The Good Fight

Some of the most indelible skaters and moments in figure skating history have been formed under the heat and pressure of larger-than-life rivalries. Alexei Yagudin vs. Evgeni Plushenko. Brian Boitano vs. Brian Orser. Mao Asada vs. Yu-Na Kim. Michelle Kwan vs. Tara Lipinski. Virtue/Moir vs. Davis/White. At their worst, rivalries in sport can degenerate to petty name-calling and one (or both) of the competitors cracking under the immense pressure. At their best, however, rivalries can propel the competitors to push themselves to greater heights, inject some excitement into the sport and provide an interesting (and marketable) narrative for both fans and casual viewers to chew upon.

Thankfully, it appears that the latter scenario may be materializing in the pairs discipline right now. This is fortuitous as the pairs discipline has sometimes seemed like the bête noire of the four skating disciplines over the past few years. For better or for worse, ice dance has had Team Canton generating a fair bit of excitement and interest for the discipline, while the ladies' and the men's disciplines have traditionally accrued more attention than pairs among fans of the sport. Throw the fact that more than quite a few pairs teams have been visibly struggling to adjust to certain features of the CoP pairs requirements (e.g. contortionism as a level feature, etc), it's not entirely surprising that the pairs discipline has been overlooked by many. However, the rise of the new rivalry of Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy and Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov looks like a godsend in terms of generating some excitement in pairs. Last season's Worlds in Moscow was only the beginning--the very close results and very fine skating at the recent Grand Prix Final have firmly cemented the makings of a rivalry that can only get more intense in the next couple of years until the Sochi Olympics.

GPF 2011: the Ladiezzz

Unfortunately, the ladies' event at the Grand Prix Final seemed somehow incomplete with the last-minute withdrawal of Mao Asada upon the news of her mother's illness and passing away. My deepest condolences and sympathy goes to Mao and the Asada family in this trying time.

As for the ladies event in general....unlike the men and the pairs, the ladies event seemed rather lackluster overall. Typical. Really, in terms of practically all aspects of skating--performance, ambition of jump content, skating skills, intricacy, choreography, transitions, ambition of artistic vision, etc....the men really put the ladies to shame. And I don't just mean the field at the GPF, but the respective men's and ladies' fields as a whole. Of course, the winner of most men's events is more or less a foregone conclusion these days, but the fight for the silver and bronze is nonetheless very exciting and all the top men seem to be constantly pushing each other to do more quads, more transitions, just....more. Meanwhile, the ladies are extremely unpredictable but many of them seem to be trying to out-do each other in watering down either their programs or their jump content (sometimes both). I for one miss the glory days of the Mao Asada/Yu-Na Kim rivalry, when ladies skating actually seemed quite thrilling to watch.

Carolina Kostner won her first Grand Prix Final on her fourth try with contemporaries like Mao Asada, Yu-Na Kim and Miki Ando finally out of the way at last. I admit, I'm a bit torn about Miss Kostner this season in general. On one hand, I love her programs, especially her long program to Mozart. The choreography is lovely, spirited, engaging and very elegant in terms of structure. Taken as a whole, her two programs are simply the best among the ladies this season. On the other hand, it's a bit sad seeing Miss Kostner win with that kind of jump content, especially considering the fact that the top 5 junior ladies at the JGPF all had higher base values than Miss Kostner. Of course, it's not Miss Kostner's fault that the ladies field is so weak right now, but it's a bit frustrating that Miss Kostner can't even seem to skate cleanly or consistently with this diminished jump content. Argh.

But....whatever. Miss Kostner certainly deserved to win the GPF here, especially with her lead after her very good short program, the best she's performed the Shostakovich piece this season. As for the long program, it was certainly not her best skate, but it was the best of a day of rather un-scintillating performances.

Grand Prix Final 2011: the Menfolk

Almost like Skate Canada all over again.....

