Crystal Skate

After four impeccable performances, Mao Asada, Carolina Kostner and Julia Lipnitskaia are a stone's throw away from each other. It will take an absolutely flawless performance to win this gold medal. Nyah  by Hans Zimmer is quite a happy song to skate to and Valentina Marchei  enjoys every moment. She's elegant, charismatic and knows just how to dance to a guitar. There is no real mistake here. Her score: 107.37 . Overall: 157.64 . Anne Line-Gjersem  chose a very difficult part of the West Side Story  soundtrack and it hurts her. There's no trace of the romance in there and she's not really following the rise and fall of the music. Technically, her only mistake is the fall on the Triple Loop. Not a big fan of the costume! She gets 80.55  points. Overall: 130.03 . La Bayadere  is a beautiful song and Natalia Popova 's pleasant style can only improve it. Unfortunately, the technical errors bring the interpretation down. She falls on two jumps and double...

Tatsuki Machida achieved the impossible just two days ago and defeated the Olympic champion. But Yuzuru Hanyu is not a name easily forgotten and he is sure to give a good fight today, as will Javier Fernandez, his practice mate and Europe's record-breaker champion. What about Tomas Verner - does he have a real chance at the podium? Chafik Besseghier 's costume is epic, but his interpretation of an Ancient Egyptian, not so much. The programme is definitely energetic, but there's only one reference to Egyptian mythology, which is supposedly what this is about. Very good technically though and not exactly inexpressive. His score: 147.39 . Overall: 224.19 . Maxim Kovtun  knows that the key to presenting classical music is a sense of grandeur. Skating on Tchaikovski's Piano Concerto No. 1 , he replaces the first Quad with a parody of a jump, but gets back on track quickly. He gives off a vibe of urgency with this routine, which might as well be him trying to tell the sto...

Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev have had to withdraw due to an injury sustained by him. It's now up to Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat to prove that 'the experts' can hold their ground against younger skaters, such as Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte. Will they succeed? Find out: Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani  skate on music by Michael Buble and ace the twizzlers and the finnstep sequence. Their interpretation might not be spectacular, but they put on a great performance. Maia's blue dress is really beautiful! Their score: 63.55 . Watching Elena Ilinykh/Nikita Katsalapov  skate amid serious rumours of a break-up is awkward. You can spot some tension in there and a few fake smiles, but what really stands out is that they're simply no longer in sync. Nikita messes up the twizzles, making Elena bump into him, which is really a shame because their twizzles are the fastest we've seen this season. Whether we can blame that on the break-up or just plain ...

This is Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy's last chance to win a World gold medal and more than probably, Germany's last presence in the spotlight for a while. Will they succeed or is it time for a new pair of World champions? Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres  give us a scare with a terrifying fall right at the end, a mistake you can see he's more than sorry for. The rest of the programme is very good despite a very small error in the Triple Twist. Their music is a mash-up of the soundtracks of Angels and Demons  and Requiem for a Dream . Their score: 119.89 . Overall: 183.90 . The jumps, the lifts, the spins, the interpretation... Kirsten Moore-Towers/Dylan Moscovitch  are in perfect sync. They even do a risky lift with only one leg on the ice. The only mistake is her hand on the ice while landing the thrown Triple Salchow. Great speed as well while looking like veritable movie stars on Nino Rota's music medley. They get 136.21  points. Overall: 205.52 . Cheng Pe...

With as many as four great skaters trying to claim the World title in Saitama, the ladies' event is bound to be quite the spectacle. Here's the first part: Making up for the mistakes in Sochi, Mao Asada  is absolutely sublime. This is her last competition and judging by the flood of flowers and gifts she's just received, there is at least one country in the world that will miss her dearly. Her score: 78.66 . Kanako Murakami  strikes you as delicate and emotional even before entering the ice, so it's no surprise that her chosen music for the short is Violin Muse . She's great technically and so powerful artistically that you can read the sadness in her eyes throughout the routine. 2013/2014 hasn't been the best of seasons for her, so it's good to see her firm on her skates. She gets 60.86  points. Another skater whose grace we will miss after this season is Akiko Suzuki . Hymne de l'Amour  is her music and this performance is the perfect ending to h...

All bets are on Yuzuru Hanyu for the Gold! The question is, now that Chan is out of the game, who will occupy the other two podium steps? Today's event might give us a clue. Kevin Reynolds  has rock music in his veins. Despite the fall on the Quad Toeloop and the step out of the Quad Salchow, this is a fabulous routine. He feels every beat of the drum and enjoys himself out there. We might have just got a glimpse of Kevin's persona when attending AC/DC concerts. His score: 68.52 . Misha Ge 's routine falls short of what we expected. He lands the Triple Axel awkwardly, then falls on the Triple Toeloop and after that, the music only seems to emphasize the failure. He gets 60.34  points. Last time we saw Jeremy Abbott  skate this programme, our hearts almost stopped (remember that nasty fall in Sochi?). This time, although he still falls on the Quad Toeloop, he gets up quickly and things go smoothly from here on. He has a great posture and this music sure brings o...

Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy have postponed their retirement to win one last World gold medal and you know they're not going home without an epic fight. Will any of the other couples be able to defeat them? Here's the first act: Maylin Wende/Daniel Wende  may not be the top German pair, but once in a blue moon, they have a performance you just can't take your eyes off. This is one such performance. Skating on November Rain , they ace every element. Their score: 58.19 . Julia Antipova/Nodari Maisuradze 's senior debut is not at all bad. Skating on Beethoven's Five Secrets , this pair is excellent technically, but the presentation is nowhere near as good. Everything is pretty, of course, but there is no personal mark on the routine, no story. The costumes are again quite standard, emanating a classical Russian air. They get 66.78  points. Cheng Peng/Hao Zhang  have grown immensely in just one year of skating together. I'm glad they proved me wrong...

It's official! The 2014 Figure Skating World Championships have begun, and if previous competitions held in Japan show us anything, is that they're hosted by one of the greatest, if not the best audience in the world. As it usually happens in an Olympic season, most of the Olympic champions have decided to skip the Worlds, understandably so - after winning the most supreme of medals, they are entitled to a well deserved holiday. The only victor who will compete is Yuzuru Hanyu, probably because the Championships are held in his native country. The other notable absentees are either Olympic medalists (the same right to a holiday applies) or skaters for whom the Olympic Games were the final chapter in their skating careers. Patrick Chan and Brian Joubert are missing from the Men competition, with the Frenchman clearly retiring and the Canadian unsure about his future in figure skating. Another favourite of the audience who won't be attending is Florent Amodio due to lac...