International Figure Skating July - August 2016

Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani closed out the most successful season of their career with a silver medal at the World Championships. Photo: Susan D. Russell Legendary coach Alexei Mishin and Gennady Kaskov, the 1987 World Junior ice dance champion, posed for photos at the end of a training seminar in Guelph, Ontario. Photo: Susan D. Russell A late addition to the U.S. World team, Mirai Nagasu came through when it counted in Boston, placing 10th overall. Photo: Susan D. Russell Emanuel Sandhu worked on choreography with Elizaveta Tuktamysheva during a training camp in Canada in May. Photo: Susan D. Russell…

As you may or may not know, I acquired International Figure Skating (IFS) from Madavor Media in March. After almost 12 years of working for that great organization, the IFS team and I are excited to be taking the magazine into a new era. We are kicking off this new venture with a jam-packed issue. Our lead stories are a series of exclusive interviews with some of the modernday legends of the sport: Mao Asada, Daisuke Takahashi, Stéphane Lambiel and Carolina Kostner. The IFS team also caught up with Ashley Wagner to talk about her successful campaign in Boston, and Daniel Samohin who made history for Israel when he claimed the World Junior crown in March. He is the first skater from that nation to ever claim an ISU Championship title.…

Rising from the ashes after a two-year hiatus, Aliona Savchenko and her new partner Bruno Massot twirled onto two of the most prestigious podiums on the planet last season. In January, they mined silver at Europeans in Bratislava and, two months later, captured bronze at the World Championships in Boston. Many thought Savchenko was crazy when, in 2014, she decided to continue her competitive career, instead of cashing in on professional shows with Robin Szolkowy, her partner of 11 years. But the petite Ukrainian-born pairs skater knew exactly what she was doing. When she and Massot first teamed up, there were many hurdles to overcome. The not-so-amicable split with her former coach Ingo Steuer and the fight for Massot’s release from the French Federation, which ultimately cost the German Federation…

In any other country, Anna Pogorilaya probably would be a national champion with skating star status. But not so in her native Russia, where the competition in the ladies’ category is currently the toughest in the world. Just making the national team is a challenge in itself. Pogorilaya has been to three consecutive World Championships, but she still sits in the shadow of Evgenia Medvedeva, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Adelina Sotnikova and Julia Lipnitskaia. Pogorilaya has not yet won a major event, but claimed bronze medals at the 2013 World Junior Championships, the European Championships in 2015 and 2016 and, most recently, at the 2016 World Championships. Though last season has had its ups and downs, Pogorilaya acknowledged that her campaign ended on a high note in Boston. “This was my most…

Daniel Samohin broke new ground for his native Israel last season, closing it out in spectacular fashion with a victory at the World Junior Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, in March. Samohin’s win was historical. He is the first skater from his nation to have ever won a Championship title at any level. Skating is in Daniel Samohin’s blood. His father, Igor Samohin, was a former pairs skater who represented the former Soviet Union. After moving to Israel in 1996, he coached the Olympic figure skating team for five years. Daniel Samohin, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1998, was 5 years old when his family relocated to the U.S. in 2001 in search of better training conditions for his elder brother, Stanislav. They finally settled in San Diego, Calif.,…

She was doubled over at the waist, a quivering hand reaching for her face to stem the rush of tears amidst a deafening cauldron of noise. Ashley Wagner wept at the end of her long program, as perhaps she never had before, but who could really blame her? The performance of her lifetime, with the possibility of winning her first-ever World Championship medal squarely on the line … and all of it happening in a building in which her Olympic dreams were nearly dashed two years earlier. It was a powerful set of circumstances to process, even for the toughest of Ifigure skating competitors and, as Ashley Wagner will suggest now, we do not even know the half of it. The breakthrough World silver medal she won six weeks shy…