odettewagner

[odettewagner]

Ice dancers Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat during the 1999 World Skating Championship ⁘ Photo by Frank Peters/Bongarts/Getty Images

[odettewagner]

Why do so many random Russian Hockey players like to discredit Russian female figure skaters by saying random footballers are better than them💀

“Julian Alvarez also won everything in his so sport but football is harder blah blah Alina Zagitova isn’t special”💀

[odettewagner]

can we speedrun ISU accepting same-sex teams and then convince Kaori and Wakaba to return as ice dancers together next quad. for the good of the world.

[odettewagner]

queens of axel

[odettewagner]

the way most of the posts with pedri's slutty summer pics are getting flagged for adult content is killing me. like tumblr is sending him to horny jail without parole 😭😭😭

[odettewagner]

the fact that alexandra trusova was born on international olympic day is such a funny thing to me

[odettewagner]

Be so for real right now

[odettewagner]

[odettewagner]

Johan Cruyff at a training session for the Dutch National Ballet for the documentary Schijnbewegingen (1988)

[odettewagner]

lets all kill ourselves

[odettewagner]

Team Japan - Program announcements - Senior Skaters

So many announcements lately and with Dreams On Ice almost there I thought I'd do a recap

Kaori SAKAMOTO

SP - Time To Say Goodbye, by Andrea Boccelli

FS - La Vie En Rose/Hymne A L’Amour/Je Ne Regrette Rien, performed by Patricia Kaas

As for choreographer, that's still a mystery. FS could be Marie-France but Kaori had an EX, on the same music done by Satoko Miyahara so... And there's rumours that B E N O I T did one of her programs.

Mone CHIBA

SP - Sakura sakura, choreo by Guillaume Cizeron

FS - Romeo and Juliet (Abel Korzeniowsky), choreo by Lori Nichols

R&J one of my least fave warhorses. Mone, why...

Wakaba HIGUCHI

SP - My Way, choreo by Jeffrey Buttle

FS - Wonder Woman, choreo by Shae-Lynn Bourne

It's really retirement season.

Rinka WATANABE

SP - Moana 2, choreo by Kenji Miyamoto

FS - Jin

Rion SUMIYOSHI

SP - Alba Lullaby, choreo by Misha Ge

FS - Everlasting Light, choreo by Shae-Lynn Bourne

Seems like Rion's FS theme is AI getting sentience, and after Enchanteress and Divine Photosynthesis... I love that girl and her packaging choices !

Hana YOSHIDA

SP - Kill Bill, choreo by B E N O I T

FS - gives herself the summer to decide if she brings back Shakuhachi, or gets a new FS

LISTEN if she brings Shakuhachi back I NEED her to skate it in Milano, that's arguably the best women's FS of the entire quad !

Ami NAKAI

SP - new program, choreo by David Wilson

FS - Cinderella, choreo by David Wilson, recycled and reworked

Feels a bit juniorish but Cinderella was a very good fit for Ami

Shun SATO

SP - Ladies in Lavender, choreo by Guillaume Cizeron (recycled)

FS - Firebird, choreo by Guillaume Cizeron

Guillaume, listen to me, you want to do a Bejart program so bad...

Kao MIURA

SP - Sunset on M/Sturm I-Fear, by Dardust, choreo by Benoit Richaud

FS - Phantom of the Opera - choreo by Benoit Richaud

Ooooh Benoit is cooking with these choices

Tatsuya TSUBOI

SP - Anniversary, by Yoshiki, choreo by Massimo Scali

Kazuki TOMONO

SP - That's It (I'm Crazy), choreo by Shae-Lynn Bourne

FS - Halston, choreo by Misha Ge

Those ones also scream retirement

Shunsuke NAKAMURA

SP - Yesterday, choreo by Misha Ge

FS - The Last Samuraï, choreo by Kana Muramoto

Notable skaters who've yet to announce their programs

Rino MATSUIKE

Sota YAMAMOTO

Yuma KAGIYAMA who's instead released a cryptic sequence of emojis. (Yuma you want to bring back Werther so baaaaaaddddd....)

