Skate America 2017: Twenty Questions

As the final Grand Prix event (aside from the Grand Prix Final itself, of course) of the 2017 Grand Prix of Figure Skating season, Skate America 2017 in charming Lake Placid, NY proved to be a fitting ending to an unpredictable and generally weird Grand Prix season: withdrawals galore, on-ice injuries, insects lurking about, surprising podium results, system malfunctions . . . never let it be said that figure skating is staid and predictable! For in this brave new world where even Evgenia Medvedeva falters during a competition--there is no certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain . . .

Anyway, here are twenty questions that came to mind during Skate America 2017:

Four Continents 2015: the Men

The men's event at Four Continents this year may have lacked the marquee name in men's figure skating outside of Europe, but that didn't mean there was nothing to see at the competition.

Train through the Pain

Sport occupies a particular space in our collective consciousness. With the declining grasp of religion in the developed world, sports, to paraphrase Karl Marx, has become the opiate of the masses, insofar as sports occupies the liminal territory that blurs together the physical and the ecstatic. Figure skating is in particular an excellent example of such, given that it is a sport that encompasses both athletic endeavor and performance art. Witness the self-transcendent anguish that comes from watching a fall on a quadruple jump, or the complete immersion that comes with watching an emotional, superbly-choreographed program performed cleanly at the Olympics.

And so we watch figure skating with a certain sort of absorption fueled by more fevered emotions that, in an earlier time, may have been channeled towards the ecstasy and violence of religious rituals. This emotion gives rise to an implicit bond that is formed between figure skater and fan: we offer our idols adoration, support, and worship. In exchange, they devote maximum effort to the sport in order to give us the transcendent performances we so desire.

2014 Olympics: Men's Event Recap

In many ways, the men's event at the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships in Canada turned out to be an extremely prescient harbinger of what would eventually transpire at the men's event in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. A down-and-out skater from Kazakhstan overcomes his dismal season to unexpectedly win a medal. The vast majority of the top men skate stumble all over the ice and deliver extremely underwhelming performances.

In other words, typical stuff.

Ok, perhaps not the skater-from-Kazakhstan part, but the fact that most of the men turned in rather dismal performances was fairly predictable as part of a major seismic shift taking place in the men's discipline since 2010. At the 2008 World Championships, Jeffrey Buttle showed how it was possible to win by skating cleanly without a single quadruple jump, starting a trend that eventually cumulated in Evan Lysacek's quad-less victory at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Mr. Lysacek's win in Vancouver was a watershed moment for the men, not only because it was the first time in which a man won the Olympics without a quadruple jump in over a decade, but because of the ridiculous (and extremely partisan) "quad controversy" which ruffled quite a few feathers soon after. Whatever the merits of the quad controversy, its effects were nonetheless very real: the ISU, ever keen to avoid controversy under the harsh glare of the Olympic spotlight, raised the base value of quadruple jumps to over 10 points in a bid to encourage the men to take the risk and attempt more quad jumps.

The first man to take advantage of the newly increased value of quad jumps was Patrick Chan, who later became the poster boy of all the problems and controversies caused by the increased emphasis on quad jumps. Mr. Chan went from attempting zero quads in the 2009-2010 season to attempting three (one in the short program, two in the long program) in the 2010-2011 season. Mr. Chan's high base value afforded to him by his quad jumps, coupled together with his complex programs (helped by some of the residual emphasis on transitions from the previous Olympic cycle) allowed him to completely reverse the trend started by Jeffrey Buttle--that is to say, Mr. Chan showed how it was possible to win by skating messily with lots of quadruple jumps. Mr. Chan was able to capitalize on the fact that many of his competitors initially still seemed to be stuck in the skate-clean-without-a-quad zeitgeist, but by 2012, most of the top men had caught up to Mr. Chan and were attempting as many quads (if not more) as Mr. Chan while skating complex programs stuffed with transitions, level 4 spins and level 4 steps.

2013 Four Continents: Recap

I'm actually sort of inclined to find this photograph funny at this point

The skategods giveth, and the skategods taketh away.

Post about 2013 4CC Men's Event

....what the fuck did I just watch.

Grand Prix Assignments 2012-2013: Men and Ladies

The Grand Prix assignments for the 2012-2013 season have been released! Some observations/speculations for the men's and ladies' assignments:

-Johnny Weir actually appears to be somewhat serious about coming back, and managed to wrangle for himself two GP events: Rostelecom Cup and Trophee Eric Bompard. Mr. Weir has zero chances of winning at Rostelecom Cup and merely an infinitesimal chance to do so at Trophee Eric Bompard, though. Outside shot at the podium for both, though more so at Paris than at Moscow.

-in other news on the comeback front, neither Evan Lysacek and Evgeni Plushenko received official assignments, although both Skate America and Rostelecom Cup have TBA host pick spots. There's still the (hopefully distant) possibility that Mr. Lysacek may return and claim his host pick spot at Skate America, but Patrick Chan's presence in Moscow at the GP next year should all but guarantee that Mr. Plushenko will not skate in the GP next year. There's no point of losing to Mr. Chan on home territory if it could be avoided....