Indholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2016 i International Figure Skating

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…

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…

Russia’s Mikhail Kolyada is one of last season’s major discoveries. The 21-year-old St. Petersburg native had global audiences sitting up and taking notice in his first full year on the senior international stages. To many, Kolyada seemed to come out of nowhere. Though he showed a lot of promise in the junior ranks, he was inconsistent and fell off the radar when a broken ankle sidelined him in 2014. But last season, Kolyada oozed a calm confidence from the outset. He placed fifth at his first senior Grand Prix in Moscow, repeated the result at Europeans and skated into fourth at the World Championships in March. While the Russian ladies have become a dominant force at the World level, the men have been Rlagging behind. Kolyada’s results have provided the…

It had been a tough season, but Asada soldiered on. She had high hopes for a good result at the World Championships, but things did not get off to a stellar start. The short program had its share of technical issues, which left her in a distant ninth heading into the free skate. It was not the opening for which she and her legions of global fans had hoped. Asada turned it around two days later in the free, delivering the best performance of her “Madame Butterfly” routine of the season. The audience rose to its feet as the final note of her music faded and the look of satisfaction and relief on Asada’s face at that moment was unmistakable. Although her overall placement of seventh was her lowest to…

I felt like I won a game show when we were awarded these checks! • Meagan Duhamel at Team Challenge Cup In other countries, people don’t really know who I am yet. Yuzuru Hanyu gets these big screams, and I kind of get nice little claps. • Grant Hochstein What makes figure skating so fascinating is that the day of competition, you never know who is going to do what. • Patrick Chan I knew that the Russian girls would post high scores. I was prepared for that. • Satoko Miyahara on the results of the short program in Boston I hope next year I will be more funny, cool and awesome. • Dennis Vasiljevs David Dore had visions about what skating in Canada could be that no one else…

Dancing Stars Daisuke Takahashi, Kristi Yamaguchi, Meryl Davis and Charlie White will headline the cast of a new ballroom show, “Love on the Floor,” scheduled to take place from June 30 to July 9 at the Tokyu Theatre Orb in Tokyo, Japan. “Dancing with the Stars” alumnus Cheryl Burke will direct the action. “I have never danced with boots without blades, and I have never danced as a couple, either. So it’s all up to the practicing,” Takahashi said. Burke, who will partner the Japanese star, said he is “perfect for this kind of show. He is well known in Japan. A passionate skater on the ice and, in this show, performers need to express their feelings to the music through dance and movement. He is the kind of performer…

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.…

Daisuke Takahashi broke the news of his retirement from competitive skating at a press conference in Okayama, Japan, in October 2014. He said he was moving to the United States to search for a new goal in life. But that was only part of the story. Skating had been a central part of his life for 20 years, but the Japanese star was burnt out and needed a change. He quietly stepped away from the limelight without any further fanfare. The 2014 Olympic season had been a struggle for Daisuke Takahashi. He finished fourth at 2013 Skate America, before bouncing back to win NHK the following month. He qualified for the 2013-2014 Grand Prix Final, but was forced to pull out due to a leg injury. At Japanese nationals, he…

Since she stepped off the ice at the 2014 World Championships in Saitama, Japan, life for Carolina Kostner has been turbulent to say the least. Instead of basking in the glory of a successful season that culminated with a third place finish at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, Kostner became embroiled in a scandal that could have effectively ended her competitive career and tarnished her legacy. Carolina Kostner’s legal woes took root in the summer of 2012 when her then boyfriend Alex Schwazer, the 2008 Olympic champion in the 50 km race walk, was banned from competing in the Summer Olympics in 2012 in London after failing a doping test. He subsequently received a three-and-a-half-year ban from the sport. However, the problems for Kostner were just beginning.…

For more than two decades David Dore was the most powerful man in Canadian figure skating. When he took over the reigns of the Canadian Figure Skating Association (the CFSA, now Skate Canada) in 1980, it was wallowing in debt. Over the next 21 years, he turned the organization into one of the most financially successful skating associations on the planet. Dore’s control of every aspect of the organization garnered both criticism and praise, but the success story was undeniable. Under his leadership, membership blossomed, development programs were instituted, and an athlete’s trust fund established. And then, suddenly, weeks shy of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, Dore stepped away from the organization he had built into an empire without explanation. The announcement sent shockwaves through the international skating community. The…

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…

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…

Stéphane Lambiel has not slowed down since his retirement from competitive skating in 2010. The 2006 Olympic silver medalist has been in high demand, performing in shows around the world, choreographing programs for elite skaters and coaching young people in his native Switzerland. In 2014, Lambiel fulfilled one of his dreams when he launched his own show, “Ice Legends.” The event, which took place in December of that year, also commemorated the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan. Nobunari Oda, Akiko Suzuki, Miki Ando and Marin Honda performed in the inaugural show. Lambiel once again gathered a starstudded cast of Olympic and World champions and young stars on the rise for the second edition of “Ice Legends,” which took place at the Patinoire des Vernets arena in…

Yuzuru Hanyu was forced to take a two-month break from training following a diagnosis of ligament damage in his left foot. The Japanese Federation made the announcement in late April, adding that Hanyu had remained in Canada for treatment. He had been dealing with pain in his left foot since the beginning of last season, a condition that worsened in January. The stress that toe loops place on his left foot forced Hanyu to replace the quad toe loop with a quad Salchow in his long program at the World Championships. RUSSIAN TANGO Former French ice dance competitor Tiffany Zahorski received a Russian passport in late April. The 21-year-old Britishborn skater reported the news on her Instagram account. “I have officially become a citizen of the Russian Federation. I don’t…