Crystal Skate

The highest stakes in figure skating have always been in the men's competition. They have the most difficult elements, so it's only natural they should receive the greatest glory. However, having fans expect great things from you is a double-edged sword and many a skater has chosen a grand programme just for the sake of grandness, ensuring a big fat flop. Let's see how some of the top skaters decide to play their hand this season:   Evan Lysacek  - his name is on everyone's lips because when an Olympic champion sets his mind on a second gold medal, he is bound to become 'the skater of the moment' (at least as far as America is concerned). This is a skater whose always had grand programmes (he won the last Olympics with Scheherazade ) so there was really no point in him going another direction. For the short program he chose the oh-so-famous Swan Lake  by Pyotr Iylich Tchaikovsky. The bad thing about this music is that it's been chosen so many times by so m...

Wonder-children are not rare in figure skating, as Russian ladies have been proving this season, but being one of them is a great challenge that most often than not skaters can't cope with. Both Denis Ten and Artur Gachinski know this a little too well, but while the Kazakh seems to have outgrown his problems, those of the Russian are in full bloom. For most of the season, and when I say most, I mean 90% of it, Denis Ten was nothing more than a skating disaster. He seemed to be going nowhere but down, and that bright future everyone predicted for him just a few years ago, was slowly, but surely dying out. And then suddenly he came in second in the World Championships, and not only that, but the truth is he should have won it. His choice of skating both the SP and the LP on the soundtrack of The Artist  instead of going for two different themes was mature, original and very classy. The difference between the two programs is a bit blurry, especially if you haven't seen t...