Winter Olympics 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

DP. My Russian friends are all saying that as well. I was actually curious if this is true. I enjoyed his skating but idk much about figure skating and whether he was as judged unfairly (seems likely since Russia is the bad guy now).

I'm not a Russia sympathizer, but if the international community decides to let them compete in the Olympics, they should give them a fair shot in the spirit of the Games. His technical score was top-notch, but they severely downgraded him in the subjective component score. I don't follow at all because I thought it was a lovely freeskate. I thought he was first or second in the freeskate. He also learned he had a copyright issue with his short program 72 hours before he was set to compete, and had to create an entirely new program. Maybe that was nothing, but it felt a little like the IOC trying to sabotage him, or at least it had the appearance of foul play. I thought he was probably underscored in the short and was absolutely underscored in the long program.

The artist specifically pulled copyright clearance from him because he's Russian, 3 days before the short program. He wanted to use his last year's program, Dune, but also couldn't get that cleared. One of Gummenik's coaches is legendary Russian pairs figure skating coach Tamara Moskvina. At 84 years old, she had the brilliant idea to use AI to compose music similar to this year's short program, with the same accents where the jumps should be and everything. But Gummenik tried it out and didn't feel right about it. He's also a musician (did a gala performance to Bolero where he stops skating in the middle and accompanies himself on piano, hah) and didn't want to skate to artificial music, so he ended up finding a waltz from the same composer of his long program music. He had to prepare that in a day. And then because he has been banned from skating internationally the last four years, he had no world ranking, and automatically had to skate first in the short, and it's common knowledge judges hold back marks from skaters in early groups/lesser knowns. And with all that going against him, he still ended up 3 points out of the medals! Pretty impressive.

Two more factoids about Gumennik:

- He has an SAT score of 100% (Russia's SAT equivalent)
- His father is an orthodox priest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

They had absolutely no business putting their A team into the team event. He burned it all there and there was nothing left for the individual event. They should either hold the team event after the individual meet or explicitly slot a different set of skaters into the team event. You cannot expect top level runthroughs of the same program so frequently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

Same! It reminded me a little of Lillehammer, when the favored veterans all stumbled (Browning, Boitano, and Petrenko) and Alexei Urmanov pulled off a stunning upset. The planets had to align just right.

And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi.

Not a political post, but as someone who loves figure skating, the Russian influence on the sport was everywhere at the 2026 men's Olympic event, even with the ban. So many in men's singles had Russian roots or training:

Mikhail Shaidorov (Kazakhstan – 1st) – Trainsin Russia with Alexei Urmanov in Sochi and speaks Russian.

Stephen Gogolev (Canada – 5th) – Has dual Canadian and Russian citizenship, started skating in Russia as a kid before moving to Canada.

Petr Gumennik (Russia – 6th) – Russian competing as a neutral athlete.

Ilia Malinin (USA – 8th) – His parents Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov were Olympic figure skaters from Uzbekistan/former Soviet Union.

Andrew Torgashev (USA – 12th) – Parents were Russian figure skaters who toured with ice shows before settling in the US.

Maxim Naumov (USA – 20th) – His parents Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were the 1994 World Champions in pairs for Russia.

Vladimir Samoylov (Poland – competed) – Born in Moscow, trained in the Russian system before switching to Poland.

I know many of these skaters have left Russia or represent other countries, but the technical foundation and coaching tradition of Russian figure skating still clearly influences the sport.

Also, even if Adeliia Petrosian lands a quad and triple axel in the women's event, will she podium, or will the judges give her a low enough component score to keep her out of the top 3? Her actual skating is much more entertaining than Kaori Sakamoto (I think she's so boring, personally, and prefer the other Japanese women to her).

Two more to add to your list:

-Diana Davis, ice dancer from Georgia, daughter of (notorious) Russian coach Eteri Tutberidze.

-Anthony Ponomarenko, American ice dancer, son of Sergei Ponomarenko and Marina Klimova, Russian ice dancers and Olympic gold (and silver and bronze) medalists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

Same! It reminded me a little of Lillehammer, when the favored veterans all stumbled (Browning, Boitano, and Petrenko) and Alexei Urmanov pulled off a stunning upset. The planets had to align just right.

