Dream of the Perfect Double Axel

I’m glad I taped most of the World Championships of Figure Skating because ESPN’s commercial breaks were grueling. Busy bee that I am, I recorded everything up to yesterday’s finals, and watched the whole ten hours of coverage in about three hours before switching over to go live for the ladies around 4:30 Pacific Time.

It's always rewarding to watch an entire event in one day like that, designing a condensed, skating-only version of the coverage for oneself with the aid of the fast-forward controls. Apparently, a lot of Canadians felt the same way: Ticket sales were disappointing; a lack of local PR has been blamed, but figure skating event attendance numbers have been going down across the board. I’d be more likely to blame a general decline in discretionary income rather than a lack of interest, because the sport has never been more hotly contended or exciting to watch.

The level of commentary, without Dick Button around, was slightly pedestrian, but perfectly acceptable, and certainly less nit-picky. I especially loved it when Kurt Browning, upon seeing Stephane Lambiel land his opening quad-triple combo in the men’s free skate, almost grunted, “Bring it!” with an edgy zeal not usually apparent in his generally jocular delivery. I liked Wylie and Browning together in the box, but the sight of them in power suits sitting all macho-style was jarring. Their legs were set so far apart, it looked like their zippers would pop, and those stupid, big, bright ties made them look like Republican lobbyists rather than commentators for a sport universally known for its flamboyance. I wish the TV establishment would at least let them go business casual!

Commentary aside, the men’s competition was certainly the most contentious, with Lambiel’s stellar interpretation scores edging out Joubert’s higher technical total. I’m surprised, actually, that Joubert earned the high scores he did on the second set because he skates so mechanically, and his arms are just too short! I also despise his vinyl-accented “Matrix” outfit even more than I loathe Lambiel’s psychedelic zebra, which has actually started to grow on me. While I may have jumped the gun saying the men had overtaken the women in skating prowess in my last post, I am certain that everyone will agree that the top men now far outshine the top ladies in sequin power. In fact, the top ladies have become extremely tasteful, obviously following the lead of Michelle Kwan’s elegant string of dignified Vera Wang creations.

But despite Joubert’s annoying outfit and fist-pumping jockiness, I enjoyed seeing him finally skate clean for the first time in two seasons. I don’t think all that much of Lucinda Ruh’s spinning genius has rubbed off on him, though his spins are better than they were–and he still manages to look like a total jock even in the most outlandishly balletic positions. It’s an extremely rare quality, actually. When competitor Thomas Verner of Czechoslowakia was skating, Wylie and Browning–for some reason–started talking about the fact that he and Joubert were the two men who routinely got all the attention from the ladies backstage; I thought that was hilarious, because it’s not difficult to see why–they’re the only two recognizably straight contestants in the entire field.

Successful defending World Champion Stephane Lambiel has his own kind of sex appeal, but to me he’s like an asexual sprite on the ice, a total nature spirit, streaking and twirling with the kind of abandon I associate with pagan rituals. Especially at this Worlds, his Pan horns were out, and he had a delicious look of almost ecstatic revelry while he skated, deftly controlling a lush flow of joyous energy through some of the most precise and demanding upper body moves and footwork in the entire meet. His jumps were absolutely gonzo, covering height and distance I usually associate with X-game antics. I particularly loved the look on his face (“Sell it, Louise!”) when he stumbled out of his triple loop, obviously grateful that he was still on his feet at all. I was surprised, too: Aside from getting about six feet into the air after a three-turn take off at top speed, he covered something like fifteen or twenty feet of ice on that ill-fated triple loop. Joubert’s jumps may have been more controlled, but Lambiel skated like a rock star, and it must have made those judges swoon.

Ditto for new World Ice Dance Champions Denkova and Staviyski of Bulgaria, who look like refugees from a 1980s chick-rock band, and skate kind of like Stevie Nicks performs on stage. They may be blond (ahem) and regally chiseled, but you can feel the dark-eyed gypsies in their souls when they skate. Sometimes they undulate together in tender loneliness, like the Aurora Borealis, and sometimes they flicker across the ice like a pair of will-o-the-wisps. My favorite team, sentimental heavies Dubreuil and Lauzon, were more suave, smooth, strong and classic, with shades of the passionate majesty of Torvill and Dean. The judges liked ‘em a lot, too, clearly ranking them higher than anybody else in the free skate; but Denkova and Staviyski had such high technical scores in the original dance–Latin-themed this year–that they managed to carry the event even after finishing third in the free dance. They’re the first Bulgarians ever to win an ISU event, and I’d bet they’re going to be more famous than any Bulgarian rock star ever was, too. (You can’t name any, can you?)

