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 . . .

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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 . . .