Four Continents 2012

The 2012 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships happened.

It did indeed.

2012 United States Figure Skating Championships: Ladies

In some respects, American figure skating looks to have flourished in the past few years. American ice dance has never looked stronger with two US teams on the world podium last year and very impressive depth even further down the ranks. An American man is the reigning Olympic champion, and as for pairs.....er, well, they're typical US pairs. But for some fans of American figure skating, all that does not matter. Instead, it is All About the Ladies, and as such, the ladies discipline has inspired near-unprecedented levels of hand-wringing among many fans of US figure skating in recent years. Gone indeed are the days in which a bad day for the top US ladies skaters translated to a mere silver or bronze on the international podiums. With the ladies world podium completely devoid of US ladies for almost six years and perhaps lacking faith in the current crop of ladies, many fans have been hurriedly anointing whatever up-and-coming US skater without a Y chromosome capable of landing a proper triple lutz and/or a triple-triple as the Savior of US ladies skating (e.g. current Chosen One: Gracie Gold)....often to hilarious results.

Such behavior is not entirely unreasonable, however. Winning in figure skating is all about youth (particularly when it comes to ladies, famously the disciple of prepubescent champions) and reputation, so having someone who has been competing at Nationals for ten years as the highest-ranking US ladies skater as well as several talented but wildly inconsistent headcases who don't turn in enough decent performances to properly build up their reputations is understandably going to inspire quite a few anxiety attacks. With the recent results of the 2012 US National Championships, it is clear that fans of US ladies figure skating may have to hang onto their Zoloft tablets for quite a bit longer.