Isabeau Levito repeats new mantra to reduce stress of figure skating nationals

Isabeau Levito repeats new mantra to reduce stress of figure skating nationals

It wasn’t very long after winning her first senior national figure skating championship last January that Isabeau Levito began to look at it less as a crowning achievement and more as an albatross around her neck.

Levito almost immediately began to feel pressure about successfully defending the title, her sleep disturbed by thoughts of what would happen if she did not repeat as champion.

She had gone from a 2023 head space of competing with nothing to lose to one in which she worried about having everything to lose at the Prevagen U.S. Championships that begin Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.

“Honestly, it was kind of in the back of my mind ever since I won nationals last year,” Levito said. “A month later, I was already thinking about how stressed I would be for the next nationals, knowing that I felt not winning would be losing something.”

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Numbers show regressive impact of Russian ban in skating. Is the decline good or bad?

Numbers show regressive impact of Russian ban in skating.  Is the decline good or bad?

So here we are, hard upon a second straight figure skating Grand Prix Final without Russian entrants as justifiable punishment for their country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, still waiting on a decision in the soap operatic Kamila Valieva doping case almost two years after the Russian phenom tested positive six weeks before the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The Valieva decision, which has delayed awarding the 2022 team event medals, is expected by mid-February.  That presumably is mid-February 2024, but who knows?  Anyway, it can go on the back burner for today’s discussion, which is about the state of the sport without the beleaguered Valieva and her compatriots as the Grand Prix Final begins Thursday in Beijing.

There is no doubt that the absence of the Russian women, who had utterly dominated the sport since 2014, has had a dramatic effect on jumping.

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At 5-2 and just 15 years old, Isabeau Levito becomes commanding presence

At 5-2 and just 15 years old, Isabeau Levito becomes commanding presence

SAN JOSE, Calif. – With a calm command belying her age, Isabeau Levito has taken control of U.S. women’s skating at age 15.

Levito came here as the solid favorite to take her first national title, and she did it with a seemingly effortless grace, her balletic style producing solid winning performances in both Thursday’s short program and Friday’s free skate.

She was the last of 18 skaters in the free skate, following rivals who made mistakes big and small. Levito did not need perfection, but her skating approached it, even if the execution of some jumps could have been better.

Levito left no doubt of her superiority and burst into a wide smile even before the scores were announced. After a narrow win over Bradie Tennell (.02 points) in the short program, Levito (223.33) wound up 10.21 points ahead of the runner-up Tennell (213.12) in the final standings.

Amber Glenn was third at 207.44. She, Levito and Tennell will fill the three women’s places on the U.S. team for the March World Championships in Japan.

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Bradie’s back: Tennell wows in U.S. Figure Skating Championships return from nightmare

Bradie’s back: Tennell wows in U.S. Figure Skating Championships return from nightmare

SAN JOSE, California — Bradie Tennell stood at the end boards, her back to the ice surface, her attention on trying to take in what her imposing coach, Benoit Richaud, was telling her in the final seconds before she took the ice for Thursday’s short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

It was hard for Tennell to stay focused on – or even hear – what Richaud was saying. A group of kids from U.S. Figure Skating’s development camp, who were sitting in the stands near Tennell, started screaming their lungs out when they were shown on the SAP Center video board. Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” was blasting at approximately 10 million decibels on the arena’s sound system.

“It was very distracting,” Tennell said, eschewing an athlete’s usual cliché about nothing being able to break her concentration. “But this past year has taught me nothing comes easy.”

It was a year of injuries, re-injuries, new injuries. A year when the two-time U.S. champion had been physically unable to compete for a spot on a second Olympic team in 2022. A year when Tennell turned her life inside out, moving to France to train with Richaud, only to have more setbacks.

“I’ve definitely had my share of bumps in the road on the way here,” Tennell said. “This was a very long time in the making.”

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Bradie Tennell returns to U.S. Figure Skating Championships after nightmarish comeback

Bradie Tennell returns to U.S. Figure Skating Championships after nightmarish comeback

Bradie Tennell was ready. Her bags were packed for an early October trip to the Japan Open, an event that had would have symbolic resonance for her. It was to bring a traumatic part of her life full circle toward its end.

Tennell would be returning to figure skating competition in the same country where she had last competed 20 months earlier, at the 2021 World Team Trophy, before a right foot injury that frustratingly defied diagnosis.  The two-time U.S. champion had missed an entire competitive season, missed a chance at going to a second Olympics, missed the part of her identity that was Bradie Tennell the athlete.

It was the day before she was to leave for Japan. Tennell was practicing at her new training base in Nice, France, where she moved last September from her home in suburban Chicago (before her injury, she had been training in Colorado Springs). She was hoping such a dramatic change could bring renewed energy to her oft-delayed comeback.

Tennell had been training well, regularly doing clean program run-throughs in practice. She had been able to work her way back slowly and deliberately, with a schedule that allowed her to be patient.

And then, in her words, “something weird” happened on the landing of a triple toe loop jump. And now she had pain in her left foot, and the trip to Japan was off, as was a planned trip to Hungary for the Budapest Trophy a week after the Japan Open, as was … another season?

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