Just when you think Nathan Chen can't get any better. . .

/
Just when you think Nathan Chen can't get any better. . .

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Nathan Chen came to last year’s U.S. Championships in Detroit with a lot of uncertainty left about what would happen to his skating now that his time and energy were split between being an elite figure skater and being a freshman at Yale, 3,000 miles from his coach, trying to get training help via video chat.

Sure, he was still winning, both his 2018 Grand Prix events and the Grand Prix Final, but there were a lot of mistakes, a lot of inconsistency, a lot of questions about whether he could make his new normal work.

And then he blew the doors off the Little Caesars Arena twice, skating marvelously in both the short and long programs to win his third national title in a walkover.

Chen came to this year’s nationals after two magnificent performances at the Grand Prix Final in early December, where he routed two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan by more than 43 points. That extended his winning streak to nine – including two world titles – since his fifth place at the 2018 Olympics.

Yet Chen still carried uncertainty with him because he had been laid low by a virus for two weeks this January, and its lingering effects meant only being able to train effectively again in the past week.

And then he blew the doors off the Greensboro Coliseum in Saturday’s short program, taking a commanding lead on a day when the top five finishers all skated impressively, with five clean quadruple jumps in five attempts.

Just when you think Chen can’t be better than he has… he is.

Read More

Unflappable under pressure, Alysa Liu remains U.S. ice queen

/
Unflappable under pressure, Alysa Liu remains U.S. ice queen

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Not long before Alysa Liu was to take the ice as the last of 18 women to do her free skate Friday night at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the 14-year-old sat amidst the comings and goings and general commotion of a hallway leading to the ice. She had ear buds in place, munched on an apple and watched the skater who preceded her, Mariah Bell.

By the time Liu reached the Greensboro Coliseum rink for her final warmup moments, the ice surface was littered with stuffed animals, a form of tribute to an outstanding skater, and packed with the flower girls who pick them up. It was also awash with noise from an audience saluting the brilliant skating Bell had just done, an elegant, near flawless performance to k.d. Lang’s haunting interpretation of the emotionally powerful Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah.”

With the crowd’s reaction roaring in her now open ears, Liu weaved through the girls and the plushies in what seemed an eternity before the announcement of Bell’s scores. Liu waited and glided around with an aplomb that is just one of the many extraordinary parts of the personality of this 10th grader who last year had become the youngest U.S. senior champion in history.

In the crowd, 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano watched with his coach, Linda Leaver, trying to see how Liu would react to what could be a discomfiting, pressurized situation.

“When she came out, I said to Linda, ‘Welcome to the big leagues, girl,’” Boitano said. “I thought it was really a sign of a champion she was smiling, and she was relaxed.”

And when her four minutes of skating to “Illumination” by composer-pianist Jennifer Thomas was over, Liu had moved into a league of her own in the United States.

“I was very happy for Mariah,” Liu said. “I didn’t get nervous or excited. I was kind of like, ‘Okay, she did well, and I also have to do well.’”

Capitalizing on the high values of her difficult jumps, Liu skated so well she won her second title by more than 10 points, with 235.52 to Bell’s 225.81.

Read More

Alysa Liu, reigning national ice queen, has no pomp in her daily circumstances

/
Alysa Liu, reigning national ice queen, has no pomp in her daily circumstances

OAKLAND, Calif. – Every weekday morning when she is at home, Alysa Liu makes the 30-minute drive with her father, Arthur, from their house in Richmond, Calif. to her home away from home, the Oakland Ice Center on the edge of downtown.

Arthur Liu, a single father of five, drops off Alysa, 14, his oldest child, just after 8 a.m., and then heads to his law office nearby. She will stay at the rink for nearly all the next nine or so hours before he picks her up for the trip back to Richmond.

Read More

Alina Zagitova takes a break: what does that say about figure skating?

/
Alina Zagitova takes a break: what does that say about figure skating?

All the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the potential end of Alina Zagitova’s competitive career at age 17 has had enough time to die down that everyone can take a less emotional look at the situation.

And what better time to do that than just before the Russian National Championships? Had Zagitova, reigning Olympic and world champion, been competing in Krasnoyarsk this week, she would have been hard-pressed to improve on her startlingly poor fifth-place finish of a year ago, when three junior skaters swept the senior podium. Those three are likely to get all the medals again.

Yes, Zagitova insisted in a clarification Instagram post two days after announcing her plans that she is only taking a competitive break, while performing in ice shows and continuing to train. Wait until she sees how much better it feels not to be beating herself up and down – trying to contend with skaters in just her own Moscow club like the current top three in the world and the 11-year-old girl who just landed a quadruple toe loop.

And this is a lot bigger story than whether one skating champion like Zagitova can no longer keep up with the competition.

Read More

Takeaways from 2018-19 figure skating season: big props for Zagitova (and others)

/
Takeaways from 2018-19 figure skating season: big props for Zagitova (and others)

A baker’s dozen takeaways, with some looks to the future, from the 2018-19 figure skating season, which ended Saturday in Japan with the United States winning the World Team Trophy.

1. It’s time to give Russia’s Alina Zagitova full – and massive – credit for what she has done the past two seasons.

Zagitova and her coaching team were unfairly criticized in some quarters for what turned out to be a brilliant strategy of doing all seven jumping passes in the second half bonus area of the 2018 Olympic free skate. Not only was that an impressive feat of stamina, the bonus points Zagitova got for those jumps were the difference between her winning gold and getting silver.

When a Zagitova worn down by a post-Olympic whirl of appearances flopped to fifth in the 2018 World Championships, staggered to fifth at this season’s Russian Championships and was beaten at Europeans, there were suggestions she might be a one-hit wonder. Then, as she later said in an interview on the Russian Skating Federation website, Zagitova became so unsettled by the pressure and the thought of failure at 2019 worlds her jumps deserted her in practice, and she had thoughts of quitting.

Some of her struggles were not unexpected. She had grown some three inches since the Olympics. Her body proportions were changing from those of a girl to those of a young woman. New rules minimized one of her strengths by limiting skaters to just three jumping passes in the bonus area.

And Zagitova overcame all that, the psychological and the physical issues and the scoring changes, to win the 2019 worlds with two clean programs, a dazzling short and a strong, commanding free. At 16, she had added a world title to her Olympic title. That is worthy of unqualified acclaim.

2. Nathan Chen had a remarkable season, even if judged only by what he did on the ice.

When one puts his undefeated record in the context of having done it while simultaneously being a full-time freshman student at Yale University whose coach was 3,000 miles away, Chen’s was a season for the ages.

Read More