Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2016 i International Figure Skating

Idon’t know about you, but the off-season this year seemed to me to be a long one. By the time the Junior Grand Prix Series rolled around, I was more than ready for some serious skating. I know that some of you do not follow this Series, but it has become one of my favorites. This year, the juniors stepped it up a notch landing quads and triple Axels, and executing programs that would rival some seniors. Japan’s Rika Kihira set the skating world on fire when she landed a clean triple Axel in her second event. The biggest surprise of the Series was the upset caused by the young Australian pairs team in Estonia who defeated two experienced Russian duos to claim top spot. The Challenger Series is at…

Jun-hwan Cha is the latest skating sensation to come out of the Republic of Korea. At his Junior Grand Prix debut in Yokohama, Japan, in early September, the 14-year-old claimed the top step of the podium in a runaway victory. Cha not only waltzed off with the gold medal, he also claimed a small piece of history by earning the highest combined score ever awarded at a junior Grand Prix event. Cha is the youngest man to have claimed this record under the current judging system. Sitting in second after the short and a little more than a point behind Vincent Zhou of the United States, Cha was the last skater to take to the ice for the free program. His performance, which included a quad Salchow and seven clean…

Life has been a whirlwind for Javier Fernández since winning his second World title last March. His victory made front-page news in space usually reserved for tennis or soccer heroes in his Spanish homeland. Royalty and highest levels of government feted him, but the accolades and respect from his countrymen did not come easily. When Javier Fernández claimed his first World title in 2015, the global skating world cheered his historic achievement. But many in his Spanish homeland were not so enthusiastic about his accomplishment and questioned his “luck” on that evening in Shanghai, China. But winning a second World crown last March brought Fernández more just a medal and a title — it brought him the level of respect in his homeland that had been absent the year before.…

There are a few moments in her life that Gracie Gold would like to forget. As she heads into the new season, the outcome of the 2016 World Championships likely ranks at the top of her list. Months after that fateful night in Boston, where Gold was in the hunt for a medal but wound up in fourth overall, she has come to terms with how that competition played out and has taken responsibility for her role in what transpired. After winning the short program, Gold looked to be a shoe-in for a podium finish. It all unraveled in the free skate and, as she put it, the mistakes in the long made her fall in the final rankings all that more apparent. “It took me a long time to…

The competitive figure skating spirit that we see today in Japan is the result of a carefully planned and well-executed program that was set in place more than two decades ago. Many wonder how it has become such a strong nation in recent years, producing one champion after another. There is no one simple answer, but the result is a combination of various factors that have contributed to that nation’s rise on the global stages. Figure skating has a long history in Japan dating back to the late 1920s in the men’s field and the mid-1930s in the ladies’ discipline. The Japanese Skating Federation (JSF) was founded in 1929. Kazuyoshi Oimatsu, the federation’s first Olympic representative, placed ninth at the 1932 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY. Etsuko Inada,…

Maxim Trankov and Tatiana Volosozhar will not be hitting the competitive circuit this season. The couple revealed in late September that they are expecting their first child in February. The Russian pairs team has not ruled out a return for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games and said that a decision on their skating future will be made next year. John Kerr and his wife Nadine Ahmed Kerr are expecting their first child, a boy, in early 2017. Kerr, who represented Great Britain, and Ahmed Kerr were married in Scotland in 2014. Italy’s Luca Lanotte and his longtime girlfriend, Eve Bentley, welcomed a son in mid-October. Bentley, an ice dance competitor who represented Great Britain and France, retired in 2006. Former U.S. ice dancer Jamie Silverstein and her husband, Matt Van…

After being sidelined with a back injury for most of the 2015-2016 season, Jason Brown is finally fighting fit and raring to go for the season that lies ahead. The injury forced Brown to withdraw from NHK Trophy last November. The Colorado-based skater was back on the ice two weeks later, but the ailment resurfaced and he was out of action indefinitely. “It was definitely tough. You so badly want to be out there, but at the same time I was in a lot of pain,” Brown said of his lengthy recuperation. He withdrew from nationals and Four Continents and was not selected for the 2016 World team, which Brown said was really difficult. “It made me realize how much I wanted to be there and how much I wanted…

It is a story that could take its lead from the first line of the Charles Dickens classic “A Tale of Two Cities.” For Nathan Chen, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” In his first year as a senior, Chen capped off a successful week at the 2016 U.S. Championships with a bronze medal, and a trip to the World Championships. But in a cruel twist of fate, his dream was dashed just hours later when he suffered a season-ending injury while performing in the gala. “A few months before nationals, I had a growth injury in my hip that was bothering me in my training leading up to that competition,” Chen explained. “It was bearable, but after the short program it started aggravating…