[odettewagner]

Gavi:

https://pin.it/3uzRkZEEk

😭😭😭😭

[odettewagner]

very interesting phenomenon happening on insta 👀

[odettewagner]

cuties💜

[odettewagner]

Shoma Uno using skating blades designed for ice dance since October 2024, still does 3A and 4T using the blades

Explained on Twitter by Goichi, a skating equipment specialist who works at Kosugi Skate in Tokyo and Yokohama, and who was also involved in getting Shoma and Marin their ice dance blades:

Machine translation:

The blade featured in the #IceBrave logo is called the YS Blade "Yui" (結).

The name was chosen with the meaning: "Two people coming together, supporting one another, and becoming one."

As many of you might have noticed, "Yui" is designed for ice dance. We never intended it to be used for jumping 3As or 4Ts or anything like that (laughs).

Like, "Can you even jump with this?" "Huh?!" — that kind of reaction (laughs). We were like, What is Shoma even talking about?! (laughs)

It takes a lot of courage for a skater to switch blades.

We shortened the blade as much as possible to reduce resistance, and the toe pick is just barely there, only as much as necessary, to cut down on noise.

We made it super narrow to sharpen edge transitions, and gave it the tightest and most unstable curve among existing blades — all to maximize freedom of movement in skating.

So really, it’s the complete opposite of what competitive skaters would use!

Even the way you jump an Axel had to change completely. Shoma had to go for height over distance in his 3A. And you know, changing your jumping style like that isn't easy. It's incredible!

Plus, this "Yui" blade glides so much that when skating as a pair, if both skaters aren’t using it, they can’t even train properly at the same level.

So that meant Marin had to switch too. That’s serious commitment!

You could really feel how hard they’ve both worked. It was truly beautiful.

With the Fukuoka show just around the corner, please take care of your health and avoid injury! Keep bringing joy to everyone in the audience!

Honestly, just seeing you both skate with such great expressions makes people happy (laughs). Finish strong! You’ve got this!!

#IceBrave #ShomaUno #MarinHonda #YSBlade #BlazingTheirOwnTrailInIceDance

Goichi further explained that Shoma is not using ice dance boots. He tried, but the existing boots for ice dance were too stiff, so he uses soft, flexible shoes designed for singles.

And yes Shoma uses the blades to jump and land 3A and 4T, also 4T3T. Source: me, I saw the jumps (including a 4T3T step out) during the first 2 ICE BRAVE shows, lmao. He also does 2A, 3Lo and 3S with them pretty consistently.

It's likely that YS blades don't break despite the use, because the blades are made from a single block of steel. Yamaichi Steel, the company who manufactured the blades is a steel company- the ancestors of the owners were said to be the ones making samurai swords back in the day.

[odettewagner]

I would 100% be down for Shomarin unretiring and switching to ice dance.

Because even if there's no way they could unretire in time for the Olympics, I would love to see them in the next quad because they already have the kind of expressiveness and fluidity that I and many others adore in ice dance

[odettewagner]

one thing about sports rpf that sets it apart is that these aren't about supernaturally beautiful people like actors and musicians and kpop idols are which is practically a criteria for any media facing job; made to be aesthetically beautiful and trained to be charismatic. athletes are often charisma vacuums because they start so young and are hyperfixated on their sport and have no personality beyond it. most of them are actually quite plain looking. there's some notable exceptions of genuinely stunning face cards but most are pretty average and the ones that are considered hot are actually hot for An Athlete. now I know some of you are disagreeing vehemently, blorbo from sportsball is the prettiest of them all, but really it's cause sports fans have so much exposure therapy to them, seeing the same faces all the time over a year and engaging in media about them, that they start finding beauty in the mundane where when you get to know someone you realise they're actually beautiful to you. now there is a notable scale where the more popular a sport/team/athlete is, the more they have entire hair and makeup departments for magazine shoots and interviews where they are styled or at least aware of what hairstyle or way to carry themselves looks good on them, and that adds to their overall attractiveness. scale down and you'll see someone calling a male cyclist with fucked up teeth who looks like a product of balkan incest a gorgeous girl. and that's how you get novel length and often better quality written rpf about dudes who look like in every other life were destined to the local town's convenience store cashier bored out of his mind at a gas stop in between your road trip you'd never spare a second thought of again. and I think that's beautiful <3