By any measure, Nathan Chen’s performance at Worlds matches standard for transcendent greatness

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By any measure, Nathan Chen’s performance at Worlds matches standard for transcendent greatness

Transcendent greatness in sports is both absolute and relative.

Absolute, because anyone who sees an exceptional performance can recognize it as exceptional judged against nothing but its own merits.

Relative, because we seek to define greatness by comparison, to determine levels of it (greater? greatest?) when judged by other exceptional performances we have seen or know of, no matter how hard it is to make such comparisons across long periods of time, with the wildly different athletic parameters of different eras.

No matter which standard we use, absolute or relative, what Nathan Chen did in winning the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships in Japan was transcendent greatness.


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Long and short (form) of it: Nathan Chen's brilliance surpassing in both at worlds

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Long and short (form) of it: Nathan Chen's brilliance surpassing in both at worlds

With a baker’s dozen of tweets, I wrap up Day 4 of the World Figure Skating Championships, a big one for Team USA:

*Nathan Chen (gold), who was simply otherworldly, and Vincent Zhou (bronze), confident and solid, gave the U.S. two men on the podium for the first time since 1996, when Todd Eldredge and Rudy Galindo went gold/bronze.

*Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue’s bronze extended the U.S. streak of world dance medals to five years.

I’ve enjoyed covering the meet this way. I hope you enjoyed reading about it this way. (High-quality, uninterrupted NBC Sports Gold live stream made it possible.)

I’ll have more about Chen’s victory Monday on nbcsports.com, and there also will be a link to it here.

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Operation Tweet Storm, Day 3: Singles redemption, rhythm dance virtuosity at world figure skating

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Operation Tweet Storm, Day 3: Singles redemption, rhythm dance virtuosity at world figure skating

I set a tweet storm personal best today.

Pushed to do it after what Papadakis & Cizeron, Zagitova, Medvedeva and Tursynbaeva accomplished on the ice in Japan.

So much fantastic skating, in so many ways.

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Who will win 2019 figure skating worlds? My gold medal crystal ball perfectly clear on just one event

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Who will win 2019 figure skating worlds? My gold medal crystal ball perfectly clear on just one event

There are two ways to do figure skating predictions.

One is based on the unlikely event that the top six or so skaters or couples in every discipline skate cleanly (wouldn’t that be wonderful to see.) Predictions then are relatively simple, since one can rely on measures of past clean programs and of pure ability.

The second method factors in recent performances, injuries, the way judges have perceived an athlete or team, how the athletes have done under pressure in big events and other intangibles.  These are much more valid but also trickier, given what might happen when you combine all that information with a slippery surface, knife-blade-wide skate edges and limit-pushing, extreme sports skills.

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SafeSport calls out figure skating for unchecked "culture of abuse"

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SafeSport calls out figure skating for unchecked "culture of abuse"

 In response to a U.S. Figure Skating letter that challenged its credibility and operating methods, the U.S. Center for SafeSport has criticized figure skating for a culture that “allowed grooming and abuse to go on unchecked for too long.”

SafeSport leveled that charge in a statement sent to Globetrotting that also rejected a USFS request made last week for the Center to complete its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct made against late pairs skater John Coughlin.

It a Feb. 26 letter to the SafeSport board of directors, USFS cited concerns about the way SafeSport handles such allegations as a reason for wanting the investigation finished.

“Many U.S. Figure Skating athletes and members have expressed concern to U.S. Figure Skating leadership over the Center’s actions and shared that they have lost trust and confidence in how the Center processes allegations of abuse,” the USFS letter said.

SafeSport’s Monday statement said its work on the Coughlin case and “other Figure Skating matters” had uncovered evidence that there “was/is” a wider problem of abuse in the sport.

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