For Alexa Knierim, Brandon Frazier, a historic world pairs’ title is reason to continue skating

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For Alexa Knierim, Brandon Frazier, a historic world pairs’ title is reason to continue skating

They had been together so little time, barely a season of true international competition when you factor in the year disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier had still accomplished so much.

So, at the end of a whirlwind 2022 season, when they missed the national championships after Frazier contracted COVID but returned for landmark performances by a U.S. pair at the Olympics and world championships, they inevitably came to a career crossroads.

Should they be satisfied with what they already had done competitively, finishing on the high of skating flawlessly to become the first U.S. team to win the pairs’ world title since 1979? Should they end on that high that followed having won an Olympic team event medal and earning sixth place in the individual event at the 2022 Winter Games, the best U.S. pairs’ finish at the Olympics since 2002?

Or should they keep competing to see how much more they could do, both in terms of tangible results and the intangible quality that makes a pair more than two individuals skating together?

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Under the circumstances, figure skating worlds – and future – hard to assess

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Under the circumstances, figure skating worlds – and future – hard to assess

Even in normal times, it always has been hard to draw a lot of conclusions from the World Figure Skating Championships that immediately follow the Olympics.

The rigors of an Olympic season lead many medalists to take a pass on worlds. Those who do compete often are obviously fatigued.

It is exponentially harder to assess the competition that ended Saturday in Montpellier, France.

No world meet has taken place in more abnormal circumstances.

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Still just 16, Alysa Liu has met the challenges of going from insouciant prodigy to world medalist

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Still just 16, Alysa Liu has met the challenges of going from insouciant prodigy to world medalist

You look at Alysa Liu, and you see a 16-year-old with braces, and it doesn’t seem possible she still is that young because of how much has happened to her in the past four years, all of it in the public eye.

Liu has gone through adolescence under the relentless glare of a spotlight she attracted in January 2019, at age 13, by becoming the youngest U.S. women’s singles champion ever. She was a prodigy who would bear huge expectations for two seasons before she was even eligible to compete at the senior level in her sport.

It all was so easy at the start, with one landmark achievement after another, a second U.S. title in 2020, victories on the Junior Grand Prix circuit, history-making triple axel and quadruple jumps.

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Chinese pair look golden from any perspective

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Chinese pair look golden from any perspective

You can look at the pairs skating final on the micro level, poring over the dozens of numbers on the score sheet, and you will find the mathematical differences that accounted for the outcome.

Or you can look at it on the macro level, seeing the forest instead of the trees, and you will find a poignant story of perseverant triumph over relentless adversity, a triumph made even more remarkable because it came in a Saturday competition with extraordinary skating.

The way Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China won the gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics was, in a way, a microcosm of their lengthy partnership, a performance in which a big problem did not stop them. They had one big problem on a jump during Saturday’s free skate, but overcame it with surpassing excellence on everything else.

They had prevailed over doubters who said their body types did not fit into pairs skating. Over injuries that required two difficult foot surgeries for her and a hip surgery for him. Over the pressure of trying to win at home in a country brimming with nationalistic pride.

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In Olympic pairs short program, breathtaking excellence

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In Olympic pairs short program, breathtaking excellence

At its best, pairs figure skating is not only beautiful but thrilling, in a hold-your-breath kind of way.

It is a high-wire act of throws and twists and ever-more-complex lifts, moves that U.S. pairs skater Timothy LeDuc perfectly characterizes as right out of Cirque du Soleil.

Pairs skating was at its best in the short program at the 2018 Winter Olympics, where, as I wrote then, you could justifiably have exhausted a dictionary's supply of superlatives to describe the quality of the leading performers.

The quality of the top teams in Friday’s pairs short program at the 2022 Winter Olympics was even better.

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China, fire on ice, lead with a world record score. The next two finishers, Yevgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov and Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov, both of the Russian Olympic Committee, each had season-best scores.

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