I was completely surprised to find that the dance competition moved me far more than did the pairs event. In fact, the pairs left me so cold, I had to put on an extra pair of socks. Winners Pang and Tong, to be fair, do have a bit of a spark in them, but I don’t feel their technique is quite there yet, as “they” like to say. The exact opposite is true of the American Champions, Inoue and Baldwin, who had by far the highest technical scores in the free skate, yet garnered presentation scores that were almost six full points lower than those of the gold medalists. Some say the Russians were cheated out of the gold, since they skated clean, while both Chinese teams fell, but they earned their bronze by being painfully slow and absolutely expressionless, despite their perfect form. Silver medalists Zhang and Zhang are great athletes, but they still need years of work on their line, footwork and basic level of emotional connection.

To see some truly great pairs skating, one has to migrate to the world of artistic roller skating these days, where lifts, in particular, are far more spectacular, challenging and quickly rotated than in ice skating. Alas, the wonderful world of artistic roller skating cannot be viewed on television by anyone but the Italians (and other satellite-savvy EU inhabitants), who really do treat their world champion roller figure skaters like rock stars. But that’ll soon change if I can have anything to do about it!

What won’t change, it seems, is the reign of the teen terror on the ladies’ front, with Kimmie Meissner really kicking her competition in the teeth with those stunningly high and well-earned technical scores, and veteran Fumie Suguri delivering a beautiful, passionate program while popping a jump or two to give up the gold. Former favorite Sasha Cohen squeaked through with a bronze on presentation and interpretation merit alone. In fact, she earned the highest second set of scores by far, even though she landed very few solid jumps. And that’s how she beat out Elena Sokolova and Sarah Meier, who both delivered nearly clean free skates that would have earned them medals had they shown any sort of depth or connection to their skating whatsoever. Those two women can do clean, high, perfect triple jumps for days, but as long as they’re not presenting a program to the judges that’s a synergistic whole, they might as well be skating in the second group. They’re both tremendous skaters–especially Meier, who has great line, footwork and spins as well as killer jumps–but each looked as if she had holed up in a well-defended redoubt inside her head, from which she operated the machinery by remote control.

And now I put down my own remote control. It will lay mostly dormant for the spring and summer, as I watch very little television aside from figure skating events. I certainly don’t care enough about anything else enough to go to the trouble of taping it when I can’t watch the broadcast. And unless artistic roller skating gets its championships on the airwaves pronto, I won't have anything vital to watch until next season. Meanwhile, stay tuned for my own artistic roller skating adventure (I'm just about to purchase a killer pair of skates), and some roller figure skating stories and reporting as I come across them.

Now that the World Championships are underway, I curse the rigamarole of the international airwaves and politics of broadcast scheduling for the delay we lowly television viewers are made to endure; and I look forward to what I will see. Funnily, after many years of being a jump connoisseur above all else, I am dreamy with anticipation to see the spins this year.

When I was a skater, I was a natural jumper and a terrible spinner, so I focused more on the former and never really mastered the latter. As a spectator, I first became obsessed with spins when I saw Denise Bielmann perform her future namesake for the first time in international competition. I remember thinking that she looked just like my toy gyroscope while it was spinning: a perfect blend of physics and beauty.

It was a long time before another spinner moved me as much as Bielmann did, and it turned out to be another Swiss skater: Lucinda Ruh, who brings tears to my eyes when she spins. I certainly wish I could see more of her, but she rarely performs in shows that are televised. Lucinda Ruh is such an astounding spinner that judges rewarded her with enormous points in the artistic half of the scoring back in the 6.0 days, even though she never landed many great triples and always had problems with her jumps in competition. I've never heard it discussed by those who have reported on the change in the figure skating scoring system, but the new system contains far more ways to reward outstanding spins than did the old one, and I believe this is due, in large part, to Lucinda Ruh.

Following in the Swiss spinning tradition, Stephane Lambiel twirled onto the scene a few years ago with a collection of moves and positions not before seen in the men's competition, and obviously inspired by Ruh, with her artist's eye for shape and architect's exactness of form. For a year or two, he ruled--at least in my estimation--as the top amateur spinner in the world.

And then the scoring rules changed, and everybody else realized that their spins would start counting for much more of their total scores, and got to work. During the recent Olympics, I was surprised to see that Lambiel was not only no better a spinner than the other men, but was actually outperformed, outpositioned and outcentered by the likes of Weir, Lysacek and Pluschenko. Aha, I thought, the Swiss have lost their edge--how exciting! In fact, I became so engrossed by the excellent spinning in the Olympic men's competition that I actually got bored when they had to make a round on the rink and pop off a jump. Okay, not quite, but I was amazed by the improvement in overall spinning quality and difficulty.

