US Ladies LP Tonight!

My predictions:

1st Alissa
2nd Ashley Wagner
3rd Agnes Zawadzski
4th Mirai Nagasu
5th Caroline Zhang

However I'd love for Agnes to win it, but I think she will get nervous.  Who knows though, she has such great jumps maybe she'll do great.  Can't wait to see it.  What are your predictions?

EUROS Ladies:

Ladies Results:


1. Carolina Kostner ITA – 183.55 VIDEO
2. Kiira Korpi FIN – 166.94 VIDEO
3. Elene Gedevanishvili GEO – 165.93 VIDEO
4. Polina Korobeynikova RUS – 164.13 VIDEO
5. Viktoria Helgesson SWE – 160.82 VIDEO
6. Ksenia Makarova RUS – 159.59
7. Alena Leonova RUS – 158.78 VIDEO
8. Valentina Marchei ITA – 146.84 VIDEO
9. Yretha Silete FRA – 145.50 VIDEO
10. Joshi Helgesson SWE – 145.50 VIDEO
11. Elena Glebova EST – 141.92 VIDEO
12. Natalie Popova UKR – 138.60 VIDEO
13. Mae Berenice Meite FRA – 137.33 VIDEO
14. Monika Simancikova SVK – 136.79 VIDEO
15. Sonia Lafuente ESP – 133.64 VIDEO
16. Alina Fjodorova LAT – 133.48 VIDEO
17. Juulia Turkkila FIN – 130.33 VIDEO
18. Jenna McCorkell GBR – 125.41 VIDEO
19. Isabelle Pieman BEL – 122.13 VIDEO
20. Romy Buhler SUI – 121.25 VIDEO
21. Myriam Leuenberger SUI – 117.73 VIDEO
22. Nathalie Weinzierl GER – 115.89 VIDEO
23. Francesca Rio ITA – 108.66 VIDEO
24. Karina Johnson DEN – 92.12 VIDEO

EUROS Men

MEN (final standings)
1. Evgeni Plushenko RUS – 261.23 VIDEO
2. Artur Gachinski RUS – 246.27 VIDEO
3. Florent Amodio FRA – 234.18 VIDEO
4. Michal Brezina CZE –  229.30 VIDEO
5. Tomas Verner CZE – 225.36 VIDEO
6. Javier Fernandez ESP – 222.26 VIDEO
7. Samuel Contesti ITA _ 212.32 VIDEO
8. Brian Joubert FRA – 207.83 VIDEO
9. Jorik Hendrickx BEL – 204.63 VIDEO
10. Sergei Voronov RUS – 195.89 VIDEO
11. Alexander Majorov SWE – 193.18 VIDEO
12. Chafik Besseghier FRA – 181.85 VIDEO
13. Kim Lucine MON – 179.33 VIDEO
14. Zoltan Kelemen ROU – 178.02
15. Peter Liebers GER – 176.75 VIDEO
16. Paolo Bacchini ITA – 170.11
17. Paul Fentz GER – 169.40 VIDEO
18. Viktor Pfeifer AUT – 168.92 VIDEO
19. Maciej Cieplucha POL – 166.86 VIDEO
20. Justus Strid DEN – 156.33
21. Dmitri Ignatenko UKR – 154.88 VIDEO
22. Alexei Bychenko ISR – 141.19 VIDEO
23. Viktor Romanenkov EST – 135.09 VIDEO
WD Kevin Van Der Perren BEL

US Nationals Mens SP Tonight!!

My predictions:

Jeremy Abbot 1st
Ricky Dornbush 2nd
Adam Rippon 3rd

UPDATE:  Well looks like Jeremy won the sp!!! Can't wait til Sunday for the long program.

Congrats to Agnes Zawadzski!!

Anyone else super excited to see Agnes in 1st?  Hopefully she'll do great in the long program as well.  I think she'd be great on the world team ;)

EUROS DANCE:

