For U.S. dancers and Canadian pair, comeback season starts well

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For U.S. dancers and Canadian pair, comeback season starts well

SALT LAKE CITY - Kirsten Moore-Towers suffered a severe concussion in Aug. 2016 in a practice collision with her pairs partner, Michael Marinaro.

It would eventually knock the Canadian team out of the previous Grand Prix season.

"It was the day that changed my life, for the better," she said Friday. "I learned a lot about myself and my partnership."

Moore-Towers learned it wasn't a good idea to keep to herself how badly she felt for a month, a month where she vomited every day and often suffered from blurry vision. Or to compete two days after the accident happened.

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Healthier than ever, pairs skater Alexa Scimeca Knierim still rebuilding her body

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Healthier than ever, pairs skater Alexa Scimeca Knierim still rebuilding her body

SALT LAKE CITY - Alexa Scimeca Knierim, who battled serious illness for much of 2016, said Thursday that she is "probably the healthiest I've been ever."

But, she and husband/pairs partner, Chris Knierim, are both far from the skating shape they want to have later this season.

"We're not trying to be at a peak here," Alexa said after a mistake-riddled performance left them third in Thursday's short program at the 2017 U.S. International Figure Skating Classic. "It's hard to maintain all the way to February for, hopefully, the Olympics. Pacing is a huge factor. We don't feel totally prepared for this competition, and that's OK."

The Knierims, top U.S. finishers at the last three World Championships, lost points when he doubled their side-by-side triple salchows and because they received low levels on their pair combination spin and step sequence. Their skating throughout the program was tentative.

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For Nathan Chen, new season begins with a homecoming

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For Nathan Chen, new season begins with a homecoming

When Nathan Chen moved from his home in Salt Lake City at age 12 to train in California, his baggage included enormous potential to make an impact in figure skating one day.

When Chen, now 18, returned this week to prepare for his first competition of the Olympic season -- the 2017 U.S. International Figure Skating Classic, which opens Thursday -- he carried the enormous expectations generated by having realized that potential with a groundbreaking debut year on the senior international level.

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For Abbott, a figure skating career of brilliance and tarnish

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For Abbott, a figure skating career of brilliance and tarnish

What to make of Jeremy Abbott’s competitive figure skating career, now that he used a Thursday interview on the icenetwork podcast, “Ice Talk,” to bring it to an official end?

He was a blend of unquestionable brilliance and baffling mediocrity, the latter covering many of his scintillating moments in a dull finish.

With four senior titles, Abbott is among most decorated men’s skaters at the U.S. Championships.  In the past 65 years, only Todd Eldredge has won more national titles (six).  Abbott won all his in the International Judging System era; no other U.S. man has won more than two in that 12-season period, none more than one in the nine seasons since Abbott won his first.

Abbott skated like a world-beater at several of those U.S. Championships, none more so than 2010, when his performances were better than those of the medalists at the Vancouver Olympics a month later.

And he skated at various levels of back-in-the-pack inconsequence in all his global championships, none more so than those 2010 Olympics, when he was 15th (!) in the short program and ninth overall.

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