Ten observations from the 2016-17 figure skating season

/
Ten observations from the 2016-17 figure skating season

Here are 10 random observations about the figure skating season following its biggest event, the 2017 World Championships in Helsinki:

1. Yuzuru Hanyu can look erratic, both painfully and delightfully so.

Even with that, the Japanese star is exceptional enough to have achieved consistently brilliant results in the past four seasons.

Olympic gold. Two world titles. Two world silvers. An unmatched four straight Grand Prix Final victories by a singles skater. Highest scores ever in the short program and free skate, and over a competition. A fan base in his own country and across the world that, thanks to social media, may be the largest in the sport's history.

And imagine what his record would be had he not lost leads after the short program at the 2015 and 2016 World Championships.

Read More

In Fredericks' case, IOC tries to extinguish yet another fire

/
In Fredericks' case, IOC tries to extinguish yet another fire

Did Frankie Fredericks jump to do the right thing or was he pushed?

And should the four-time Olympic silver medalist sprinter and International Olympic Committee member from Namibia be allowed to return to his administrative positions in international sport, no matter the outcome of investigations by the IOC ethics committee and French law enforcement?

Those are the questions raised by Fredericks’ stepping down from major roles in the IOC and the international track federation after the French newspaper LeMonde reported last week financial ties between Fredericks and the sulfurous former IAAF marketing consultant Papa Massata Diack.

Read More

A tone deaf IOC won't hear what cities do: hosting the Olympics sounds like sour notes

/
A tone deaf IOC won't hear what cities do: hosting the Olympics sounds like sour notes

How’s that Olympic Agenda 2020 thing working out, Mr. Bach?

All that hot air about reform and cost-cutting in both bidding for and staging the Games that filled a Monaco conference center in 2020, inflating a balloon of self-congratulations that has been leaking ever since?

“Like most people, I am sick and tired of hearing the mantra of Olympic Agenda 2020,” Canada’s Richard Pound said in an email.

Pound is the senior member of the current 95 in an International Olympic Committee presided over by Mr. Thomas Bach since September 2013.

Agenda 2020 was rushed to a vote in December 2014 after cities in five countries either dropped out of bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics or, in one case, dropped even the idea of a bid after public opposition.  That left just the capitals of two authoritarian nations in a race Beijing won over Almaty, Kazakhstan, despite serious environmental and logistical issues related to having skiing events in a low-snow area miles away from the host city.

And, then Mr. Bach, it was barely six months after your IOC membership rubber-stamped Agenda 2020 that cities in the 2024 Summer Games race began laughing at an emperor who still had no clothes.

Read More

Skating rings around his rivals, Nathan Chen's rise to the sport's elite has been meteoric

/
Skating rings around his rivals, Nathan Chen's rise to the sport's elite has been meteoric

Perfect symbolic fit:  Five Olympic rings.  Five Nathan Chen free skate quads.  And Chen doing them on the rink where a year from now he will be a strong contender for an Olympic gold medal.

The improbability that I could now confidently make such a bold statement about Chen is, in keeping with the numerical theme, the first of five takeaways from what he did Friday and Sunday in winning the Four Continents Championships in Gangneung, South Korea.

1.  Few U.S. singles skaters have had as meteoric a rise as Nathan Chen.

Last December 8, a day before the free skate at the Grand Prix Final, the 17-year-old from Salt Lake City was a prodigiously talented young skater with no striking international success at the senior level.

Barely three months later, he has become the most striking figure skater in the world, with a real chance to win the title in his debut at the senior World Championships beginning March 28 in Helsinki, Finland.

Read More

Could rush to judgment hurt U.S. women's chances for three Olympic figure skating spots?

/
Could rush to judgment hurt U.S. women's chances for three Olympic figure skating spots?

Earlier this season, U.S. Figure Skating changed its senior world team selection rules to deny a guaranteed place for the reigning national champion.

The change was made, according to a USFS document approved in December, “to select the athletes who will have the best chance for success at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships to win the maximum number of medals and future berths for the World and Olympic Team the following season.”

It was made just in case the winner at nationals was a fluke (or, more politely, a surprise), someone whose past international record gave no strong indication of success at the World Championships.

Someone like Karen Chen.

Her performances in both programs at last month’s U.S. Championships in Kansas City were undeniably brilliant – by far the best of her career.

Her performances in this week’s Four Continents Championships on the 2018 Olympic rink in Gangneung, South Korea, were undeniably dismal:  12th in the short program, with a fall and a watered-down combination; 10th in Saturday’s free skate, when she omitted the planned opening combination, did an invalid element and had four sloppy jumping passes (out of seven).

Overall, with a 12th place that matched her finish at last year’s Four Continents, Chen looked like the skater who had been consistently mediocre this season and last – with the exception of the 2017 nationals.

That should get USFS officials thinking of a future change in its world team selection rules so the results of Four Continents can be taken into consideration.  After all, it will be more than two months from the end of nationals to the start of worlds.

Read More