DANCE (final standings)
1. Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat FRA – 164.18 VIDEO
2. Ekaterina Bobrova/Dmitri Soloviev RUS – 160.23 VIDEO
3. Elena Ilinykh/Nikita Katsalapov RUS – 153.12 VIDEO
4. Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte ITA – 153.09 VIDEO
5. Ekaterina Riazanova/Ilia Tkachenko RUS – 152.22 VIDEO
6. Penny Coomes/Nicholas Buckland GBR – 145.31 VIDEO
7. Pernelle Carron/Lloyd Jones FRA – 142.27 VIDEO
8. Nelli Zhiganshina/Alexander Gazsi GER – 140.84 VIDEO
9. Isabella Tobias/Deividas Stagniunas LTU – 139.53 VIDEO
10. Julia Zlobina/Alexei Sitnikov AZE – 133.04 VIDEO
11. Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri ITA – 129.46 VIDEO
12. Tanja Kolbe/Stefano Caruso GER – 123.89 VIDEO
13. Louise Walden/Owen Edwards GBR – 122.59 VIDEO
14. Irina Shtork/Taavi Rand EST – 121.09 VIDEO
15. Siobhan Heekin-Canedy/Dmitri Dun UKR – 119.95 VIDEO
16. Sara Hurtado/Adria Diaz ESP – 117.26 
17. Zsuzsanna Nagy/Mate Fejes HUN – 114.40 VIDEO
18. Gabriela Kubova/Dmitri Kiselev CZE – 113.51 VIDEO
19. Lucie Mysliveckova/Neil Brown CZE – 111.46 VIDEO
20. Nadezhda Frolenkova/Mikhail Kasalo UKR – 104.74 VIDEO

EUROS Ladies SP:

1. Carolina Kostner ITA – 63.22 VIDEO
2. Kiira Korpi FIN – 61.80 VIDEO
3. Ksenia Makarova RUS – 57.55 VIDEO
4. Elene Gedevanishvili GEO – 57.14 VIDEO
5. Viktoria Helgesson SWE – 55.68 VIDEO
6. Alena Leonova RUS – 54.50 VIDEO
7. Valentina Marchei ITA – 53.52 VIDEO
8. Yretha Silete FRA – 52.75 VIDEO
9. Joshi Helgesson SWE – 52.32 VIDEO
10. Elena Glebova EST – 52.32 VIDEO
11. Mae Berenice Meite FRA – 49.86 VIDEO
12. Polina Korobeynikova RUS – 49.41 VIDEO
13. Sonia Lafuente ESP – 47.34 VIDEO
14. Monika Simancikova SVK – 46.39 VIDEO
15. Juulia Turkkila FIN – 45.65 VIDEO
16. Jenna McCorkell GBR – 45.32 VIDEO
17. Isabelle Pieman BEL – 44.39 VIDEO
18. Alina Fjodorova LAT – 44.37 VIDEO
19. Natalie Popova UKR – 43.75 VIDEO
20. Nathalie Weinzierl GER – 42.56 VIDEO
21. Myriam Leuenberger SUI – 41.77 VIDEO
22. Francesca Rio ITA – 40.02 VIDEO
23. Karina Johnson DEN – 38.23 VIDEO
24. Romy Buhler SUI – 38.14 VIDEO
25. Fleur Maxwell LUX – 37.06 VIDEO
26. Kaat Van Daele BEL – 35.11 VIDEO
27. Chelsea Rose Chiappa HUN – 34.46 VIDEO
28. Clara Peters IRL – 30.88 VIDEO


Courtesy:  http://www.examiner.com/figure-skating-in-national/europeans-photos-videos-and-results-ladies-short-program

EUROS Men SP:

Artur Gachinski 1st Place:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y8y0TuH9c0

Evgeni Plushenko 2nd Place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QDPseZZebA



Javier Fernandez:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWApqnlq5io

Brian Joubert:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kA6ql2dVXs

Sergei Voronov:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsXE0ysc_-Y

MEN (after the short program)
1. Artur Gachinski RUS – 84.80 VIDEO
2. Evgeni Plushenko RUS – 84.71 VIDEO
3. Tomas Verner CZE – 81.14 VIDEO
4. Javier Fernandez ESP – 80.11 VIDEO
5. Florent Amodio FRA – 78.48 VIDEO
6. Michal Brezina CZE – 76.13 VIDEO
7. Kevin Van Der Perren BEL – 71.05 VIDEO
8. Jorik Hendrickx BEL – 68.98 VIDEO
9. Alexander Majorov SWE – 68.33 VIDEO
10. Brian Joubert FRA – 67.92 VIDEO
11. Samuel Contesti ITA _ 66.86 VIDEO
12. Chafik Besseghier FRA – 63.12 VIDEO
13. Peter Liebers GER – 61.08 VIDEO
14. Sergei Voronov RUS – 60.88 VIDEO
15. Zoltan Kelemen ROU – 60.12 VIDEO
16. Kim Lucine MON – 57.64 VIDEO 

US Nationals Ladies and Pairs SP on Tonight!!

