hanyu. Tomono placed third in the free skate in Milan, finishing in fifth place overall, which guaranteed Japan three spots at the 2019 World Championships. Last season, he claimed bronze on the Grand Prix circuit, and silver at…