Cup Of China

The skating season continues this week in Beijing, the same city the Grand Prix final will take place in just a few short weeks. Here's a quick preview on those hoping to qualify to come back soon!

Full starting orders and results can be found here.

Ladies

Mirai Nagasu (USA) will be hoping to erase some of the disapointment from the world championships and return to the form that made her 4th in the olympics. She will face off against Miki Ando and Akiko Suzuki of Japan as well as 'mini Yu-Na' Korea's Ming-Jung Kwak

Mens

Brian Joubert had somewhat of a disaster in Vancouver, leading him to once again question his situation and switch coaches. He has however showed a great return to form in some of the lead up competitions for this season and doesn't want to give up yet. He'll be competing against fellow europeans Samuel Contesti (Italy) and Tomas Verner (Czech Republic) as well as Takahiko Kozuka of Japan

Pairs

World Champs Pang & Tong will be looking to add more gold to their bag after their recent win at NHK and qualify for the grand prix final in their home town. Their closest competition may be from last week's Skate Canada winners Iliushenchkina & Maisuradze.  World junior champions Sui & Han will also look to emulate their mentors.

Dance
The favourites in the ice dance will be italian veterains Faiella & Scali. I must admit they have never been this bloggers personal favourites (mainly for their long term rivalry with the Kerrs) but they peaked at the right time in 2010 and look set to continue up the ice dance ladder. Their competition will be the crowd pleasing Pechalat & Bourzat of France, Russuians Bobrova & Soloviev and American siblings Madison & Keiffer Hubbell.

Classy Performances @ Skate Canada

Well - Alissa Czisny and Patrick Chan have both taught me a lesson - don't count them out!
Although both of them had a fall in their free programmes, they took deserved golds with beautiful performances and skating skills. I was particularly impressed with Alissa's ability to fight for her landings more than in the past. She has a painfully long history of being inconsistent when the pressure is on (rather like another vistuoso skater, Sasha Cohen). Chan also showed he can land his quad when the pressure is on, and the more he can do that, the more he can contend for a world title.

I hope these videos stay around on you-tube. Link to more videos here.

Money Shots - podiums.

Ladies - Makarova (S), Czisny (G), Lacoste (B)

Mens - Oda (S), Chan (G), Rippon (B)

Pairs - Moore-Towers & Moscovich (Canada-Silver)
Iliushechkina & Maisuradze (Russia-Gold)
Lawrence & Swiegers (Canada-Bronze)

Dance - Sinead & John Kerr (GBR - Silver)

Crone & Poirier (Canada - Gold)

Chock & Zuerlin (USA - Bronze)

Full results here.

Skate Canada - Day 1

Day 1 in Kingston is a busy one with all disciplines competing. Although the action will continue until long after we Brits go to bed, I will do my best to keep everyone posted with updates.


Ladies
Sadly Sarah Meier had to withdraw after morning practice. She sprained her ankle training her triple lutz.
First skater out of the box was Agnes Zawadski - a relative unknown from the US making her senior debut after winning silver at the World Jr Champs last year. She laid down a great short programme scoring 56.29. Last week at NHK Carolina Kostner won the short with 57.27 and Kanako Murakami was 2nd with 56.10. Zawadski should place very well by the end of today.
Canadians Myriane Samson and Amelie Lacoste also put in clean performances to score 51.62 and 55.30 respectively.
Fumie Suguri (JPN) first competed at Skate Canada in 1998 - 12 YEARS AGO! she put out a decent performance with some underrotated jumps, putting her in 4th behind the two Canadians with a score of 48.17
Haruka Imai (JPN) Skated with great character and speed to a programme of gypsy music - scoring 52.52
Ksenia Makarova (Russia) hit her triple-triple competition and got the crowd on her side with a great flamenco programme. She goes into first with 57.90
Alissa Czisny (USA) had beautiful spins (as ever) but struggled fully rotating on some of her jumps (as ever). No falls but not quite the performance she may have hoped for - 55.95.
Cynthia Phaneuf (Canada) delighted the home crowd with her clean spanish programme, full of character and quality. She goes into the lead with 58.24.

So with less than 3 points separating the top 5 skaters - Skate Canada looks to be shaping up for a better competition than expected.
The top ladies after the short programme are-
Pairs
New Canadian pair Duhamel & Radford had an great GP debut. She doubled one of their side-by-side jumps but they performed well together for a new pair. 54.80
Young pairs Lawrence & Sweigers (Canada) and Castelli & Snapir (USA) gave impressive and fun performances.
The two highest ranking pairs coming into the competition, Kemp & King (GB) and Dong & Wu (China) underperformed badly and end up at the lower end of the rankings after underwelming performances.
The stars of the day were the young Russians Iliushechkina & Maisuradze (Whose names I always have a nightmare spelling!) who outclassed the field with difficulty and performance quality.


So the pairs standings are -

Mens
History was made in the Men's competition when Kevin Reynolds of Canada became the first man to land 2 quads (toe and salchow) in the short programme. Reynolds also has a THIRD quad (loop) in his arsenal. If he can further improve his transitions and maturity to match his jumps he could really be the cat amongst the pigeons on the World stage.
Canada's leading man, Patrick Chan however had less luck in the short programme with 3 falls, however the judges were still kind to him and he is currently still in 4th and not a million miles away from medal contension.
Nobunari Oda leads the men with a clean and difficult programme and Adam Rippon made a great season debut of his new Romeo and Juliet programme, currently in third.

Dance
It's super close in the Ice Dance stakes with the Kerrs leading Crone and Poirier by just 0.001 of a point going into the free dance. My patriotic wish for the Kerrs to finally win a grand prix gold is balanced by my love of C+P's youthful, fresh style. I'm going to sit on my fence and wish them both well!