I was also amazed to see that the men had actually surpassed the ladies in spinning prowess. Watch closely during the Worlds, and you may see what I mean. Then again, you may disagree. You may think NO man could ever match Sasha Cohen's elegant positions and precise centering. But then you may see SHAWN SAWYER skate for Canada during the men's event, and perhaps you'll agree with me that he is quickly becoming the best spinner in the entire field, and the only one who even closely approximates Lucinda Ruh's famed velocity. What's so exciting is that Sawyer is really just a tad ahead of the rest of the pack. If you haven't yet become a spinning fan, take a good close look at how they whirl at the Worlds--and then see if you can figure out the level and points for each one without letting your head spin.

The World Championships will be broadcast on ESPN March 23-26. See the schedule here.

Ever since Midori Ito burst upon the international skating scene with her high wrap and incredible jumping powers over twenty years ago, I noticed something different about the way many Japanese skaters land their jumps. Watch them during the world championships–instead of stretching their free leg and pointing the foot upon landing a jump, they will land with the free leg low, the free foot flexed so that the inside edge of the boot is parallel to the ice. When I first saw Midori do it, I yelled at the television, “She doesn’t point her foot when she lands!” Slowly, watching more and more Japanese skaters do this, I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve often wondered if it was a matter of technique, a matter of style, or both. Sometimes, it consumes my imagination, and I try to think of feasible explanations for this choice. Could it simply be a matter of quirky Japanese aesthetics, or is it something less subtle?

Now, not all of the Japanese skaters do it, but Shizuka Arakawa, Yukari Nakano and Yuka Sato display the classic flexed foot landing style to a tee. They have all been coached by Nobuo and Kumiko Sato (Yuka’s folks), so perhaps the style comes from that powerful Japanese skating family. Midori Ito, however, was, as far as I know, not coached by the Satos (like almost every other Japanese champion has been), so off I go looking for another explanation.

Mao Asada, if I’m remembering correctly from watching her in the Grand Prix finals, employs a more stretched-and-pointed landing style, so for a while I considered the fact that the flexed-foot style was a way of adjusting the classic technique to look better on women who had legs that were short in comparison to their bodies. (Living in Japan in 1990-91, I learned that the Japanese have a derisive phrase for this body type: “daikon legs.”) Then I noticed that Fumie Suguri uses the flexed-foot style, and she’s about as willowy and long-legged as they come, so that theory became history.

The most likely explanation, I think, is that this landing style was a quirk of Midori Ito’s, and that Ito is SUCH an icon for EVERY Japanese skater that her idiosyncracy quickly spread through the figure skating world like a virus until it became common practice.

Still, I wonder. If anyone out there with inside knowledge of the Japanese figure skating world can shed any light on this subject for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Meanwhile, I will continue to waywardly gather further statistics on this minor, but compelling, phenomenon as I watch the Japanese team attempt to sweep the World Championships next week.

Irina Slutskaya has now confirmed that she will not be competing in the upcoming World Championships in Calgary, which means that Sasha Cohen, as the clear star of a very strong US team, has virtually no competition if she skates her best. But how likely is that? I believe Fumie Suguri is her biggest threat, though Suguri is not known for her consistency either. The other top ladies, such as Yukari Nakano,Yoshie Onda, Kimmie Meissner, Carolina Kostner, and Joannie Rochette, just don't have the polish that Cohen and Suguri do, though Rochette and Nakano could challenge the top two for the gold.

In other events, Belbin and Agosto should twizzle away with the gold in dance, and the Chinese should dominate the pairs competition. I'm not religious, or even superstitious, but I've found myself doing what amounts to praying for an absence of the kind of falls we saw in both of these events in the recent Olympics.

The hottest contest by far should be in the men's event, with Lysacek, Buttle, Weir and Lambiel battling it out for the top spot while Oda, Joubert, Takahashi, Sandhu and Savoie nip at their heels. It's Lysacek all the way for me--his passion on the ice during his Olympic free skate converted me, though I still want to see soulful Matt Savoie on the podium.

The World Championships of figure skating will take place March 20-26. See the TV schedule here. More previews as the competition draws near...

First, ABC reported that the entire Russian roster of Olympic medalists was pulling out of the World Championships (but without a direct quote from Slutskaya), and then I read that Irina Slutskaya had changed tack, and was going to perform in Calgary after all. Still, she hasn't officially entered the event. I heard somewhere that she disdainfully threw her Olympic bronze medal into a locker backstage after the podium ceremony. That's certainly hideous sportsmanship, but I can also relate to her vast disappointment. I would think that someone like Slutskaya, who was already the comeback kid when she took the world title last year, just won't be able to help herself. I bet she'll be out there breathing down Sasha Cohen's neck, and making damned sure she lands that triple loop this time!

