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The 2009 World Figure Skating Championships are being held this week at Los Angeles. Even if I’m not attempting to do my bit to promote the sport of figure skating, I must say that the Worlds are quite unlike any other sporting event. There is of course the sublime skating that (occasionally) occurs, but even the non-skating enthusiast can enjoy the parade of the most ridiculous skating outfits imaginable. If one is impervious to the delights of skin-tight fluorescent fabric and sequins, there is always the spectacle of watching the media or rabid fans working overtime to make spurious corrupt judging accusations and trying to drum up rivalries.

As for the actual skating that goes on at these Championships, I will be covering three of the four disciplines—the pairs, ladies, and men’s events. Though I hardly profess to be the paragon of objectivity, I have tried my best to avoid egregiously biased comments. However, as figure skating is a subjective sport at its heart, some degree of partiality will be inevitable.

Pairs: 
On the bright side, the pairs event was generally deemed to be judged fairly; no controversies here. Unfortunately, it was also a night of less-than-stellar skating, especially compared to the short programs where most of the top teams were quite impressive. The eventual winners, the German pair Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy were one of the few teams who skated with finesse. With their haunting program to Schindler’s List and Adagio, Savchenko and Szolkowy not only skated extremely well (aside from a rather bizarre fall on footwork), but also avoided what can be known as the ‘connect-the-acrobatics’ approach to pairs skating that so many teams seem to be fond of. Savchenko and Szolkowy were the deserving winners of the world title, and are clearly the front-runners for next year’s Olympic games. The silver and bronze medals went to China’s Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang and Russia’s Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov.

With these results, it appears that Russia’s astonishing pairs gold-medal streak at the Olympics is in danger. A Soviet or Russian pairs team has won the gold medal in Olympic pairs skating every year since 1964, one of the longest streaks in Olympic history. Though both the top two Russian pairs have achieved respectable finishes at this year’s Worlds (second-ranked pair Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov placed fifth), these results do not bode well for next year. However, the Russians may surprise. Kavaguti and Smirnov are coached by the wily Tamara Moskvina, widely considered the best pairs coach in the world, and Mukhortova and Trankov are probably the one of the most talented pairs teams right now—they just need to skate two relatively clean programs. Whatever happens, pairs skating at the Olympics is shaping up to be quite the event.

Men: 
Before the long program had even started, the men’s event had definitely earned the title of the most drama-laden event. There was that controversial interview with current Canadian Champion Patrick Chan making rather catty remarks about the 2007 World Champion and chronic pelvic-thruster Brian Joubert of France, which re-ignited the old quadruple jump debate. Then there was the alleged dubious judging of the short program, where some accused the judges of under-marking Chan (quoth the Toronto Star: “The judges, if not exactly cheating, remain befuddling in their marks”). But surprisingly, the 2008 US Champion Evan Lysacek came up in between the two aforementioned favourites and snatched the gold. Dubious jump technique aside, Lysacek had a clean skate on a night when mistakes abounded. His re-worked program to Rhapsody in Blue has definitely done him wonders; personally I’m glad he toned down on the frantic arm-waving. Imitating an aneurysm on ice is unlikely to win over any judges, after all. Chan, who won the silver medal, also skated well but a couple of jump errors proved costly tonight. For bronze medalist Joubert, two of his supposedly three planned quads disappeared, but what really did him in were the mistakes on his axel jumps, which probably cost him the world title. Congratulations to our new men’s World Champion, but this title is fraught with superstition: no man who has won the World title in the year preceding the Olympics has been Olympic champion since 1984. I suppose we’ll see if this supposed ‘curse’ holds up next year.

In regards to the supposedly dubious judging of the short program, I would say that Chan was not particularly under-marked. His relatively lower scores were (by Chan’s own admission) a result of some very minor mistakes and are arguably more indicative of over-marking at previous competitions this year. There is an argument for Joubert being over-marked in the short program, but if we are to nitpick, it is safe to say that most of the podium was over-marked, especially on the Program Components Score (PCS, or what can be viewed as the old Presentation marks) front. I will refrain from ranting as it is late, but I remain politely mystified as to why (for example) Lysacek and Joubert received the highest transitions marks in the long program when their programs were conspicuously empty of the transitions that Chan and skaters such as Takahiko Kozuka incorporate in their programs. Perhaps I somehow missed their transitions-laden programs, but what can I say? PCS have rarely—if ever—been scored correctly since their inception.

Ladies: 
The ladies’ event, which starts today, promises to be an epic clash of the skirt-clad titans Mao Asada of Japan and Yu-Na Kim of South Korea for the gold. The fight for the bronze will probably end up being a battle between Canada’s Joannie Rochette, Italy’s Carolina Kostner, and Japan’s Miki Ando.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Spots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.