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pudding-parade · 1 year

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So, figure skating…

I know most (all?) of y'all don't care, but I have lots of Things To Say about the World Championships last weekend and the state of the sport in general. But I'll put it behind a cut, to be nice.

First of all, it was an awesome competition all around. One of the best things about it was the full-to-capacity arena for most of the competition, not just because the Covid years meant no spectators at all but also because in general the sport seems to be losing steam in terms of popularity, particularly so in the US. I was at Four Continents, and the crowds just weren't there, especially when there were no "big names" competing, despite the fact that Colorado Springs is a major training center for the sport. It was very disappointing. Fortunately, the World Championships were in Japan, where figure skating is still hugely popular, largely because of Yuzuru Hanyu. So to see 20,000+ people in the arena for this competition was awesome. And it wasn't just the number of people, but the fact that the audience supported everyone, not just the Japanese skaters, giving out standing ovations and raucous cheering freely to anyone who did well and also cheering along skaters who weren't doing so well, offering them encouragement. Kudos to all the fans there. :)

Now for the competition.

Ice Dance: It and the men's are my favorite disciplines, but the ice dance competition wasn't that exciting to me. I mean, it was good, but the finish order was pretty much as I expected. I was hoping for Fear/Gibson to get on the podium, but I didn't expect them to, and it wasn't to be. Oh well. Perhaps I'm blah because I'm not a fan of Chock/Bates, the winners. Meh. I dunno.

Pairs: So, so happy for Riku Miura and Ryuchi Kihara. They are by far my favorite pair, not only because of their skating but because of their sunny personalities. So happy they beat the Americans, who I also don't like. (Which is basically a theme for me. Other than Jason Brown, I haven't really liked any American skater since….Michelle Kwan back in the 90s, probably.) It was so sad to watch Riku think that they'd lost the gold because of a mistake she made, and it seemed like she didn't think they deserved to win, but they definitely did. Their free wasn't perfect, but their short was astounding, which put them on top.

On another note: It was amazing to see Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps in 4th place. Deanna is 39 goddamn years old and had been away from skating for about 15 years after injury pushed her away from her singles career. Then she decided to come back, but as a pairs skater. And that's not even half the story! And now here she and her partner are, fourth in the world. Fantastic!

The Wimmens: TBH, I haven't really liked the women's competition in about a decade, because of Russian domination. It's not that I don't think the Russian teenagers are talented. They obviously are. I just can't support the whole mentality behind Russian women's skating, at least when it comes to the most popular coach of them, Eteri Tutberidze. She takes 12-year-old girls, underfeeds/overtrains them in order to stave off puberty so that they remain small and light enough to do the quadruple jumps that are otherwise generally reserved for physically-mature men because they have the muscle power to overcome the size/weight of their bodies. Then she trains those young teen girls to do those jumps. Gravity is a thing, and those jumps are hard on mature bodies, much less on bodies where the bones are still developing and growing. So, you end up with 16-year-olds with broken hips or who require multiple knee surgeries of the type that 50-year-olds get. You end up with 18-year-olds with destroyed backs who can never skate again. And that's not even mentioning the drugging that apparently goes on. All of this so that one teenage girl can win one Olympic gold medal and become a vehicle for state propaganda for a while before being relegated to a life of pain. I just can't be enthusiastic about that.

And, on top of that, it takes all of the suspense out of the competition. It comes down to which of three interchangeable stick-like, under-developed 15/16-year-old Russian girls will win the Olympic gold and then burn out immediately after, never to be heard from again. While those girls and/or their parents might be willing to destroy their bodies for the sake of one medal, the other competitors value career longevity over doing the ultra-c jumps that, generally, are part of the men's competition for a very good reason. So one of the underfed Russian girls du jour always won. Snooze.

But now, with the Russians banned because of their government's terror campaign against Ukraine, suddenly the women's competition interests me again. Yes, there are still 16-year-olds, but at least they aren't underfed (except Kimmy Repond from Switzerland and Isabeau Levito from the US; I hope they eat many sandwiches in the off-season) and overtrained with bodies about to explode on them. And, those who aren't 16 are actual women. In women's skating. Women who've been competing, in some cases, for fifteen years or more. Imagine that.

And the competition was actually exciting! Would Kaori Sakamoto get her shit together (she's had a very "off" season) and defend her title? Would Loena Hendrickx get her shit together because she's been inconsistent, too? What about the Koreans, who are all very talented, elegant skaters yet forever in the shadow of Russia and Japan? What about the other Japanese ladies with their 3As? Really, it was anyone's game, and it was exciting. Women's skating hasn't been exciting in about a decade, IMO, because the Russian "Use 'em up until the Olympics, then toss 'em aside for the next 12-year-old" system makes the competitions so boring.

