Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2019 i International Figure Skating

Tom Collins, the man behind Champions on Ice (COI), the longest-running skating tour in North American history, was honored at a reunion in May. An elite group of skaters celebrated the beloved tour producer — who did so much for so many in the years he ran the tour (1975-2007) — at Nolo’s Kitchen, a Minneapolis restaurant co-owned by his son Marty. The concept of the reunion was simple: invite all the former skaters from the tour and just have a party. Many made the trek to celebrate Collins, including Katarina Witt who came from Germany and Philippe Candeloro from France. Other COI alumni included Michael Weiss, Isabelle Brasseur, Lloyd Eisler, Rocky Marval, Caryn Kadavy, Surya Bonaly, Jerod Swallow and Elizabeth Punsalan. Those who could not attend sent photos and…

▶BABY MAKES THREE On April 24, Aljona Savchenko, 35, and Liam Cross, 28 announced they are expecting their first child, a girl, in late October/early November. Savchenko tweeted the news with a short message: “Happiness is on the way! So excited to meet this little person who is half of me and half of the one I love!” A day later, Meagan Duhamel, 33, and Bruno Marcotte, 44, shared the news that they are also expecting a baby late in the fall. Following the announcement Duhamel tweeted that “skating and performing at three months pregnant — four by the time I get to the final show Stars on Ice show in Vancouver — is proving to be a lot more difficult than I imagined it would. I have never been…

So much has changed in the world of figure skating the past 25 years. Champions have come and gone; some have remained involved in the sport, while others have stepped away and moved on to new careers. One of the major changes that took place in this era was in ice dance. The compulsory and original dances, which had been fixtures of the discipline since 1952, were discontinued in the 2010-2011 season and replaced with the short dance (now the rhythm dance). Italy’s Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali were the last team to compete a compulsory dance. Qualifying rounds at Championships — which determined who actually got to skate in the official competition — were discontinued after the 2012 World Championships for many good reasons. The International Skating Union (ISU)…

The popular reality skating show “Battle of the Blades” will return to the small screen in Canada in the fall of 2019. A successful four-season run ended in 2013 due to government budget cuts at the CBC network, Canada’s public broadcaster. No one was more surprised than Sandra Bezic about the return of the show. “I was not aware that CBC had ever actually wanted the show to go and that it was waiting for the opportunity to ask for it back,” said Bezic, who, with her partner Kevin Albrecht, came up with the concept for the show 13 years ago. “I was really grateful for the four seasons, but I had put it away in a storage unit in my brain. I was very proud of it but I…

One year ago, Anjelika Krylova, the two-time World ice dance champion (1998-1999) and the 1998 Olympic silver medalist with Oleg Ovsyannikov, returned to her Russian homeland after living and working for 24 years in the U.S. Krylova, who moved to Moscow with her children Stella, 14, and Anthony, 12, wanted to start a new skating school. Together with colleague Oleg Volkov, she achieved that goal and is now based at the Megasport Sport Palace where she is coaching — among others — the 2019 Winter Universiade champions Betina Popova and Sergey Mozgov. “The first year went very well, I think. It was productive,” said Krylova, 45. “I tried to get into the Russian way and I think I did. The system is very difficult and it is different from the…

Ludmila Velikova and Nikolai Velikov are fixtures in the world of pairs. The husband and wife team have been coaching pairs skaters in St. Petersburg for decades. The family business expanded when their grandson, Vasilii Velikov, a former singles and pairs skater, joined the coaching team. Though they are not household names, Ludmila and Nikolai were a force in the 1990s. Among their success stories are 1994 World champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov; two-time World junior champions Maria Petrova and Anton Sikharulidze (1994, 1995); and 2000 World and European champions Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov. Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov trained with the Velikovs before switching to Nina Mozer’s group. Nikolai coached Maxim Trankov and his former partner, Maria Mukhortova, to the 2005 World junior title. When that partnership…

DIVERSE DESIGN The International Olympic Committee (IOC) unveiled the design of the medals that will be awarded at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland, next January. Zakea Page, a 20-year-old from Wellington, New Zealand, submitted the winning entry. Page said a Maya Angelou quote - “in diversity there is beauty” - inspired the design he called “Beauty in Diversity.” Page said the design is a reflection of recent events that have taken place around the world, particularly in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. “I wanted it to mean something that was relevant to the times. In diversity, this is where we excel the most.” The IOC felt the design reflected its mandate for the Games, “which are not only a celebration of human excellence, but also of…