”La Marseillaise” has rung out in honor of four French ice dance victories at the World Championships in the last 16 years. Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat were the first to hear their anthem in 2000, followed by Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder in 2008. That national anthem has rung out twice in consecutive years for Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron who danced into the French history books with their victory in Boston Though France has a long and storied history in the discipline of ice dance, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron have raised the bar. They are the only team to have captured two World titles, a feat they repeated in consecutive years. Traditional would hardly describe the path Papadakis and Cizeron have taken to get to where they…

Wakaba Higuchi is the latest Japanese junior skater to make the move into the senior ranks. Higuchi, who was born on Jan. 2, 2001, said her parents were inspired by the new millennium that had begun the previous day when they named her. Wakaba means “new leaf” in the Japanese language, and this season her name reflects a new chapter that is unfolding in her skating career. The 15-year-old donned her first pair of skates at age 3, and made her international debut in the novice division at age 11, winning the Gardena Spring Trophy in Sëlva, Italy. In 2014, she moved into the junior ranks and claimed her first national title. She won bronze medals at the Junior Grand Prix Final, senior nationals and the World Junior Championships. A…

The skating world lost a legendary figure with the death of Canadian coach Ellen Burka on September 12 at age 95. Over a career that spanned six decades, Burka’s students competed at 25 World Championships, seven Olympic Winter Games and countless other international competitions. She said that guiding young athletes to the top of the sport was her greatest legacy. “If I had to say what I am most proud of, it is that I took a lot of skaters from scratch and turned them into World and Olympic competitors.” Growing up in Amsterdam in the 1920s, skating was a pastime behind her first loves of music and dance. “My first skates were mountain boots with screw-on blades,” Burka recalled. “I enjoyed skating on open-air ponds and natural sheets of…

Athletes are a special breed of Homo sapiens. We are driven, self-motivated, hard-working and goal-oriented. We are always striving for something more, something better — that extra something to give us the edge. Our body is our instrument and, like a fine-tuned car, we must take care of it and provide it with a safe environment in order to develop and thrive. As a fairly motivated person, I found myself intrigued with ways to improve myself during a difficult time in my life back in 2008. Nowadays, a vegan wholefoods diet is becoming mainstream, but eight years ago this was not the case. I stumbled upon a book called “Skinny Bitch” at an airport during one of my travels, and I was introduced to a world of plant-based living and…

CIoming back from a serious injury is never easy and Canada’s Kaetlyn Osmond found out last season just how tough that return journey can be. Osmond broke her leg during a choreography session in late 2014 and was out of action for 16 months. During the early days of her recovery, tired of sustaining injuries, she had no desire to return to the competitive battlefield. The Edmonton-based skater credits her coach, Ravi Walia, for his gentle persistence in encouraging her to return to skating. “He convinced me to get back on the ice so I would not be scared of it and just to know that I could stand on my own two feet again,” Osmond recalled. She described her first day back at the rink as terrifying; refusing to…

Shoma Uno was off and running after finishing second at 2016 Japanese nationals and being named to the Four Continents and World Championships teams. In Taipei, things started out well. Skating into second in the short, he looked set for a podium finish. However, in the free, Uno failed to land either of his quadruple toe loop attempts and wound up fourth. Five weeks later at his senior Worlds debut in Boston, Uno sat in fourth heading into the free skate. Once again the quad toe proved to be his nemesis — stuttering on the first attempt and crashing to the ice on the second. He was disconsolate in the kiss and cry following his performance and shed tears as his marks were announced. He wound up seventh overall. The…

No one would have been surprised if Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte had retired after a stellar 2013-2014 season. Their first victory in the second half of that season came at the European Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Then, on the heels of a sixth place finish at the Olympic Winter Games, the duo captured the World title in Saitama, Japan, only the second Italian ice dance team to ever claim a global crown. In the space of three months, Cappellini and Lanotte had attained success beyond their wildest dreams. “We had a moment after 2014 Worlds where we wondered: ‘Could we quit right now? Did we luck out?’” Cappellini recalled. “But we didn’t want to have the regret of wondering what might have been.” The following season, they were the…

FRANCES DAFOE When Frances Dafoe passed away on Sept. 23 at age 86, it marked the end of an era in Canadian skating history. Dafoe and her partner, Norris Bowden, claimed four national pairs titles (1952- 1955), and the 1952 Canadian ice dance crown. They finished second at the 1953 World Championships, missing the top step of the podium by one-tenth of a point. Dafoe and Bowden, the first Canadian pairs team to claim a World title, won consecutive titles in 1954 and 1955, and claimed silver at the 1956 Olympic Winter Games. The duo is credited with being the first to do a twist lift, an overhead lasso lift, throw jump and the “leap of faith,” a move later popularized by Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini. Dafoe and Bowden…