Message from Morozombie to "MobSports"

It has recently come to my attention that a website, https://mobsports.com, has been wholesale copying and pasting the contents of this humble blog onto its own site without authoriziation or permission, and at times, even passing off my content as their own.  

For example, a search of the word "Morozombie" on "MobSports" reveals that "MobSports" has stolen multiple blog posts from this blog and reposted it on https://mobsports.com without permission: https://mobsports.com/?s=morozombie 

Adding insult to injury, however, "MobSports" has gone even further down the rabbit hole of stealing content by ripping off posts from this blog without even bothering to attribute them to me: example. 

I've never made a single cent off this blog--I've never run ads, sold subscriptions, or hawked anything, ever.  Writing for this blog has entirely been a labor of love for me.  So, to have a dubious and clearly for-profit website unabashedly steal my content to peddle their asinine ads is extremely infuriating  . . .

So, "MobSports": since you assholes have obviously been scraping this blog while stealing my content to bulk out your obviously sketchy website, hopefully this message reaches you: I am giving you one (1) week to remove all the content you've stolen from Morozombie.blogspot.com.  If you don't remove all the content you've stolen from me, I am going to pursue more drastic means of removing my content from your website, including but not limited to (1) reporting your website to Google, (2) reporting your website to your domain registrar/host (which appears to be Linode), and (3) putting you through the DMCA notice and takedown process.  

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:

2021 Worlds - Ladies Recap

The French poet Louis Aragon famously wrote that l'avenir de l'homme, c'est la femme (the future of man, is woman), but the opposite appears to be true in figure skating.  Ever since 2010, men's figure skating has been inexorably trending towards a high-risk, high-reward quads arm race in which the judges tacitly encourage a cynical type of numbers-crunching skating thinly disguised as choreography by improperly lumping together the skaters' Programs Components Scores with insufficient differentiation.  Hence we witness certain performances by the men that consist mainly of going from big jump to big jump punctuated with certain perfunctory movements here and there (as if by random chance) not only scoring insurmountably huge Technical Elements Scores, but also near-perfect Program Components Scores as well.  True, there have been events where wonderful, soulful skating has come out on top, but for a long time, these competitions have appeared to be pleasant aberrations rather than the rule. 

At long last, ladies' skating has finally followed suit during the second half of the current 2018-2022 Olympic cycle, ushered along by Eteri Tutberidze's indomitable wave of assorted Russian ladies skaters.  Undaunted by the physical realities of the post-pubescent female body, Ms. Tutberidze has revolutionized ladies skating with her emphasis on a certain type of jump technique that relies on pre-rotation, quickness of rotation, and above all, the low body weight of pre-pubescent female skaters.  Ms. Tutberidze began the revolution with the non-axel triple jumps (Julia Lipnitskaya, Evgenia Medvedeva, among others), but she has recently cornered the market on ladies' triple axels and quadruple jumps as well (Anna Shcherbakova, Elizabet Tursynbayeva, Kamila Valieva, Maiia Khromykh, among others, as well as recent Tutberidze student Alexandra Trusova).  This type of jump technique, combined with Daniil Gleikhengauz's cluttered programs utterly leeched of intangible qualities that would lend them genuine artistic or thematic heft, has dominated ladies figure skating in recent past.  All others are just trying to catch up, with varying results.  Given the high-risk, high-reward approach of the jumping arms race, the disappointingly messy, mistake-ridden ladies event at the 2021 World Championships is only a harbinger of future ladies competitions to come.  One needs only to look at the many messy men's events at the beginning stages of the quads arms race . . . 

2021 Worlds - Pairs Recap

If the pairs event at the 2021 World Figure Skating Championships stands for anything, surely it would be for the golden touch of the great Tamara Moskvina in the pairs discipline.  Last season, our newest World Champions Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov failed to make either the Russian world or Europeans teams.  After joining Ms. Moskvina's group last spring, however, Mishina/Galliamov have looked like a wholly new team with their newfound confidence, performance ability, and improved programs.  Likewise, although Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitrii Kozlovskii faltered in the long program here, their development under Ms. Moskvina has been excellent.  It's extraordinary how Ms. Moskvina has coached world medalists in every single decade to date since Vorobieva/Vlassov in 1977.  Are we having a 'best coach' award this season?  If so, fork it over to Tamara Moskvina!  At the very least, she should receive a nomination for not only coaching two pairs to the world podium, but also breaking the eight-year Russians pairs world title drought . . . 