What are you prediction for the ladies sp?  Mine are:

Mirai Nagasu
Alissa Czisny
Ashley Wagner
Agnes Zawadzski
Christina Gao
Caroline Zhang
Rachael Flatt

Here is some info from practices.

Pairs should be interesting as well.

Grace Gold New Junior Ladies Champion:

So how would she do at Junior Worlds against the Russians?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/breaking/chi-gold-a-runaway-winner-in-junior-skate-at-nationals-20120125,0,1003048.story

2012 European Championship Pairs Videos:

This Europeans has been a disappoint for many with the withdrawal of Savchenko/Szolkowy.  Hopefully Savchenko's injury will be better in time for worlds.   

Volosozhar and Trankov SP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtYH0yucxHg

Bazarova and Larionov SP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIfogiqzlx8

Berton and Hotarek SP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGg-XYq3RlY

Stolbova and Klimov SP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ske6m4bYPik


http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120125&content_id=26461610&vkey=ice_news

Short program RESULTS


 1. Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov (Russia) 72.80 Q 
2. Vera Bazarova/Yuri Larionov (Russia) 66.89 Q 
3. Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov (Russia) 58.66 Q 
4. Stefania Berton/Ondrej Hotarek (Italy) 54.38 Q 
5. Maylin Hausch/Daniel Wende (Germany) 54.03 Q 
6. Daria Popova/Bruno Massot (France) 53.91 Q 
7. Mari Vartmann/Aaron van Cleave (Germany) 52.00 Q 
8. Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres (France) 51.81 Q 
9. Stacey Kemp/David King (Britain) 45.75 Q 
10. Alexandra Herbrikova/Rudy Halmaert (Czech Republic) 42.99 Q 
11. Carolina Gillespie/Luca Dematte (Italy) 42.75 Q 
12. Danielle Montalbano/Evgeni Krasnopolski (Israel) 41.69 Q 
13. Anais Morand/Timothy Leemann (Switzerland) 41.48 Q 
14. Lubov Bakirova/Mikalai Kamianchuk (Belarus) 39.06 Q 
15. Stina Martini/Severin Kiefer (Austria) 38.05 Q 
16. Sally Hoolin/James Hunt (Britain) 33.41 Q 
17. Elizabeta Makarova/Leri Kenchadze (Bulgaria) 32.80 
18. Maria Paliakova/Mikhail Fomichev (Belarus) 28.33 . 


Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy (Germany) WDW

Plushenko Euro's Qualifying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywRBdWFHUw

Gracie Gold Meets Expectations in SP:

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120124&content_id=26447404&vkey=ice_news

Patrick Chan's Canadian Nationals FS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5xR2q0zkEc&feature=youtu.be

UPDATE: Savchenko's Injury

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120122&content_id=26422786&vkey=ice_news

Looks like Savchenko is in a lot of pain and has been resting, she may withdraw from Euros.  The article states she "suffers from the rupture of a muscle fiber" in her upper thigh.  The throw 3Axel is just too dangerous, it's probably not a good idea to work on it if she wants to be healthy for Sochi.

Canadian Nationals Videos:

http://www.tsn.ca/figure_skating/

Patrick Chan:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soJi2DeLfYw

Canadian Nationals Ladies and Pairs Event:

Kaetlyn Osmond, leads after the short.  Cynthia is surprisingly in fourth, even though she now has Brian Orser as her coach.   We'll have to see how she does in the long program.


Kaetlyn's sp has not been posted on youtube yet, but if you are unfamiliar with her and want to know more about her, here is an interview:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH-lDaK64Mc

SENIOR Ladies SP Result:  1 Kaetlyn Osmond AB/NT/NU 56.94 - 56.94 2 Amelie Lacoste QC 52.43 - 52.43 3 Alexandra Najarro CO 52.34 - 52.34 4 Cynthia Phaneuf QC 49.66 - 49.66 5 Roxanne Rheault QC 47.58 - 47.58 SENIOR Pairs SP Result:  1 Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford QC 60.92 - 60.92  2 Jessica Dube / Sebastien Wolfe QC 60.65 - 60.65  3 Kirsten Moore-Towers / Dylan Moscovitch WO 60.26 - 60.26  4 Paige Lawrence / Rudi Swiegers SK 58.55 - 58.55  5 Brittany Jones / Kurtis Gaskell WO 53.16 - 53.16

Johnny Weir is coming back to competition, aiming for SOCHI:

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120118&content_id=26382032&vkey=ice_news

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120119&content_id=26396072&vkey=ice_news

"I'm trying to find way with my music editor to mix Carmen with Lady Gaga," Weir said.

