FIGURE SKATING
THE TOP STORY These Olympics are a double-edged sword for Canada’s figure skaters. There are medal contenders in every event and this is one of the best teams the nation has ever produced. But it also marks the end of an era, as this will be the last Olympics for many of these veterans.
Ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will retire after this season. This is also expected to be the end of the line for Patrick Chan, a two-time silver medallist, and pair skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, who are two-time world champions.
Chan’s road back to the Olympics has been the toughest of all: He didn’t qualify for the Grand Prix Final — often considered an early look at Olympic contenders — because he needed to regroup after a disastrous fourth-place finish at Skate Canada in October. He’s a long shot for a medal, but he is hoping to end his career on a high note.
Figure skating seems to have emerged from the Russian doping scandal unscathed; now that the dust has settled, the Russians seem to be embracing their newfound neutral status. It has only cost them two figure skaters: Ksenia Stolbova, who helped win team trophy gold in Sochi as part of the pairs free skate, and ice dancer Ivan Bukin.
Venue Gangneung Ice Arena Dates Feb. 8-24.
Most likely to win gold Russian Evgenia Medvedeva missed the Grand Prix Final with a broken foot, and Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu is fighting off an ankle injury that could slow his shot at a second straight Olympic title. The usual suspects will be in Pyeongchang, albeit a little battered and bruised.
This is not the year to leave anything to chance. Nathan Chen’s five-quad performance was the talk of U.S. nationals, and Spain’s Javier Fernandez is hoping for gold on his third Olympic try. On the women’s side, 15-year-old Russian skater Alina Zagitova ended Medvedeva’s two-year win streak at the European championships in January.
Virtue and Moir have dominated for the past eight years, but France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron set a world record in the free dance for their fourth straight European title. U.S. siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani have also come a long way since their ninth-place Olympic debut in Sochi.
However, the Canadian ice dancers switched up their Moulin Rouge free program for the Olympics, changing one of the lifts to be a little more wholesome. “What it came down to actually was that when we slowed it down and looked on the video, it wasn’t aesthetically that beautiful of a position,” Moir explained. Canadians to watch Duhamel and Radford struggled at worlds last year, finishing eighth, but bounced back this season. While Kaetlyn Osmond was shaky at nationals in January, she’s a silver medallist from last year’s worlds and the previous Olympics. Keep an eye on 20-year-old Gabrielle Daleman, who battled pneumonia during the national championships and yet managed to put together a Canadian record 229.78 points. And the best supporting role goes to …. North Korea is sending two figure skaters as part of its delegation of 22 athletes, and they were the only athletes to actually qualify for their Olympic spots. A major part of their success? Training in Montreal with coach Bruno Marcotte, who works with Duhamel and Radford. The North Koreans are often fan
favourites — they placed 15th at the worlds last year, but the crowd loved them. Most likely to be crowd fa
vourite There are plenty of favourites in the men’s competition, but Chen stands apart with his creativity and risk-taking. Chen’s introduction to skating was at three years old in Salt Lake City, but not the way you might expect. He originally wanted to be a hockey goalie because he liked the equipment. Good thing he changed course: In January, Chen won his second straight national title thanks to a record five quads in the free skate.
Most likely to be missed It’s strange to watch Olympic qualifying without twotime gold medalist Evgeni Plushenko, always one of the loudest trash talkers in the sport. Even stranger to hear all the nice things he’s saying about the 2018 contenders, complimenting Spain’s Fernandez for how well he’s handled the mental burden of trying to win his first Olympic gold and declaring, “It‘s going to be the most interesting Olympics in history … lots of suspense.”
Worst rule change The ISU wanted to make singles and pairs appealing to the kids, so for the first time, skaters will be allowed to pick song choices with words (Ice dancing has been allowed to use music with lyrics since 1997). Although most skaters so far have decided to stick with tradition, this could mean more Turn Down For What and less … Swan Lake. Most interesting harbingers of the future There is always one major point of contention in figure skating — the perils of judging. What if the IOC replaced human judges with artificial intelligence? It’s already a possibility in gymnastics, with Japanese IT provider Fujitsu looking into smart technology for the 2020 Games in Tokyo to help with scoring.
Next innovation? How about ditching the costumes in favour of neutral outfits so the focus can be on athletic achievement, not style. Tracy O’Neill of The Atlantic proposed that figure skaters compete in a standard-issue uniform, leaving judges with “one less variable in the mess of 26 Components criteria … It would be, in essence, a control variable.”