The Apple of Averbukh's Eye

As I ventured over to Youtube to watch Mikahil Kolyada's The White Crow LP for about the 19301484th time during this famine of a figure skating season, a thought struck my mind like an ice pick to the skull: is Ilia Averbukh actually one of the best figure skating choreographers working today?

I know, to even suggest such a thing would undoubtedly condemn me as an unwashed neophyte among certain of the figure skating cognoscenti. After all, Mr. Averbukh is often remembered for his wacky interviews when not being denigrated for representing the worst excesses of early-2000s ice dance before the penitent wave of fresh, squeaky-clean Marina Zoueva teams cleansed ice dance of its sins.  I for one am not going to defend Jesus Christ Superstar or Fever.  Nor can I explain Mr. Averbukh's inexplicable decision to dump the legendary Marina Anissina for Irina Lobacheva.   

But judge a man by his deeds, not his choice of ice dance partner/wife.  So let's take a look at the evidence at hand here:

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 . . . 

A Satoko Retrospective

One of the most fruitful, yet strangely unheralded, artistic collaborations of the past few years has been the combination of Satoko Miyahara's skating with the choreography of Tom Dickson. For five straight seasons--from Ms. Miyahara's senior sophomore season of 2014-2015 to the 2018-2019 season--Mr. Dickson choreographed at least one program for Ms. Miyahara, with stellar results more often than not. 

Ms. Miyahara's weaknesses as a skater are not unapparent even to the undiscerning eye: Ms. Miyahara's jumps are lilliputian at best, and her skating can be perceived as lacking in dynamism and power.*  To paraphrase Dick Button, Ms. Miyahara's skating is not the sort that reaches the 70th row of a 30 row arena.  But what Ms. Miyahara possesses in spades is a wonderful clarity of movement throughout her skating--a sense of precision in not only her carriage and posture but also her understanding of musical nuance.  Ms. Miyahara's strengths thus make her a perfect fit for Tom Dickson, who is known for his cerebral and detailed approach to choreography.

  

Unsung; Unforgettable

Fantastic figure skating performances often earn their just rewards in the form of a medal, but the paucity of available medals inevitably results in some fine performances left empty-handed.  Unrewarded they may be, but not forgotten--here's a non-exhaustive list of some of my favorite relatively obscure(ish) performances that did not result in a medal, except perhaps in my heart:

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:

Mediocre Men

Note: I wrote the following post around January 2018, but never published it for various reasons.  Thankfully, my dim prognosis of the men's event at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics turned out to be incorrect: contrary to my gloomy expectations, the men for the most part skated well, and the most well-rounded and complete men's performances even made it to the podium (!).

For entertainment purposes, I've decided to dust this post off and publish it now . . .

............................................................................................................................

With the uppermost echelons of the men's discipline firmly engaged in the high-risk, high-rewards quads arms race, the judges improperly lumping together the skaters' Program Components Scores with insufficient differentiation between the skaters, and a storied history of major implosions and/or nerves among the top competitors, there is a good chance that the men's event at the Pyeongchang Olympics will be a splatfest of major proportions.

This is disappointing, not only because it is painful to watch skaters' lifelong, Olympic-themed dreams crumble amidst bitter tears and the gnashing of teeth in front of literal millions, but also because the men's event at the past three Olympic games have also been absolutely dismal, featuring not only poor performances in terms of completed content but also mediocre programs and choreography.*  Let's take an unpleasant, but mercifully brief, stroll down memory lane . . .

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:

I Think About This A Lot: Evgenia Medvedeva's Averbukh-Era Choreography

One of my favourite online columns is The Cut's I Think About This A Lot, a column "dedicated to private memes: images, videos, and other random trivia we are doomed to play forever on loop in our minds."  Finally, I have found kindred spirits who are also willing to disclose the random detritus that stubbornly clings--unwanted, or at least unbidden--to the otherwise hollowed-out recesses of the mind.

If I were a contributor to the august entries of I Think About This A Lot, my first entry would undoubtedly be dedicated to Ilia Averbukh's choreography for Evgenia Medvedeva.  In a world where choreographers are content to have their charges skate to the 391391419th iteration of Bizet's Carmen or the same hackneyed versions of Romeo and Juliet, Mr. Averbukh--to his credit--tends to select unique choices of music for Ms. Medvedeva and kit them out with grandiose themes: clinical death, the suffering of the deaf, the ephemeral nature of life in the chaotic times of terrorism.  The presence of such sweeping program concepts of Deep Seriousness in the rather frothy milieu of figure skating, however, brings to mind Vladimir Nabokov's knowing remark that only a single letter separates the comic and the cosmic.