3 Time Olympic Gold Figure Skater Sonja Henie

To this day there has never been another ladies figure skater to win Olympic Gold three times.  In this modern day age of triple jumps, there probably will never be another to break Sonja's record, given the advanced difficulty.  The closest to Sonja's record was of course Katerina Witt with her two olympic gold medals.  Yuna Kim could possibly try to match Katerina's record, but Yuna doesn't seem to have much interest in competiting anymore.  Only time will tell.

Sonja Henie was a wealthy Norwegian who was rumored to have bought many of her championships with her father's money.  With all the controversy aside, she was a legendary and charismatic skater.  With her love for fur and diamonds, Sonja Henie transcended figure skating with her costumes and white figure skates.  Sonja later became an actress.  Known for her greed, love of jewelry, fashion, lavish hollywood parties and men, she definitely was the Kim Kardashian of the 20th century.  Here are some videos from her time:

World Figure Skating Museum:

Here are some really amazing thing to see at the World Figure Skating Museum:

Tara Lipinski's Nagano Dress that won her Olympic Gold.

Kristi Yamaguchi's Dress and Olympic Gold Medal from Albertville (it's sooooo tiny!)

Old Figure Skates (can you imagine skating on these?)

Ice Dancer Pasha Grishuk's Olympic Gold dress

http://www.worldskatingmuseum.org/

Youth Olympics Figure Skating Videos:

Short Program:

Interesting Tut and Adelina both downgraded their combos.

Long Program and Ceremony: 

Adelina Sotnikova lets the nerves get to her again:

2012 Winter Youth Olympics Innsbruck AUT January 13,-22 LADIES FREE SKATE 1 Elizaveta TUKTAMISHEVA RUS 111.27 57.47 54.80 7.04 6.46 6.89 6.93 6.93 1.00 11 2 Zijun LI CHN 106.78 57.59 49.19 6.32 5.79 6.32 6.25 6.07 0.00 12 3 Adelina SOTNIKOVA RUS 99.64 46.72 52.92 6.82 6.46 6.36 6.75 6.68 0.00 16 4 So Youn PARK KOR 88.23 44.79 44.44 5.89 5.25 5.64 5.54 5.46 1.00 15 5 Risa SHOJI JPN 88.03 42.40 46.63 5.96 5.68 5.64 6.00 5.86 1.00 14 6 Anais VENTARD FRA 86.23 41.45 45.78 5.61 5.43 5.57 6.04 5.96 1.00 13 7 Jordan BAUTH USA 81.06 39.87 41.19 5.32 4.86 5.29 5.14 5.14 0.00 9 8 Tina STUERZINGER SUI 72.92 36.39 36.53 4.86 4.32 4.54 4.68 4.43 0.00 6 9 Chantelle KERRY AUS 71.48 35.94 35.54 4.46 4.18 4.50 4.50 4.57 0.00 7 10 Evelina VILJANEN FIN 71.37 36.00 36.37 4.93 4.11 4.61 4.54 4.54 1.00 2 11 Darin KHUSSEIN UKR 69.54 34.37 35.17 4.68 4.04 4.54 4.36 4.36 0.00 10 12 Micol CRISTINI ITA 65.57 31.10 35.47 4.89 4.21 4.25 4.57 4.25 1.00 8 13 Nina Larissa WOLFLAST AUT 61.81 31.26 30.55 3.89 3.64 3.82 3.89 3.86 0.00 4 14 Myrtel SALDEEN OLOFSSON SWE 58.97 28.80 32.17 4.29 3.96 3.93 4.04 3.89 2.00 5 15 Sindra KRIISA EST 58.00 26.47 32.53 4.21 3.79 4.04 4.18 4.11 1.00 1 16 Liselotte SWERTS BEL 54.84 26.81 29.03 3.71 3.32 3.68 3.82 3.61 1.00 3 FINAL STANDINGS 1 Elizaveta TUKTAMISHEVA RUS 173.10 1 1 2 Adelina SOTNIKOVA RUS 159.08 2 3 3 Zijun LI CHN 157.70 3 2 4 So Youn PARK KOR 136.60 5 4 5 Anais VENTARD FRA 136.08 4 6 6 Risa SHOJI JPN 135.32 6 5 7 Jordan BAUTH USA 123.39 7 7 8 Tina STUERZINGER SUI 113.55 8 8 9 Darin KHUSSEIN UKR 109.31 10 11 10 Chantelle KERRY AUS 108.99 11 9 11 Micol CRISTINI ITA 105.44 9 12 12 Evelina VILJANEN FIN 101.10 16 10 13 Nina Larissa WOLFLAST AUT 96.26 12 13 14 Myrtel SALDEEN OLOFSSON SWE 92.54 14 14 15 Sindra KRIISA EST 92.43 13 15 16 Liselotte SWERTS BEL 85.57 15 16

