Crystal Skate

The ladies of the day Photo: Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images North America The ladies' short programme was my favourite out of the four short events in Everett, so I am expecting a lot of great performances in the final. Japan had three really good contenders for the podium, so don't rule out a Japanese win across the board. The biggest obstacle in their way seems to be Russia's Sofia Samodurova, who has already made quite the impression here. Unfortunately, we need to begin the event with bad news: Loena Hendrickx has withdrawn from the competition due to injury. Alaine Chartrand  starts the final. If you watch her hand gestures, you will notice a theme running throughout the programme. She skates to Sunset Boulevard   by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Love her flying sit spin. Score: 108.50  -> 155.49 . Polina Tsurskaya  has told us a Russian tale today - check out her songs if you have no idea what I'm talking about 😉. She's wearing a really cool costume, which ...

The ice-dance podium Photo: Getty Images North America The rhythmic dance was a pretty laid back affair. No drama, no shocking results. As I said previously, the top two spots are likely to stay as they are right now, while the bronze medal is up for grabs. Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom are all in positions to climb the third step of the podium, so we'll have to see who skates that extra mile to get there. Karina Manta & Joseph Johnson  are the first to skate. Their energy fills the arena, but most of their lifts are a bit slow and awkward, and they're not in sync during the twizzles. The repeating motive of their choreography seems to be cartwheels. Score: 84.44 . Overall: 139.33 . Robynne Tweedale & Joseph Buckland  skate to Ghost , the musical. The flow of their elements is better than that of the Americans, and they are faster too. Love her beautiful pink and gray sheer dress. I don't know if it's a reference to the film or gho...

Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibon from Great Britain completely stole the scene for me Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images North America First thing's first: someone decided to name the short dance, the Rhythmic Dance while I've been away from figure skating. I don't really have much of an opinion about it; ice-dancers have had their short routines changed so many times, it hardly matters what it's called anymore, in my opinion. It does help to differentiate it from the other short programmes, as the Rhythmic Dance is unique in its musical regulations. Now, moving onto Skate America 2018, the ice-dancers list was again full of relatively new faces. This is always the case after an Olympic season, so let's dive right into the five best performers of the newly-renamed Rhythmic Dance. Madison Hubbell & Zachary Donohue  have no rivals in Everett, so it's no surprise they finished in first place. Their chosen songs were Alevare and Tangata de l'Alba. Th...

Satoko Miyahara at her be st Photo: Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images North America When I looked at the ladies entries for Skate America 2018, I didn't recognise most of them. I knew of course Satoko and Elena, but then unfortunately the Russian got injured and I was left with one of my two sure bets out. Most of the skaters are new faces for me, so I was really excited to see the results. I became even more excited when I realised the top 5 ladies in the short programme are almost all skaters I'm either only a little familiar with or not at all. Satoko Miyahara  was pure grace from the beginning to the end. The choreography seemed to grow, as she started with a closed-in pose and finished in an open stance. Her dress was absolutely gorgeous. The song was Patricia Kaas' Song for the Little Sparrow . She made no mistakes whatsoever. Score: 73.86 . Kaori Sakamoto  was lovely to watch. Her transitions were rougher around the edges than Satoko's, but then each skater...

The men's short programme ended after a few pleasant surprises and, at least for me, interesting scores. The final seemed to have brought some order back into the universe by re-establishing the value of some skaters who have been around for quite some time. These were the top five men of Skate America 2018: I don't think there was ever any doubt in anyone's mind that Nathan Chen  was going to keep the gold in the US. He skated to Land of All , which is apparently a song that always asks for grey costumes. 😊 With three quads, two of which were in combination, he didn't have any difficulties in becoming the new Skate America champion. Score: 189.89 . Overall: 280.57 . The crowd loved Michal Brezina  and for good reason. You could feel his rock routine suited him like a glove. I always say it's obvious when the skaters enjoy their music, and it definitely was here. He's known to have some of the best step sequences out there and he didn't disappoint in Ev...

The pairs' final at Skate America 2018 begins with great hopes for two underdog pairs: Alisa Efimova & Alexander Korovin, and Minnerva Fabien Hase & Nolan Seegert. However, their rankings at the end of the short programme were as much a consequence of their own performance as they were of the failures of other pairs. If those pairs manage to outperform their previous routines, we will see a different podium at the end of tonight's competition. Evelyn Walsh & Trennt Michaud  start the event with a performance that is even worse than the one in the short. She falls on the side-by-side 3Toeloop and 3Salchow, then also falls on the throw 3Toeloop. There's a very dicey moment at the very end of a lift too, when she probably would have fallen again if he hadn't caught her. Score: 84.35 . Total: 129.06 . I thought Nica Digerness & Danny Neudecker  were going to skate to Frozen  because one of the songs is entitled Let It Go , so imagine my surprise to hear ...

Watching a competition after it ended without knowing the results is not easy. There is information about what happened everywhere on social media; and I'm not just on social media in my free time, I work in social media, so it's double the effort. Luckily though, Everett, Washington is so far away from me, said competition happened while I was asleep. So as I'm writing this blog, I literally have no idea who finished on which position. Exciting! Jimmy Ma  started the shot programme. I've never seen Jimmy skate before, but I liked his enthusiasm. The tango-turned-latino routine set to  Mi Gente , helped a lot, no doubt. He fell on the 4Toeloop, but otherwise made no notable mistakes. Score: 71.53 . I got really excited to see a skater from Malaysia, because that doesn't happen very often. Julian Zhi Jie Yee  did a great job, which made it even better. Loved the arm details of the camel spin. It was quite an expressive rendition of Patrick Watson's To Build a...

Wow, it has been a really long time since I've written a blog post about figure skating. Longer than I wanted or expected. I realised this as I was trying to update the theme of this blog and couldn't remember the settings... Oops! Life has been busy, but life is always busy and unless you make time for the things you're passionate about, you will probably never get back to them. So I decided to stubbornly make time and bring figure skating and this blog back into my life. Let's get started then. The season always begins for me with the Grand Prix Series and therefore, almost every time, with Skate America. This year's Skate America is being held 8 hours before my time zone, so it's proving a bit of a challenge, but hey, I'm committed to commenting on as much of it as I can. I did mean to write a Preview post trying to predict what the podiums will be like, but life and other temporary miniature disasters got in the way, so I'll have to start my co...