Crystal Skate

Sometimes more is less, and although this doesn't usually apply to figure skating ('the more spectacular, the better' is how the motto goes here), this saying certainly seems to summarise the ice dancers' approach to their free dance costumes this season. Choosing to dial down the theatrics in the free dance might have been a consequence of this being the first season after the Olympic Games. Skaters tried so hard to impress last season, that they might have felt they needed to take a breather this time around. Or perhaps they kept it simple because the paso doble was flamboyant enough to draw attention on its own. Whatever the reason, this season was, costume-wise, one of the plainest. There were a few exemptions from the rule, of course, and they stood out like gems in a bowl of rocks. That's not to say that the simpler costumes were ugly, even ordinary rocks have their own wild-sort-of-beauty after all, but they simply couldn't compare to the more sophist...

October 31, 2008: It's a few days before the start of the 2008 Cup of China and for Japanese superstar, Daisuke Takahashi, it's the day disaster strikes. He's just torn a ligament in his right leg, which will take him off the ice for the entire season. What's even worse is that this is the type of injury that might just abruptly end the career of one of the most promising skaters of the decade. Long before becoming a superstar, Daisuke began his life in the ice rink by choosing between hockey and figure skating. He became a senior skater at the age of 16, but couldn't cope with the pressure and didn't become Japan's National Champion until four seasons later. Phantom of the Opera Photograph: Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images Sport In 2005/2006, at the age of 19, he almost lost the National title, and the chance to participate at the Olympics, when it was accidentally given to Nobunari Oda due to a miscalculation. The error was corrected though and Daisu...