How Alysa Liu rediscovered figure skating and came out of retirement

/
How Alysa Liu rediscovered figure skating and came out of retirement

How did Alysa Liu get to this point, to where she is skating in this weekend’s Budapest Trophy in Hungary, her first real competition in two and a half years?

How and why did she return to the spotlight after purposefully retreating to the shadows, her break from being ALYSA LIU (drum roll) so complete that she also broke from social media, then began posting photos in which alysa liu (whisper) often turned her face from the camera or made it indistinct.

At age 13, Liu had stood the figure skating world on its head. At 16, soon after skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics and winning a bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships, Liu retired from the sport.

She did some post-Olympic shows and did not skate at all for nearly a year and a half. At 19, a sophomore at UCLA, she is competing again.

Talk about things turning upside down.

Read More

Changes in skating rules to limit jumps may make Malinin's record literally one for the ages

/
Changes in skating rules to limit jumps may make Malinin's record literally one for the ages

There is an old saying in sports that goes, “Records are made to be broken.”

That may not apply to the world record men’s free skate score Ilia Malinin posted in winning the 2024 World Championships – as well as to several women’s world records – if the International Skating Union passes proposals limiting jumps at its biennial Congress this June in Las Vegas.

Should that happen, everyone should have their asterisks ready, as the ISU once again will have to create yet another chronological subdivision on its already confusing record lists.

While the formal agenda for the ISU Congress will not be made public until next week, the preliminary agenda includes the following changes to singles free skate programs recommended by the singles and pairs technical committee:

Read More

Madison Chock, Evan Bates lead ice dance at worlds with brilliance years in the making

/
Madison Chock, Evan Bates lead ice dance at worlds with brilliance years in the making

MONTREAL – There is a moment late in their rhythm dance when a moving Madison Chock leaps into Evan Bates’ arms, and he immediately spins her up into a rotational lift at his shoulder level.

It happens so smoothly and in less time than it will take you to read this paragraph, so you go back and watch over and over again to see how they can look so effortless and secure in a potentially dicey few seconds.

“Evan is very good with his coordination,” Chock said. “He’s good at catching things, throwing things. I’m in good hands. But for sure, if you’re just going to launch yourself into someone’s arms, it takes a lot of trust.”

Read More

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.

Read More

World figure skating championships the latest chapter of Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s comeback

/
World figure skating championships the latest chapter of Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s comeback

There are so many improbabilities in the story of how Canadian pair team Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps got to this week’s world figure skating championships that the whole thing reads like a flight of fancy.

You start with a talented junior singles skater from suburban Chicago named Deanna Stellato, whose skates had sat in a closet at her mother’s home for 16 years after injuries pushed her from the sport.

Read More