No Grand Prix Final leaves competitive questions unanswered - and some uncertainty about upcoming competitions

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No Grand Prix Final leaves competitive questions unanswered - and some uncertainty about upcoming competitions

I love figure skating’s Grand Prix Final. It has six elite entries in each senior discipline, based on qualifying from results on the six-event Grand Prix circuit. No competition session lasting more than an hour, unlike the three-plus-hour sessions at the Olympics and World Championships. And over the years, many stunning performances and record scores.

So, like all those who are interested in the sport, I was disappointed by the Covid-related cancellation of the event scheduled to begin Thursday in Osaka, Japan.

It is the second straight year the global pandemic has led to the Grand Prix Final being cancelled. Last season, the entire series was changed to domestic-only events.

This one would have let us see whether Nathan Chen, invincible from the 2018 Olympics until finishing third at Skate America in October, could win a fourth straight GPF title and reestablish himself as the clear favorite for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. And whether the latest Russian female phenom, Kamila Valieva, could continue her record-setting dominance. And whether the evergreen Chinese pair, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, could hold off the top Russians. And whether French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron would gain a winning edge over their top rivals before Beijing.

Those questions will go unanswered for the time being. And that leaves questions about competitions to come.

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Alysa Liu changes coaches, location a month and a half before Olympic figure skating team selected

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Alysa Liu changes coaches, location a month and a half before Olympic figure skating team selected

Two-time senior national champion Alysa Liu, the most successful U.S. women’s figure skater this season, has changed coaches barely two months before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

The skater’s father, Arthur Liu, confirmed the switch Monday morning in a text to NBCSports.com.

Two days after returning from the NHK Trophy in Tokyo, which ended Nov. 14, Liu left coaches Massimo Scali and Jeremy Abbott in the San Francisco Bay Area and went to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to train with Christy Krall, Drew Meekins and Viktor Pfeifer.

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The Olympic skating season so far: Injuries and Russian women (and more Russian women. And more. . .)

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The Olympic skating season so far: Injuries and Russian women (and more Russian women. And more. . .)

A baker’s dozen of takeaways halfway through the Grand Prix season – and just under three months from the start of the 2022 Winter Olympics:

1. The injury list added two big names in the last week: Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, the two-time reigning OIympic champion, and reigning world bronze medalist Alexandra Trusova of Russia, who won Skate America, both have withdrawn from this week’s NHK Trophy with foot injuries, meaning neither can qualify for the Grand Prix Final Dec. 9-12 in Osaka, Japan.

Others previously on the “disabled list”: Japan’s Rika Kihira, the 2018 Grand Prix Final winner and reigning national champion, withdrew from both her scheduled Grand Prix events, as did reigning U.S. champion Bradie Tennell.

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Self-sufficient Nathan Chen an easy winner at Skate Canada

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Self-sufficient Nathan Chen an easy winner at Skate Canada

Nathan Chen has gotten used to training without his coach nearby, having done it during his freshman and sophomore years at Yale while Rafael Arutunian was 3,000 miles away in California.

But Saturday’s free skate at Skate Canada in Vancouver was the first time he had competed without Arutunian at his side in a significant competition during the 10 years they have worked together. With Chen on leave from Yale since May 2020, he and Arutunian had been together virtually every day since.

“He trains all of us to be pretty self-sufficient,” Chen said. “So whether he is there or not, we kind of know what we need to do.”

Chen said his winning performance was “not particularly” affected because Arutunian had to watch from the stands rather than the boards after the coach’s accreditation had been revoked for his inadvertent violation of Covid-19 protocols related to the bubble at the event.

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For Nathan Chen, what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas

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For Nathan Chen, what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas

Twenty-eight seconds into his short program at Skate America in Las Vegas a week ago, Nathan Chen found himself with his rear end on the ice.

It wasn’t the first time Chen had fallen in a competition, of course. It actually had happened in his previous individual competition, the 2021 World Championships. And it was on the same opening short program jump, a quadruple lutz, putting him third going into a free skate he easily won to take a third straight world title.

Yet the fall at Skate America last week clearly affected him more. Chen botched his third jumping pass and wound up with his worst short program score since the 2018 Olympics. The desultory free skate (four clean quads notwithstanding) that followed left him third overall, with his lowest total score in 22 international events dating to autumn 2016 and also his first loss since those 2018 Olympics.

That is why Chen chose to go right back to the quad lutz rather than pick an easier jump to open Friday’s short program at Skate Canada in Vancouver.


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