And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi.

Not a political post, but as someone who loves figure skating, the Russian influence on the sport was everywhere at the 2026 men's Olympic event, even with the ban. So many in men's singles had Russian roots or training:

Mikhail Shaidorov (Kazakhstan – 1st) – Trainsin Russia with Alexei Urmanov in Sochi and speaks Russian.

Stephen Gogolev (Canada – 5th) – Has dual Canadian and Russian citizenship, started skating in Russia as a kid before moving to Canada.

Petr Gumennik (Russia – 6th) – Russian competing as a neutral athlete.

Ilia Malinin (USA – 8th) – His parents Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov were Olympic figure skaters from Uzbekistan/former Soviet Union.

Andrew Torgashev (USA – 12th) – Parents were Russian figure skaters who toured with ice shows before settling in the US.

Maxim Naumov (USA – 20th) – His parents Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were the 1994 World Champions in pairs for Russia.

Vladimir Samoylov (Poland – competed) – Born in Moscow, trained in the Russian system before switching to Poland.

I know many of these skaters have left Russia or represent other countries, but the technical foundation and coaching tradition of Russian figure skating still clearly influences the sport.

Also, even if Adeliia Petrosian lands a quad and triple axel in the women's event, will she podium, or will the judges give her a low enough component score to keep her out of the top 3? Her actual skating is much more entertaining than Kaori Sakamoto (I think she's so boring, personally, and prefer the other Japanese women to her).

Two more to add to your list:

-Diana Davis, ice dancer from Georgia, daughter of (notorious) Russian coach Eteri Tutberidze.

-Anthony Ponomarenko, American ice dancer, son of Sergei Ponomarenko and Marina Klimova, Russian ice dancers and Olympic gold (and silver and bronze) medalists.

Dp. And Diana's partner, Glen Smolkin, whose father is an actor and played the butler on the Russian version of the Nanny!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

Thought for a long time which cartoon character reminds me of Malinin and it is Prince Charming in Shrek.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

Thought for a long time which cartoon character reminds me of Malinin and it is Prince Charming in Shrek.

And Kristoff from Frozen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

DP. My Russian friends are all saying that as well. I was actually curious if this is true. I enjoyed his skating but idk much about figure skating and whether he was as judged unfairly (seems likely since Russia is the bad guy now).

I'm not a Russia sympathizer, but if the international community decides to let them compete in the Olympics, they should give them a fair shot in the spirit of the Games. His technical score was top-notch, but they severely downgraded him in the subjective component score. I don't follow at all because I thought it was a lovely freeskate. I thought he was first or second in the freeskate. He also learned he had a copyright issue with his short program 72 hours before he was set to compete, and had to create an entirely new program. Maybe that was nothing, but it felt a little like the IOC trying to sabotage him, or at least it had the appearance of foul play. I thought he was probably underscored in the short and was absolutely underscored in the long program.

Lots of Russophobes there. Now they feel justified and emboldened

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

DP. My Russian friends are all saying that as well. I was actually curious if this is true. I enjoyed his skating but idk much about figure skating and whether he was as judged unfairly (seems likely since Russia is the bad guy now).

I'm not a Russia sympathizer, but if the international community decides to let them compete in the Olympics, they should give them a fair shot in the spirit of the Games. His technical score was top-notch, but they severely downgraded him in the subjective component score. I don't follow at all because I thought it was a lovely freeskate. I thought he was first or second in the freeskate. He also learned he had a copyright issue with his short program 72 hours before he was set to compete, and had to create an entirely new program. Maybe that was nothing, but it felt a little like the IOC trying to sabotage him, or at least it had the appearance of foul play. I thought he was probably underscored in the short and was absolutely underscored in the long program.

This music rights thing is going to be a huge PITA for figure skating.

Not if you are from the right country, it won’t

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

They had absolutely no business putting their A team into the team event. He burned it all there and there was nothing left for the individual event. They should either hold the team event after the individual meet or explicitly slot a different set of skaters into the team event. You cannot expect top level runthroughs of the same program so frequently.

