Aaron, Chen leap into new season with different approaches
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SALT LAKE CITY - Max Aaron felt he could waste no time in upping the ante.
Nathan Chen knows he can take his time.
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ISU proposes "radical change" to rebalance figure skating's artistry and athleticism
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A top official at the International Skating Union said the organization is looking at "radical change" in figure skating in order to achieve a better balance between the athletic and artistic sides of the sport.
The change would involve substantially lowering the base values of quadruple jumps and, for pairs, quadruple throws. For three of the five quads being done in men's singles, the reduction would be more than 10 percent, according to proposed numbers obtained by icenetwork.
"This is the direction line I am working on with the intent to make a radical change for the future development of the sport, hoping to bring back the popularity that figure skating used to have in the past," Italy's Fabio Bianchetti, the chair of the ISU Single & Pair Skating Committee, wrote in an email.
Another change may include replacing the current short program and free skate with what would effectively be an athletic program and an artistic program. Each would award full medals in events like the Olympics and the world championships, and there also would be a full medal for the all-around winner.
Read MoreFor Abbott, a figure skating career of brilliance and tarnish
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What to make of Jeremy Abbott’s competitive figure skating career, now that he used a Thursday interview on the icenetwork podcast, “Ice Talk,” to bring it to an official end?
He was a blend of unquestionable brilliance and baffling mediocrity, the latter covering many of his scintillating moments in a dull finish.
With four senior titles, Abbott is among most decorated men’s skaters at the U.S. Championships. In the past 65 years, only Todd Eldredge has won more national titles (six). Abbott won all his in the International Judging System era; no other U.S. man has won more than two in that 12-season period, none more than one in the nine seasons since Abbott won his first.
Abbott skated like a world-beater at several of those U.S. Championships, none more so than 2010, when his performances were better than those of the medalists at the Vancouver Olympics a month later.
And he skated at various levels of back-in-the-pack inconsequence in all his global championships, none more so than those 2010 Olympics, when he was 15th (!) in the short program and ninth overall.
Read MoreMy Five takeaways from 2017 World Championships
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HELSINKI, Finland -- With the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships in the rearview mirror, here are my five takeaways from an eventful week in Helsinki, Finland.
1. This time around, Ashley Wagner should have no margin for error based on past performance when it comes to the Olympic selection process: She either finishes in the top three at next year's U.S. championships or stays home.
In 2014, the procedure provided ample justification for U.S. Figure Skating to pick Wagner, even though she finished fourth in Boston -- including a fifth-place showing in the free skate.
The uproar over third-place Mirai Nagasu being overlooked was emotional rather than rational because few were aware of the criteria then in place.
Wagner, a three-time U.S. champion, understood the situation was different after her poor free skate Friday jeopardized the United States' chances of getting three ladies spots in South Korea next February.
Read MoreBattered skates give Nathan Chen the boot at World Championships
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HELSINKI, Finland -- Everyone has a favorite pair of shoes, the ones so comfortable you will have them repaired over and over again and then wear them even after no repair will really hold them securely together.
For figure skaters, that situation is compounded by the stresses from torque and impact they put on their most important shoes: the boots with blades they wear in competition.
There frequently comes a time when a skater must decide between the risk in wearing battered boots and the risk in wearing a pair that is barely broken in -- or not broken in at all.
Such a moment occurred for Nathan Chen early in the week leading up to the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships, when the boots he had been wearing for three and a half weeks began to fall apart.
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