Hey, we may not be able to see the Junior Worlds on television, but you can watch a good deal of newly-crowned 2006 Junior World Champion Yu-na Kim's performance in a news feature on this Korean media site. Simply go to the link and press the button under her picture to start the video. Her triumph is a big thing already: Almost all my Korean ESL students tonight had heard about Kim's win, even though none of them know anything about figure skating. I'm sure she'll be selling everything from sports drinks to shampoo during Korean soap operas in no time!

They said it couldn't be done. Who is they? Oh, I don't know, but there must have been lots of people who were saying that Yu-na Kim could never hold up in the long program after her surprise win over Mao Asada in the short program at the 2006 Junior World Championships. I even thought that myself, even though I've yet to see the girl skate. Today, she pulled off a big upset by resoundingly beating Mao Asada in the free skate to take the title of Junior World Champion away from the Japanese sensation. And when I say "resoundingly," I mean that she beat her by more than twenty-four points, scoring so high that she would have taken fourth had she scored the same at the recent Olympics, between Slutskaya and Suguri, with her new personal best of 177.54. Not only is she the first Korean woman to win a figure skating world championship, but she's the first Korean to win an ISU event, ever, as I learned in this handy ISU press release, where you can read the whole, technical story of the event. I also learned that the term used for doing jumps is "laying down," as in "performing to the Papa Can You Hear Me soundtrack [sic; and ick], the 15-year-old laid down a triple flip-triple toe combination...." I like that term; it lends a nice gonzo quality to the commentary that's actually perfectly appropriate for the true spirit of the sport. I'm sure there will be a lot of extremely gonzo parties in Korea and wherever Koreans gather in the next day or so if the Korean media is as wily as I think it will be about selling this historic victory to the general public. I'm definitely going to tell my Korean ESL students about it tonight, and ask them to watch for coverage in the Korean news. Which they won't do. But I would if I could--it's always a hoot for this armchair sociologist to see how different countries' media treat their star figure skaters.

In the shadow of Japan in almost every way, Korea seems to have an inferiority complex when it comes to its cousin across the sea--my Korean ESL students express it in a thousand twisted little ways every day, with a blend of hostility and what I've come to think of as a "trademark" sardonic sense of humor. None of them will know who Yu-na Kim is because most are the kind of apathetic mainstream dog-paddlers who only know their country's (and America's) MEGAstars, but the 15-year-old figure skater just made an important first stab at becoming Korea's next cultural hero by beating reigning Junior world champion Mao Asada in the short program at the 2006 Junior World Championships in Slovenia. With another Kim in the top ten (no relation), Korea is already well on its way to challenging Japan's new skating "dynasty," and start one of its own. Of course, the U.S. and its constantly impressive stable of sleek, spunky skaters (The American girls are more like racehorses than princesses, don't you think?) is never far behind, and could surge ahead again at any time, with Christine Zukowski and Alisa Czisny solidly holding third and fourth as they head into Thursday's free skate. Will Mao go for that history-making quad flip? Or maybe a loop? Kim's jumping abilities aren't as freakish as Asada's, but her other scores, all consistently higher than Mao's, describe a level of skating I can't wait to see when she finally hits TV. What havoc will be wreaked when these new-line teen terrors are set loose on the senior circuit ice!

Japanese figure skating prodigy Mao Asada is currently aiming for an error-free performance at the Junior World Championships in Slovenia this week, where the 15-year-old is defending her title--today she blew away the competition in the qualifying round. Already part of figure skating history for being the first (ahem) woman to land two triple axels in competition, Mao is currently mulling the possibility of doing a quad in her free program this year--even though Miki Ando has already made her mark on figure skating history by being the first woman to land a quad (a salchow) in competition last year. Mao, who has been having consistency problems with the quad salchow, and reportedly has faulty technique on her quad toe loop (cheating a half-turn on her take-off to make it a triple "toe-axel"), is working on a quadruple flip, lutz and loop; and if she perfects and lands any of those in the near future, she'll be the first person ever, man or woman, to land said jump(s) in competition, period. With Asada ready to rip through the ranks of the international senior level next year, ladies figure skating is about to take a turn toward the extreme. And because Mao has a fluid, graceful line and a feeling for music that rivals any more seasoned skater's, she'll truly be a force to contend with rather than a flash-in-the-pan jumping bean. I find it absolutely criminal of the ISU and US Figure Skating that the Junior World Championships are not broadcast on television--though perhaps there's some clause about that to protect young skaters from premature media scrutiny; could the sport be that humane? One hopes so.

Categories: Japan, skating