+1

This team event is cute, but what's the point? I think it would mess up athletes' abilities to peak during the individual performances (you know, the whole point of them coming to the Olympics)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

Same! It reminded me a little of Lillehammer, when the favored veterans all stumbled (Browning, Boitano, and Petrenko) and Alexei Urmanov pulled off a stunning upset. The planets had to align just right.

And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi.

Not a political post, but as someone who loves figure skating, the Russian influence on the sport was everywhere at the 2026 men's Olympic event, even with the ban. So many in men's singles had Russian roots or training:

Mikhail Shaidorov (Kazakhstan – 1st) – Trainsin Russia with Alexei Urmanov in Sochi and speaks Russian.

Stephen Gogolev (Canada – 5th) – Has dual Canadian and Russian citizenship, started skating in Russia as a kid before moving to Canada.

Petr Gumennik (Russia – 6th) – Russian competing as a neutral athlete.

Ilia Malinin (USA – 8th) – His parents Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov were Olympic figure skaters from Uzbekistan/former Soviet Union.

Andrew Torgashev (USA – 12th) – Parents were Russian figure skaters who toured with ice shows before settling in the US.

Maxim Naumov (USA – 20th) – His parents Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were the 1994 World Champions in pairs for Russia.

Vladimir Samoylov (Poland – competed) – Born in Moscow, trained in the Russian system before switching to Poland.

I know many of these skaters have left Russia or represent other countries, but the technical foundation and coaching tradition of Russian figure skating still clearly influences the sport.

Also, even if Adeliia Petrosian lands a quad and triple axel in the women's event, will she podium, or will the judges give her a low enough component score to keep her out of the top 3? Her actual skating is much more entertaining than Kaori Sakamoto (I think she's so boring, personally, and prefer the other Japanese women to her).

Yeah, there was a sizeable diaspora of coaches and skaters-turned-pro in the years after the Soviet Union broke up. Most of them ended up in the US where there was more money to be made going on tour, better training facilities, and better opportunities to coach.

Figure skating enjoyed a surge in popularity in the mid-90s after the Olympics and all publicity around Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, so there was a growing and ready-made audience for all the shows and lessons. I started taking lessons as an adult and competed for a bit Usova & Zhulin and Stekolnikova & Kazarlyga all taught at my rink, and Ilya Kulik trained nearby.

And then many of the expat Russian skaters from that original mid-90s influx stayed and had kids, who are old enough to compete for the US now. It’s fun to see familiar names coming around again.

Personally, I love the Russian style. It’s so balletic and lyrical, and the artistic side often gets neglected these days in the rush for quads. The ballet influence provides a good technical foundation for the jumps and spins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

They had absolutely no business putting their A team into the team event. He burned it all there and there was nothing left for the individual event. They should either hold the team event after the individual meet or explicitly slot a different set of skaters into the team event. You cannot expect top level runthroughs of the same program so frequently.

How often do they run through their routines? Aren't they doing practice run throughs all the time?

When I was listening to the commentators they suggested it was advantageous to work through the nerves during the team event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

They had absolutely no business putting their A team into the team event. He burned it all there and there was nothing left for the individual event. They should either hold the team event after the individual meet or explicitly slot a different set of skaters into the team event. You cannot expect top level runthroughs of the same program so frequently.

How often do they run through their routines? Aren't they doing practice run throughs all the time?

When I was listening to the commentators they suggested it was advantageous to work through the nerves during the team event.

Athletes are planning their training to peak at the right time. That right time is the individual event.

They are doing run throughs but not necessarily with the full technical content all the time. If you watch practice, you will commonly see athletes running through their programs with "placeholder" jumps - either a single or a half loop - just to mark "jump goes here." It takes too much energy to do a complete program multiple times and they don't want to leave it all on practice ice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

Same! It reminded me a little of Lillehammer, when the favored veterans all stumbled (Browning, Boitano, and Petrenko) and Alexei Urmanov pulled off a stunning upset. The planets had to align just right.

And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi.

Not a political post, but as someone who loves figure skating, the Russian influence on the sport was everywhere at the 2026 men's Olympic event, even with the ban. So many in men's singles had Russian roots or training:

Mikhail Shaidorov (Kazakhstan – 1st) – Trainsin Russia with Alexei Urmanov in Sochi and speaks Russian.

Stephen Gogolev (Canada – 5th) – Has dual Canadian and Russian citizenship, started skating in Russia as a kid before moving to Canada.

Petr Gumennik (Russia – 6th) – Russian competing as a neutral athlete.

Ilia Malinin (USA – 8th) – His parents Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov were Olympic figure skaters from Uzbekistan/former Soviet Union.

Andrew Torgashev (USA – 12th) – Parents were Russian figure skaters who toured with ice shows before settling in the US.

Maxim Naumov (USA – 20th) – His parents Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were the 1994 World Champions in pairs for Russia.

Vladimir Samoylov (Poland – competed) – Born in Moscow, trained in the Russian system before switching to Poland.

I know many of these skaters have left Russia or represent other countries, but the technical foundation and coaching tradition of Russian figure skating still clearly influences the sport.

Also, even if Adeliia Petrosian lands a quad and triple axel in the women's event, will she podium, or will the judges give her a low enough component score to keep her out of the top 3? Her actual skating is much more entertaining than Kaori Sakamoto (I think she's so boring, personally, and prefer the other Japanese women to her).

Yeah, there was a sizeable diaspora of coaches and skaters-turned-pro in the years after the Soviet Union broke up. Most of them ended up in the US where there was more money to be made going on tour, better training facilities, and better opportunities to coach.

Figure skating enjoyed a surge in popularity in the mid-90s after the Olympics and all publicity around Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, so there was a growing and ready-made audience for all the shows and lessons. I started taking lessons as an adult and competed for a bit Usova & Zhulin and Stekolnikova & Kazarlyga all taught at my rink, and Ilya Kulik trained nearby.

And then many of the expat Russian skaters from that original mid-90s influx stayed and had kids, who are old enough to compete for the US now. It’s fun to see familiar names coming around again.

Personally, I love the Russian style. It’s so balletic and lyrical, and the artistic side often gets neglected these days in the rush for quads. The ballet influence provides a good technical foundation for the jumps and spins.

It's the balletic foundation, yes, but the true bedrock of the Russian style is superior blade control built through hours and hours of drilling the most basic of maneuvers until the sweet spot of generating enough speed without friction is achieved. Oleg Vassiliev said they would start practice working on nothing but crossovers (basic steps to get around the ice) for 90 minutes, nothing but crossovers until they are perfected to the point of being able to cross the entire rink in a two or three pushes. Ice dancers would spend an hour working on nothing but a single turn until that turn makes a perfect line on the ice and the skater is perfectly centered over the blade. Recall the famous "quiet blades" of Gordeeva and Grinkov who could generate awe-inspiring speed around the ice making barely any sound at all - because they were riding on that sweet spot of the blade that met no friction of the ice.

This training foundation, sadly, will never be replicated. One, because no one has patience any longer to drill the basics before moving to the showy stuff. And two, because it was sustained by the system that had no concern whatsoever about paying for ice time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

How so?

NP. Because, theoretically, he would have gotten his nerves and Olympic inexperience over with, and then his second games would have been fruitful. See also: Nathan Chen Olympics 1 vs. Nathan Chen Olympics 2.

It was a controversial decision at the time in 2022 to send Jason Brown instead of Ilia. That said, Jason Brown performed well and was decently ranked. It’s impossible to say what could have or would have happened. I love Jason Brown and was glad he was on the team in 2022; Ilia did not perform well at that Worlds just a few weeks later.

Anyway, I wish Ilia all the best and hope he continues to mature, as a person and as an athlete. I feel for him, to have skated so well to help USA win team gold and then to fall so short in the individual event.

They underutilized him last Olympics and overextended him this time. As a result, he was instrumental in securing gold for the team and was left with nothing in individual event.

They had absolutely no business putting their A team into the team event. He burned it all there and there was nothing left for the individual event. They should either hold the team event after the individual meet or explicitly slot a different set of skaters into the team event. You cannot expect top level runthroughs of the same program so frequently.

+1

This team event is cute, but what's the point? I think it would mess up athletes' abilities to peak during the individual performances (you know, the whole point of them coming to the Olympics)

It feels like a cheap ploy to get more ratings and extend figure skating through the whole Olympics.