The men's event at the 2011 Grand Prix Final seemed quite eventful even before the actual competition began. Namely, Patrick Chan's now-infamous interview resulted in many Canadians exploding with patriotic (and even minatory!) fury over Mr. Chan's comments about China, the state of figure skating in Canada, etc. Personally speaking, I thought the reaction was rather overblown--of course, Mr. Chan's comments demonstrated a lack of self-awareness (or actually....a lack of awareness in general), but they were quite innocuous overall and certainly didn't merit the flurry of mudslinging that resulted afterwards. That being said, it was nonetheless entirely fascinating to watch the Skate Canada PR machine furiously churning over the past few days.

Despite the controversy, the misunderstood and underappreciated "black sheep of the herd" Patrick Chan won the men's competition (and hopefully the hearts of his fellow Canadians) with a total of 260.30 points while skating to totally different and unique programs set to Take Five and Aranjuez . Okay......clearly, Mr. Chan deserved to win overall when taking the entire competition in mind (i.e. the SP). His Aranjuez long program is actually one of the better programs this year--it's choreographed very well, particularly for a Lori Nichol program. He has clearly the best skating skills in the business. But.....I just don't understand the scoring when it comes to Mr. Chan. His short program....okay, I do understand the 86.63. That was reasonable enough. But the long program....I don't. I just don't understand how he could beat Daisuke Takahashi's far better long program with that sloppy, mistake-ridden performance. Of course, Mr. Chan had the higher base value with his two quads, but some of the GOEs and PCS were rather generous for that skate. For example...Mr. Chan's PE was the same as Mr. Takahashi's and Mr. Chan even had the higher IN score. Riiiiiight.

As such, for the sake of my sanity, I've decided to stop complaining about Mr. Chan's scores after writing this post and just accept them as they are. There's no point of me beating my head against the wall and it's not like $peedy cares unless Jacques Rogge is breathing down his neck in indignant fury. I can only hope that when Mr. Chan wins the gold in Sochi, he skates a better performance than this because the sport really cannot afford another Salt Lake City pairs scandal.

So, scoring issues aside....Mr. Chan's Aranjuez is coming along fairly nicely. I still don't think he has fully grasped the subtle angst of the music just yet, but expression-wise, it's an improvement on TEB and Skate Canada earlier this season. Perhaps it's my Takeshi Honda nostalgia speaking, but I really enjoyed Ms. Nichol's choreography and it shows off Mr. Chan's very smooth skating quite well. Definite points for not using that overdone Vanessa Mae version of Aranjuez--the original version is far superior and a much better musical fit for Mr. Chan's style of skating. Overall, though, the general impression of the program was unfortunately marred by the multiple bobbles and the fall on the 3Lz. Of course, Mr. Chan's skating was very smooth in between the jumps, but all those errors really disrupted the flow of the program. Mr. Chan looked slightly behind the music at times too. All in all, I would have had Mr. Chan win overall, but behind Daisuke Takahashi in the long program.

Snap Judgements

This season's programs that have managed to elicit a reaction beyond 'meh' and/or 'ugh' from me, let me show you them:


Daisuke Takahashi, In the Garden of Souls SP
This particular choice will not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading this blog for the past month or so, but the amount of detail in this program is stunning, and the whole thing just soars in the capable hands of Mr. Takahashi. Simply put, In the Garden of Souls is a masterpiece, an instance of great music, choreography and performance all perfectly falling together in place to fortuitously fill a need I had not known existed in my heart up until now: to see a dark, serious and abstract incarnation of Daisuke Takahashi.


Jeremy Abbott, Exogenesis LP
There's something emotional about this deceptively simple program that has me vainly grasping for analogous experiences to describe how I feel about it. None such experiences come to mind at the moment, but the whole thing is suffused with a melancholy and poignant air that has me entirely mesmerized throughout the subtle but inexorable rise and fall of the program's arc. Love the moment when Mr. Abbott does that leap before pausing and resting his palm on the ice (the blood is an extra-angsty bonus).

Morozombie Hall of Infamy: Sergei Voronov, circa 2011

O i c wat u did thar, Mr. Morozov. Suspiciously familiar costume, suspiciously familiar concept, suspiciously familiar music cuts (Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, with both programs ending with the famous Vesti la giubba aria), and rather fortuitously (or not), a suspiciously familiar event. Well, at least Sergei Voronov's program doesn't begin with Send in the Clowns too. And their ending poses are different!