US Nationals, Reminiscing:

A fluff to remember:

Rachael Flatt hasn't done the flip or lutz in a while...

http://espn.go.com/espnw/athletes-life/7459310/rachael-flatt-donning-new-look-nationals

Yikes..

Detroit Skating Club Nationals Send Off

Adam Rippon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuFRm2D5dPI&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Still having problems with the 3A I see.

Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqIQUlpayak&feature=autoplay&list=ULKR2Wfuj1XHA&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=1

 Alissa Czisny: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR2Wfuj1XHA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Yikes.... quite reminiscent of last year:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmwJAyesvJE
so maybe all will be ok for nationals.

 Jeremy Abbott:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAYqTNeW9OY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Hope he does that quad at nationals!

Savchenko Falls

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?35920-Savchenko-has-serious-fall-!&p=606895#post606895

It's being reported that Aliona Savchenko has had a serious fall.  Hopefully she'll be ok, hope it's nothing serious.  Figure skating is a very dangerous sport, with Pairs Skating being even more so, it's always so frightening when thing like this occur.

UPDATE:  It's reportedly from the 3-axel attempt.  Hopefully the team will stop practicing this jump as it is jump too dangerous.  Looks like it was a hard fall and she will be back at practice on Monday.

US Skaters Tweet about Nationals:

jeremyabbottpcf Jeremy Abbott 

Just had my pre-nationals teleconference... I think I told those journalists what's what! ;) lol

AshWagner2010 Ashley Wagner 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81bcjyfn6U&feature=youtube_gdata_player

My general attitude going into Nationals..

10 Jan

New Alissa Article on Nationals:

New Alissa Czisny Article on Nationals:
Looks like she won't do a 3/3. http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/archive/features/Czisny%2010Jun2012.htm

Nicole Bobek is getting her life on track:  http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120111&content_id=26315366&vkey=ice_news

Mirai Nagasu:  Apparently has been inspired by the food network and has taken up couponing...lol! http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/archive/features/Nagasu%2011Jun2012.htm

That French Judge:

If you've ever wondered where the saying "That French Judge" came from, just watch this video and check the ordinals.  5th place!

Funny Skating Moments:

Wasn't the first time either. :)

Best Mens Short Programs:

Here are some videos of what I feel are the best mens short programs.  What are your favs?

Mao Asada's 3Flip-3Loop Attempt:

I want to thank fellow poster, smile, for alerting me to Mao's jump attempt.  Mao has apparently been doing many shows which is very courageous considering she is going through such a difficult time right now.

Here is a video of the jump:

Yuna Kim Donates to National Figure Skating Team:

It's so nice to see Yuna Kim donating so much to charity.  Here is the link:
http://www.dkpopnews.net/2012/01/news-iu-and-kim-yuna-donate-73-million.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Anticipating US Nationals 2012: Pairs

One of the most disappointing events that took place last year was the split of John and Caitlin.  Much like the curse of the Sports Illustrated Cover or The Curse of the Best Actress winning an Oscar, there seems to be a US Pairs curse.  Shorty after a win, there is a split.  It seems to be the most unlikely thing to do after winning such an event, but alas it's been the story of US pairs as of late.  

How do you like the new pair of John and Caydee and did you think John made the right move?   Perhaps only time will tell, but it's a shame such a talented skater like Caitlin is partnerless.  Caitlin has said that she will be in attendance at nationals this year.  This is going to be quite an interesting US nationals.

Videos of some of the top US pairs skaters competing in the 2011 Grand Prix:

How do you think they will all do?