But it's not necessarily the wildly ambitious themes of Ms. Medvedeva's Averbukhian programs that are seared into my mind--no, it's the choreography that serves as the chassis for such themes. To be more specific, it's certain moments of choreography that go so far into the ludicrous, it circles all the way back around to . . . being entertaining? You know what I'm talking about:

Yuzuru Hanyu, 2014 and 2018 Olympic Champion

An extraordinary victory for an extraordinary skater.

2018 European Figure Skating Championships: Ladies Recap

The ladies event at the 2018 European Figure Skating Championships in Moscow, Russia set the stage for one of the most hotly-anticipated tête-à-têtes in figure skating this season: Evgenia Armanovna Medvedeva vs. Alina Ilnazovna Zagitova.  On stage left was reigning World and European Champion Evgenia Medvedeva: undefeated since November 2015, but convalescing from a foot injury that necessitated her absence from the competitive ranks for months.  On stage right was upstart Alina Zagitova: reigning World Junior, Grand Prix Final and Russian National Champion, undefeated in the senior ranks since her senior debut this season at the Lombardia Trophy.  Dare I slip in a metaphor here about an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object? Throw in the fact that Ms. Medvedeva and Ms. Zagitova both train under the sharp, disapproving eye of Eteri Tutberidze, and here we have 2018's version of Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski circa 1998, if Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski both trained under Frank Carroll and were even more dominant than they were in 1997-98 (really--do you see Ms. Zagitova losing anything to a Laetitia Hubert-like skater anytime soon?). Or would the more relevant comparison be to Alexei Yagudin and Evgeni Plushenko in 2002 (history of sharing a coach; unparalleled rivalry at the top of the field; Russian)? Take your pick . . . though I suppose the results of the Pyeongchang Olympics will determine which comparison is more apt.

2018 European Championships: Ladies

The Queen is dead; long live the Queen (?)

Best Moments of the 2017 Grand Prix Season (So Far)

Another year, another Grand Prix of Figure Skating season. Gone are the days in which the top skaters skipped the Grand Prix season with impunity and skaters like Michelle Kwan had to be enticed to just show up with cold, hard cash.  No--these days, even skaters of the topmost echelon are gritting their teeth through injuries, illnesses, and other assorted maladies so that they can tough it out through to qualifying for the Grand Prix Final (or worse, injure themselves trying to do). Correspondingly, national figure skating federations look to the results of the Grand Prix series to help select their Olympic and/or World teams, fans of the sport engage in vociferous debates over the scoring and/or tech panel calling after every single Grand Prix event, and the Japanese Skating Federation glitzes out their perennially sold-out NHK Trophy as if it were a contemporary Super Bowl halftime show with an unlimited budget. Observers of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating live in exciting times indeed.

With the Grand Prix Final coming up soon, let's dispel the dark cloud of injuries and absences hanging over the Grand Prix Final this year and focus on the highlights of the Grand Prix season so far:

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:

Recap: Internationaux de France 2017: Ladies

It's so weird not typing "Trophee Eric Bompard" or even "Trophee Lalique" when referring to the annual Grand Prix of figure skating event in France . . .

Anyways, the top ladies at the Internationaux de France generally faltered in the short program, but came back with guns blazing in the long, with multiple perfect seven-triple performances repeatedly thrown down like gauntlets.

Yuzuru Hanyu "Just Wants to Have a Chill Time" This Season

OSAKA, Japan - Addressing a group of reporters at a press conference held prior to the upcoming Grand Prix of Figure Skating event, the 2017 NHK Trophy, Yuzuru Hanyu told reporters that he "just wants to have a chill time" during the current 2017-2018 figure skating season.

Wearing a baseball cap turned backwards and languidly gesturing with a half-empty can of beer, the Sendai-born figure skater shrugged and said, "life's short, dude. No point in stressing about stuff that's going to happen in the future."

Recap: 2017 Rostelecom Cup: Men & Ladies

Last weekend, the senior Grand Prix of Figure Skating officially kicked off with the Rostelecom Cup of Russia in Moscow, Russia! Despite the suspense of seeing the debut of new programs somewhat muted by the increasingly large amount of skaters participating in the Challenger Series, questions nonetheless abounded prior to this year's iteration of the Rostelecom Cup: was Yuzuru Hanyu really going to go for the 4Lz? How many points was Evgenia Medvedeva was going to win by in the ladies field?? Were any skaters going to make Tatiana Tarasova go into paroxysms of ecstasy live on air???