Skating Updates

Sarah and Drew's latest blog, featuring interviews from behind the scenes at the annual Ice Chips skating show in Boston. They spoke to Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao, Stephen Carriere, and Ross Miner.

An interview with Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat on their hopes for Worlds.

An update on Kimmie Meissner. It does not sound like she will be returning to competition.

Universal Sports and Icenetwork will both offer coverage of Worlds online. Article with details here.

Midori Ito will be competing at an ISU adult competition. This is the first time I've EVER heard of a former elite skater doing this, and I think it's quite fantastic. Who knows; maybe Midori will spark a trend.

Jeremy Abbott dyed his hair and talks about boots,quads, and next season.

30 Days of Skating - Day 29: Your favorite figure skater of all time

There is no way that I'm picking just one for overall... but one for each discipline (other than synchro)? Sure!

Ladies

The one and only Michelle Kwan. She will forever be the queen of figure skating, as far as I am concerned.


Men

Daisuke Takahashi. (Really, did you expect anyone else? :P)


Pairs

Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhao. Their story is essentially skating's version of a fairy tale. (If you haven't yet, read The Second Mark for their life stories up until about 2003.)

Ice Dance

Maia Shibutani & Alex Shibutani. I've only become a fan recently, but going back and watching videos of them when they were younger, I've realized how insane it is that I haven't paid much attention to them until this season. They are a gorgeous team and I truly look forward to seeing them continue to improve in the years to come.

*Note: I just looked back and realized that all of the skaters I listed are Asian or of Asian descent, haha. I guess that's telling about my taste and how skating has shifted in power in recent years.

30 Days of Skating - Day 13: 5 Favorite Pairs Teams

I'm a little out of my element with pairs (and even more so with ice dance),  so I don't have too many favorites as far as the pairs are concerned and so like with the ladies, I am only going to hone in on one favorite, which has to be Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao.

I think it is extremely impressive that they made the difficult transformation from being a pair that just had the big tricks to a pair that really captured the audience's hearts with their artistry. One performance of theirs that I particularly love is their freeskate at Worlds in 2004 - it is simply magical.

Also, as amazing as Shen and Zhao became as skaters, another reason that they're my favorite pair is their personal story *. The sacrifices they and their families made for them to get where they are now make their success all the more satisfying to see , and their love story is as close to a fairytale as true life can get. Their victory in Vancouver is definitely one of my favorite moments (if not THE favorite moment) of all the Olympic Games I have watched.

* There's no way that I can accurately summarize it here, as I haven't read the backstory in it's entirety for a good while, but the book The Second Mark features the detailed backstories of Shen and Zhao, as well Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze and Salé and Pelletier. I highly recommend reading if you have even a minor interest in any of those pairs or the 2002 Olympic scandal.

30 Days of Skating - Day 2: My favorite pairs program

I adore Shen and Zhao. Their skating, their story, their love - all of it. They didn't win the 2004 World Championship, but they probably would have if it had been under CoP. All the same, they certainly won everyone's hearts, yet again.