And ultimately, Kaori won, and since she is my favorite female singles skater, not just because of her skating, I am very happy for her. But honestly? I would've given it to Hae-in Lee of Korea, who was second. Kaori was good, and she definitely got her shit together, but she just wasn't as…sparkly…as she usually is. Something's been off with her all season, which isn't terribly uncommon after the high of an Olympic year, especially when you medal in one. Hae-in, OTOH, was amazing at Four Continents, and she was amazing here. I think she should have gotten the gold and Kaori the silver. I agree with Loena in third and Isabeau Levito in fourth. At least I don't dislike Levito. I think she will be amazing for the 2026 Olympic season. She's just not the whole package yet. Hopefully she will 1) Eat many sandwiches so she can stop being a stick and 2) Stay healthy so that she can become the whole package for 2026.

But really? My favorite thing about the women's competition? Nicole Schott from Germany. She's 26 now, I think, and yet she is improving. Unfortunately, she had a disastrous short program at Europeans, but came back with an amazing free to get into the top ten. And here at Worlds, both of her programs were great and she ended up in 7th place. Which, given the powerhouses that are Japanese and Korean women's skating (with three entrants each), plus the strength of Loena and Isabeau Levito, is extremely respectable. And she's 26, about a decade older than many of the others in the top 10! You go, girl!

And finally, saving the best for last, The Dudes. It was supposed to be a battle between Shoma Uno, my fave and the defending champion from Japan, and the US's Ilia Malinin, the self-styled "Quad God." Except it wasn't really a battle at all. I don't care how many quads you throw into your program. Doing that shouldn't win you a title. Any title. Why? Because anyone can learn to do quads if they have the right body type and dedicate all their training to it, at the expense of everything else. But jumps are only half the story. The other half is performance. Artistry. Which is an entirely different mindset that is much, much harder to learn than jumps, and then it's harder still to be able to integrate the two halves into the whole package that all world-class figure skaters ought to be. I don't care if you're Ilia Malinin or Alexandra Trusova, just jumps shoudn't win you any medal, much less title. Because at the end of the day, figure skating is more of an artistic sport than an athletic one. Watching someone skate from one end of the rink to the other doing quad jumps is boring. I want to watch a performer, not a jumping bean with delusions of grandeur.

And that's the difference between Shoma Uno and Ilia Malinin. The former used to be just a jumping bean, too, but he realized that Yuzuru Hanyu and/or Nathan Chen was going to beat him every time no matter how many jumps he did. Because they were the whole package and he was not. So, he switched to a coach renowned for artistry and completely transformed himself into an artist who can also jump. He became the whole package. Maybe he doesn't do six quads in a program…but he doesn't have to. With fewer quads -- and also nursing an injury! -- he beat Ilia by about 15 points, to no one's surprise except possibly the hype-y US media around Ilia.

Ilia's just not there yet. He's only 18, of course, and no doubt his ego is tied to his jumping right now. But maybe he will reach the same conclusion that Shoma did, that just jumps aren't going to win you international titles, no matter how many of them you do, not when your skating skills and presentation suck because all you've been working on is jumps. I hope he reaches this conclusion, because if he does and he follows through, he will become one of the greats, and rightfully so. But right now? He's faaaaaar from there. Still, he finished third. I would've put him lower, quite frankly, and put Kevin Aymoz on the podium instead. It's not that I hate Ilia or anything because I don't, at all. It's because I would hate to see figure skating turn into a jumping bean contest, so I don't think that whole mentality should be rewarded. I wish the ISU would lower the point value of jumps and raise the point value of the other elements so that skaters would focus more on them, or at the very least I wish the artistic score was weighted heavier than the technical score. But I dunno. Maybe that's just me. I just don't give a shit about jumps. I want to see performance, which is part of the reason why I like ice dance so much. I wish ice dance was less heteronormative, of course, just as I wish for pairs, but maybe we'll get there one day.

ANYWAY! The "battle" between Shoma and Ilia aside, who stole the show? Korea's Jun-Hwan "Chaos Bean" Cha, who along with Shoma and France's Kevin Aymoz are my favorite male skaters. Jun's been inconsistent for his entire career and, in my opinion, has been unfairly judged much of the time, as well. He's always been nit-picked over edges and under-rotations when the Japanese skaters and others have gotten away with worse. This competition, he was still robbed of the 100-point short program that he should have gotten, but both of his performances were amazing, with his two quads in the free -- all that's needed! -- being effortless and absolutely beautiful. And his Ina Bauer at the end of his free literally made me cry, it was so beautiful. This netted him the silver and almost broke the 300-point barrier for the competition. My adorable little chaos bean got his shit together for this competition, and I hope that's a sign of things to come for him.

And speaking of Kevin Aymoz: He got fourth, which is great. He was also fourth at Europeans, after a disappointing short program. But fourth on the world stage is a much bigger achievement, and well-deserved after turning in two great programs. He's coming back from injury, so I hope that this is a sign of things to come for him, too. I'm hoping to see him win Euros and be on the podium at Worlds next year. *fingers crossed*

Finally, the best thing about the World Championships: Listening to the Japanese arena announcer mangle practically all of the non-Asian surnames. It was hilarious. Even some of the skaters were laughing and shaking their heads as they were introduced. LOL

#non sims #figure skating #world championships

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