With personal best in worlds short, Mariah Bell aging like a fine wine

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With personal best in worlds short, Mariah Bell aging like a fine wine

In women’s singles skating, where youth has been served over the last 30 years, it is easy to think of a 25-year-old as a woman of a certain age.

So it was a big talking point in January when, at 25, Mariah Bell became the oldest U.S. women’s champion in 95 years and again in February when she became the oldest U.S. woman to compete in Olympic singles in 94 years, finishing 10th.

Now here we are in late March, less than a month before Bell’s 26 birthday, and she is doing the fine wine thing, getting better as time passes.

Call it aging gracefully, which describes Bell’s fluid, elegant skating in Wednesday’s short program at the World Figure Skating Championships in Montpellier, France.

In opening the final competition of a long season – perhaps the final competition of her lengthy career? – Bell had her highest short program score ever and her highest finish ever, third place, in any program at a global championship.

“I absolutely think I’m getting better,” Bell said. “As long as you want to and are dedicated, you can continue to improve.”

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Ilia Malinin, the “quadg0d,” seems heaven-sent for U.S. figure skating

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Ilia Malinin, the “quadg0d,” seems heaven-sent for U.S. figure skating

When Ilia Malinin started skating, at age 6, the rink was basically a day care center for him.

His parents, Tatyana Malinina and Roman Skorniyakov, each a two-time figure skating Olympian for Uzbekistan, both were coaching, and it was both easier and less expensive to have their son with them after school at the SkateQuest facility in Reston, Virginia.

“At the beginning, we didn’t take it seriously,” Malinina said. “We just took him to where we were working, and he was skating there.”

That changed three years later.

With minimal preparation, skating just three times a week, Malinin qualified for the 2015 U.S. Championships in the juvenile division when he was just 9 years old. He finished ninth.

Suitably impressed, Malinin and Skorniyakov started having him skate under their tutelage five times a week. In 2016, just after his 11th birthday, he became national juvenile champion.

Many others soon would be as captivated as his parents by their son’s nascent talent.

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At upcoming ISU congress, results of important age debates may beg bigger questions about sport's future

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At upcoming ISU congress, results of important age debates may beg bigger questions about sport's future

How young is too young to compete at the elite level in figure skating?

And how old is too old to hold elective office in the sport’s international federation?

Will the answer to either question do anything to arrest the decline in the sport’s appeal, especially in North America and Europe (other than in Russia, now an international sports pariah for its unprovoked and horrific aggression in Ukraine)?

Those are some of the questions the International Skating Union will debate at its (normally) biennial congress this June in Thailand.

While the Congress agenda will not be finalized and made public until the end of April, I have obtained copies of the agenda in its provisional form.

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Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she?

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Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she?

As of now, Kamila Valieva is eligible to compete at the World Figure Skating Championships in late March.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport decision that allowed Valieva to compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics despite her ongoing doping case remains in force for all events, according to Travis Tygart, chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

“While she is free to compete in all competitions, she could voluntarily step aside,” Tygart said in a text message. “Or WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) and the Russians should expedite her case to ensure a fair outcome prior to the World Championships and to avoid another media firestorm that neither she nor her competitors should have to endure.”

Even expedited action might not resolve Valieva’s case before Monday’s athlete entry deadline for the World Championships in Montpellier, France. The competition begins March 23.

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Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

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Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

The scenes were surreal, full of the visceral pain of two Russian teenagers and the numbness of a third, flooded with the thunderous sobbing of a Japanese woman who is 21, all overcome by the swirling maelstrom that had enveloped the women’s singles event at the 2022 Winter Olympics for a week.

There was little joy in any of this when it ended, not for the four skaters who were atop the standings, not for those who watched it, hopefully not for the officials who avoided yet another surreal moment only because a 15-year-old crumbled in front of the world.

No asterisks now will be necessary for the medal results. There will be a formal ceremony Friday in which Anna Shcherbakova (ROC) will receive the gold, Aleksandra Trusova (ROC) the silver, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan the bronze.

Kamila Valieva’s collapse in the free skate made it possible for the International Olympic Committee to continue as planned with the presentation, to pretend that there is something normal about a situation filled with ethical and procedural and judicial questions, many of which likely will not be answered for months, if at all.

All we know with certainty is that Valieva skated this week under the shadow of a positive doping test and the weight of virtually universal agreement that her continued presence as an Olympic competitor was unfair to the other 29 skaters in the women’s field.

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