I left for a long-planned vacation in New Zealand just as the figure skating Grand Prix was starting.

By the time I returned, two weeks later than planned, the season was mostly over, and I had other immediate priorities than trying to catch up.

Now that I have had the chance to take a closer look in time for this week’s Grand Prix Finals – junior and senior - in Marseille, France, it’s plain that most of what happened was pretty predictable – and that I didn’t miss much.

*Led by Evgenia Medvedeva, the wondrous reigning world champion who just turned 17 but has added an air of maturity to her soulful expressiveness, Russians are dominating women’s skating more than ever, producing four of the six senior GPF qualifiers for the second time in three years and the top three spots in this season’s standings.  More tellingly, there have been six different Russian women in those two sets of four.