The Fall of the House of Kostornaia?

One of the most intriguing questions with respect to the ladies' women's competition this upcoming Olympic season is whether the exquisite Alena Kostornaia will return to her former fighting form and re-ascend to the topmost echelons of women's skating.  

Indeed, Ms. Kostornaia's career trajectory in the past season has been . . . tumultuous at best.  After dominating the 2019-2020 season by winning every single international event she entered with her majestic skating skills and impressively consistent triple axel, Ms. Kostornaia's career took a decidedly downward turn during the 2020-2021 season.  Let us count the ways:

Juliet, oh Juliet

The Cold War currently being waged between Eteri Tutberidze of Sambo-70 and Evgeni Plushenko of the Angels of Plushenko has provided much fodder for figure skating-related discussion in a season notable for its paucity of skating, and the coaches' dueling Romeo and Juliet programs is certainly no exception to this state of affairs.  Both Ms. Tutberidze and Mr. Plushenko have selected not only a Romeo and Juliet long program for Daria Usacheva and Alexandra Trusova respectively, but both long programs use exactly the same music cuts, in the exact same order, and in roughly the same proportions: first, Craig Armstrong's O Verona from the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet film, second, Abel Korzeniowski's Come, Gentle Night from the 2013 Romeo and Juliet film starring Hailee Steinfeld, and finally, Sergei Prokofiev's famous Dance of the Knights from his Romeo and Juliet ballet. Coincidence? I think not!  

While Romeo and Juliet programs are a dime a dozen in the figure skating world--for example, note this post written by yours truly in 2012 discussing the Romeo and Juliet programs of the top three Japanese men at the time--the surfeit of similarities between the two programs, combined with the animosity between the two coaching teams, strongly indicates that Ms. Tutberidze and Mr. Plushenko's choice of Romeo and Juliet is far from coincidental.  Further adding intrigue into the mix is the fact that Alena Kostornaia--formerly of Sambo-70 and now currently among the ranks of the Angels of Plushenko camp--recently skated her own Romeo and Juliet long program during the 2018-2019 season, albeit with different music cuts.  Let's take a look at all three programs . . . 

ISU Awards 2020: Predictions

Gather around, small children, and let me tell you the tale of the ISU Skating Awards.

Once upon a time, around 2019, the ISU--likely concerned with the perpetually-flagging popularity of figure skating relative to the halcyon days of the 1990s--decided that the best way to advance the noble cause of figure skating was to hold an awards show celebrating the sport's athletes, coaches, choreographers.  Now, this was not a terrible idea in and of itself--industry award shows ranging from the Academy Awards to the Grammy Awards essentially function as successful glorified public relations vehicles--but given that this was the ISU, of course they had to go about setting up the ISU Skating Awards in the most hilariously ham-fisted way that outraged the maximum amount of people possible.  How many ways has this gone wrong so far?  From belatedly announcing that the ISU Skating Awards would replace the traditional gala show at 2020 Worlds after thousands of fans had already purchased gala tickets to the fan voting website crashing multiple times, the list is legion . . . but perhaps the biggest controversy was the Anton Shulepov Holocaust costume scandal, which was handled in just about the worst way possible by the ISU and eventually resulted in a totally convincing (*cough*) apology from the ISU in which the ISU pretended to have nominated Mr. Shulepov's black turtleneck + black pants SP costume all along.  But then again, the Holocaust costume scandal did lead to the ISU Skating Awards being covered--albeit in a somewhat unflattering light--by multiple major news publications.  Perhaps the ISU are merely true believers in the old chestnut that there is no such thing as bad publicity?

Though it was assumed that the ISU Skating Awards suffered an early demise--or at the least, indefinite postponement--given the cancellation of the 2020 World Championships as a result of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the ISU recently announced that the show must go on indeed and that the ISU Skating Awards will be streamed virtually on July 11, 2020.

In anticipation of the event, the ISU has recently released the shortlist of nominees for the seven awards . . . so of course, here are my prognostications:

New Finds

Last season was an absolute goldmine for me in terms of discovering new appealing skaters, or recalibrating my opinion of hitherto unappealing skaters.  Specifically, last season, I fell hard for the skating of Alena Kostornaia, Emmy Ma, Wakaba Higuchi, Apollinariia Panfilova/Dmitri Rylov, Dmitri Aliev, Eun-soo Lim, and Anastasia Tarakanova, among others.  Although some of these skaters have stumbled this season, their skating still speaks to me and I would readily start a flame war defending them on Twitter, or whatever.

This present season has not yielded quite the embarrassment of riches when it comes to new discoveries.  Perhaps it's because the 2018-2019 season is a post-Olympics season, which tends to be a rebuilding year.  Or perhaps it's because skaters and choreographers are still adjusting to the flood of new rules this season.  Nonetheless, all is not lost in this valley of tears, for there are still skaters who have newly caught my eye this season: