Silver this. Silver that. That’s the colour linked perennially and always to Yuma Kagiyama’s name. But that pile of shiny metal bits doesn’t come close to explaining what the world saw in the men’s free skate at the world figure skating championships in Prague on March 28. Kagiyama’s free skate was epic. Homeric. Classy. The […]
world figure skating championships
Pairs: the Astronomical Clock is Ticking
Timing seems to be everything. The only times in history that the world figure skating championships have previously been held in beautiful, historic Prague, Canadian pairs and men’s skaters have excelled. Make that four world gold medals at two events, separated by 31 years: 1962 and 1993. It’s now another 33 years […]
Gogolev: Finding his Spot in the Sun
Suddenly, Stephen Gogolev was just there. Tall, lanky, a master of understatement, a greater master of quick rotation, Gogolev emerged during the Olympic season like a bursting bud that had been buried for a long demoralizing winter. He’ll be going to his first world championship in Prague next week as a player, after having […]
Alysa Liu: Riding a Sunbeam
Alysa Liu is just cut from a different cloth. She astounded the world when she did off-the-wall things like land a triple Axel, then a triple Axel-triple toe loop when she was a 13-year-old junior. At a Junior Grand Prix in Lake Placid in August of 2019 – when she was only 14 – she […]
Malinin: Crazy Good
How do you defeat this guy, this Ilia Malinin kid – still only 20 – who seems to have been hatched from another planet and dropped earthward? Malinin and his mop of tawny hair and an unearthly ability to rotate his body, won his second consecutive world figure skating championship title on Saturday at the […]
Alysa Liu, and the Impossible Dream
“What the hell?” said she, who had just accomplished the impossible. Seconds before Alysa Liu finished her MacArthur Park free program at the world figure skating championships, the crowd of more than 19,000 in the TD Centre in Boston, stood up as one, screaming for her. They broke the sound barrier. “What the hell?” Liu […]
Surfing through the Rhythm Dance
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier surfed their way to a second-place finish in the rhythm dance at the world figure skating championships in Boston on Friday. Music from The Beach Boys and a casual band of 15-year-olds called the Surfaris led Gilles and Poirier to a score of 86.44, which was 1.93 short of their […]
A Whiter Shade of Pale
You could say that Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier have long skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels across the floor, and have seen so many ceilings flying away in their career. But not until this season have they lived it in song, skating to “A Whiter Shade of Pale” as their enchanting free […]
Gilles and Poirier: Ascending to Silver
MONTREAL The long road to the top in ice dancing is taken in long, agonizing inches. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, bronze medalists last year for the second time, stepped up the podium to a silver medal this time, at home, in front of a wildly cheering crowd. They finished their intriguing “Wuthering Heights” routine […]
Ilia Malinin: A Win for the Ages
MONTREAL There was a moment in his free skate on a snowy night in Montreal when Ilia Malinin knew, despite everything weighing on his mind over the past couple of weeks, that “it was my time.” Time for him to deliver an explosive routine the likes few had ever seen. Time to put illness, and […]