Full Live Scores
Tweets from Patinaggio
Great live blogging from Flutzing Around

Skate Canada

The second stop on the Grand Prix season is the Skate Canada International in Kingston ON this weekend. Canada will unfortunately be missing a few of it's stars as Virtue & Moir and Dube & Davison have been forced to pull out due to injuries. Still - many others will be looking forward to make a first big impression on Canadian soil since Vancouver


Men
Canada's young star Patrick Chan will be looking to re-assert himself amongst the best in the world after a slightly disappointing olympics. His performances at minor summer competitions were well recieved and having been training at altitude in Colorado he should be fighting fit.
He'll face competition from other young talents - American Adam Rippon (now Brian Orser's most senior pupil), Japan's Nobunari Oda and mini-Plushenko Artur Gachinski

Ladies
After the splat fest that was the ladies competition last week at NHK, the door is open for some surprise entries to win a Grand Prix final spot with a good performance here. The list for skate Canada is somewhat devoid of big names.
World bronze medallist Laura Lepisto was due to compee but is not on the start list. She recently started university so may be focussing on that for the moment.
In her absense the medal contenders include russian diva Ksenia Makarova, Canadian Cynthia Phaneuf, and the veterains Sarah Meier, Fumie Suguri and Alissa Czisny.

Pairs
This will be the grand prix debut of canadian Megan Duhamel and new partner Eric Radford - who recently finished 3rd at the Nebelhorn trophy.
The main medal contenders may be relatively junior pairs in this fairly inexperienced field - Lubov Iliushenka & Nodari Maisuradze of Russia and Huibo Dong & Yiming Wu of China.

Dance
In the absense of Virtue and Moir this could be the chance for British pair Sinead & John Kerr to challenge for gold in a season which may be their swansong. The Scottish siblings had long planned to retire after the 2010 games but found they were not yet tired of competing.
The home favourites at this event will be Vanessa Crone & Paul Poirier. Americans Madison Chock & Greg Zuerlin (who train at the Canton school of Ice Dance champions!) could also challenge the Brits with a good performance.


As ever the season after the olympics is a changing of the guard. More famous faces vanish off the radar and new ones arise. We may see a glimpse of the future at Skate Canada.

Full starting orders and results here.
The competition for all skaters starts Friday.

Another busy day.

After all the gymnastics and skating antics of yesterday there's more to come today. The event finals from worlds are about to start at 2.30pm UK time on BBC1.

Mustafina will be looking to add more gold to her gym bag havign qualified for finals on every event. Her competition includes Alicia Sacramone on vault and He Kexin & Beth Tweddle on bars.


The starting list for todays events is here.

Meanwhile in Japan, the expected winners prevailed in the pairs and dance events

Pairs

1	Qing PANG / Jian TONG	CHN	189.37	1	1
2	Vera BAZAROVA / Yuri LARIONOV	RUS	173.83	2	2
3	Narumi TAKAHASHI / Mervin TRAN	JPN	155.66	3	4

Dance

1	Meryl DAVIS / Charlie WHITE	USA	165.21	1	1
2	Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE	CAN	141.57	2	3
3	Maia SHIBUTANI / Alex SHIBUTANI	USA	136.93	5	2

A great outing too for the young teams Takahashi & Tran and the Shibutani siblings, testing the water on the senior level.


The surprises came once again in the ladies event. Not only Mao Asada but also mini Mao (Kanako Murakami) had disasterous outings with 3 falls a piece. Mao will need a strong victory at her second event in Paris, as well as mistakes from others to even make the final now. 2010-11 could see a changing of the guard in ladies figure skating.

1	Carolina KOSTNER	ITA	164.61	1	2
2	Rachael FLATT	USA	161.04	3	1
3	Kanako MURAKAMI	JPN	150.16	2	5

Full NHK results here and a collection of videos here.

Skating News

Grand Prix assignments can be found here :-

Ladies Men Pairs Dance

Those Noticeable by their presence-

• Yu-Na Kim is to compete in China and Russia- probably not her first choice of venues as neither is very near to Toronto. Great to see her though
• Mirai Nagasu has a second chance to prove herself in China, she'll also face Mao in Japan.
  
• Fumie Suguri - puts off retirement- again!
• Johnny Weir - still plans to compete, maybe?
  
• Evgeni Plushenko - is down for Cup of Russia, I'll be amazed if he turns up.
  
• Pang and Tong - local gigs in Japan and China
• Kavaguti and Smirnov- I'd love to see them stick around until Sochi
• Virtue and Moir, Davis and White- Yipee

Those Noticeable by their absense-

• Evan Lysacek
• Joannie Rochette
  Neither have 'retired' but both seem to be taking a break to make their minds up

Other News
Not only have the ISU got rid of compulsories, They've ditched spirals from the ladies short programme :-(

Mao Asada has picked her new music (SP Tango by Alfred Schnittke, LP Liebesträume by Franz Liszt) and also picked a new jump coach - Hiroshi Nagakubo, Aikiko Suzuki's coach. Yet to hear if she will pick a new main coach as well. We had such high hopes when she signed up witht the legend Tarasova but it didn't really work out. I heard a rumour months ago she might ask Shizuka Arakawa. That would be cool, but unlikely.

USA's Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker have split. They impressed everyone by becoming Junior World and Senior US champions in quick succession, but then failed to go higher and make the olympics. Keauna is taking a year off to focus on school. Rockne is looking for a new partner.

Kimmie Meissner is training (and tweeting) again. She hasn't committed to competing this year though. I'd love to see it.

No news yet on that 'other retirement' SarahandDrew mentioned on Twitter.

Skate Canada has a new logo - oooooh