Indholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2017 i International Figure Skating

What a season it has been! Both the senior and junior World Championships were hard fought competitions and each had its highs and lows. Record-breaking performances, new champions crowned, favorites missing the podiums — Helsinki had it all. Not everyone claimed a berth to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games next February, but those who did not will have one more chance to do so later this year. As we went to print the news broke that Mao Asada has retired from competition. The 26-year-old medaled at just one competition last season (second at Finlandia Trophy), and that combined with a disappointing 12th place finish at Japanese nationals last December was likely the catalyst for her decision. Likewise, Meryl Davis and Charlie White are not returning to the competitive arena in…

Adecade had passed since Hongbo Zhao and his partner Xue Shen had waltzed off with the World pairs title in Tokyo, Japan. Sitting in the kiss and cry in Helsinki with his former coach, Bin Yao, and his two students, Wenjing Sui and Cong Han, the pride was visible on Zhao’s face when the final score was announced. Sui and Han sat on top of the leaderboard, the new World champions. It was Zhao’s first global victory as a coach. But it had been a long and often frustrating journey back to the top level of the sport for Sui and Han. The Chinese duo was forced to miss the first half of the season while Sui recovered from surgery for a right Achilles tendon injury she suffered in November…

Carolina Kostner is adding one final chapter to her long and distinguished career. The 30-year-old returned to the competitive arena in January, but the reason for her comeback has little to do with medals and titles. It is all about skating for herself. It has been a rocky ride for Carolina Kostner since that magical night in Sochi, where she claimed the third step of the podium at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. A few months later Kostner was banned from competition for 21 months because of her association with a former boyfriend — an Olympic-level athlete — who tested positive for doping. Kostner felt she had lost her way in life. She left the university in Torino where she had been studying and moved to Rome to complete her…

Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov welcomed their first child, a daughter, on Feb. 16. Angelique Maximovna Volosozhar-Trankov was born in Moscow and weighed in at seven pounds, four ounces. “No medals, no achievements, no pedestals can even compete with the moment when I first put my hands on my daughter,” Trankov said. MULTI-TALENTED Kevin Reynolds claimed third place in the University-Advanced category at the 29th annual British Columbia Japanese Speech Contest in February. Reynolds said he was concerned he had not had enough time to prepare for the contest, “but somehow I managed to make it through without any major mistake. I'm very happy with the result.” MAKING HISTORY Singapore’s Shuran Yu made history at Four Continents in February when she earned the right to compete at the 2017 World…

It had been a rough first half of the season for Karen Chen. Haunted by boot problems and injuries throughout 2016, she eventually switched to a new manufacturer in the hopes of finding a solution. Despite trying many different boots, the problem persisted. Online discussion forums and members of the U.S. media were skeptical. Chen further fueled the debate when it became known she had choreographed both her programs — “On Golden Pond” for the short and Jalousie “Tango Tzigane” (Jealousy “Gypsy Tango”) for the free. The 17-year-old did not fare well at her two Grand Prix assignments in November 2016 — placing seventh in China and sixth in Japan — providing more fodder for the skeptics. Given the results of the first half of the season, Chen was flying…

With Olympic berths on the line, skaters brought their A-games to the 2017 World Championships in Helsinki, Finland. Though many rose to the challenge — rewriting history, setting new World records and achieving personal bests — others crumbled under the pressure. A total of 193 skaters/teams ranging in age from 16 to 37 competed in Finland. Canada captured three medals; Japan, China and Russia claimed two; and three single medals went to France, Germany and the U.S. “After the short program, I was quite depressed. —Yuzuru Hanyu” The bar was raised so high in the men’s event at the 2017 World Championships that four men cracked the 300-point mark — and one of them did not win a medal. It was expected that the battle between Javier Fernández and Yuzuru…

Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc were in two different places and two different spaces. Cain was contemplating the end of her singles career in Texas, while LeDuc was traveling the world performing on cruise ships Neither was completely satisfied with what they were doing and in May 2016, at the suggestion of U.S. Figure Skating (USFS) officials, they got together to work on some moves. “When USFS suggested I have a tryout with Timothy I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue pairs again,” Cain said. “After my partnership with Joshua (Reagan) ended I focused on singles for four and a half years and I thought that last season was possibly going to be my final one. “We started warming up off the ice and doing lifts, and I think…

The first thing that strikes you when you meet Mikhail Kolyada is his wide, infectious smile — and this season the 22-year-old from St. Petersburg, Russia has had many reasons to flash that grin. In late December he won his first senior national title and followed that up with a bronze medal at the European Championships a month later. Kolyada is an ambitious young man and after his runaway victory on home soil, he was aiming for solid performances at Europeans, which took place in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Though he placed third overall, he was dissatisfied with himself after popping the triple Axel in both the short and the long programs. “Obviously, I felt nervous, but it was still within normal limits. I just don’t understand why I didn’t do…

The most important thing for me is to have the right focus and to keep the emotions under control. Evgenia Medvedeva To focus for the free skating performance, I imagined myself at a river and thought about nature. The program is to beautiful Japanese music and about beautiful Finnish nature. I have very warm memories of Finland as I won my first international competition there when I was a kid. Yuzuru Hanyu It was one of the lowest scores, but one of the best long programs we have skated all season. At Four Continents and the Grand Prix Final we made major mistakes and scored higher. We don’t have an answer as to what the scores came from. Meagan Duhamel I have worked so much on the spins — and…