Adam Rippon backs up his confident swagger with his skating in nationals short program

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Adam Rippon backs up his confident swagger with his skating in nationals short program

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Adam Rippon has no doubt he is going to make the U.S. Olympic team, and he isn't afraid to share that impression with anyone who brings up the subject.

"The only argument is if other mothers' competitors are on the selection committee," Rippon said on a media teleconference last week. "I've proven time and time again that I'm one of the most consistent skaters in the world. I'm a leader. I'm ready for this. There is absolutely no reason I shouldn't be on the Olympic team."

Rippon decided before the teleconference that he was going to be blunt. When it was over, he admitted to having some second thoughts about the way it came across.

"I thought maybe I sounded a little too confident," he said.

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As Winter Games loom, skier and skater were world's best in an odd 2017

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As Winter Games loom, skier and skater were world's best in an odd 2017

The Olympic cycle, like the calendar, has odd years and even years.

The even years, like 2018, include an Olympics, in this case the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The odd years, like the one that just ended, are not devoid of big events in international sports.  And 2017 was full of them, but the overriding feeling was of a year that was just plain odd – and, at times, depressingly sad.

For the second annus horribilis in a row, athletes have saved Olympic sport from itself and its feckless leaders.  Celebrating their excellence is the best way to express hope for a better 2018.

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Meteoric rise has Tennell dreaming about Olympics

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Meteoric rise has Tennell dreaming about Olympics

A box of facial tissues sat on the dasher boards. That's not unusual at a figure skating practice, where the cold air in the rink and the effects of exertion combine to make noses run.

The difference was how often Bradie Tennell had to run to the Kleenex during this pre-Christmas practice at her home rink in Chicago's north suburbs. Tennell had a cold but no fever, which meant she and her coach of 10 years, Denise Myers, saw no reason to do anything more than cut back on the length of the training session and practice some of the elements in the programs instead of doing more run-throughs.

"We try to practice as if it's a competition, under all kinds of circumstances: delays in the schedule, first or last in the skating order, not feeling perfectly," Myers said. "You never know if you will have a cold at a big competition."

It was late morning. The rink lights glinted off sparkles underneath the eyelets of Tennell's skates as she started to warm up jumps. It wasn't long before she started reeling them off. Triple loop. Double axel. Triple lutz-double toe-double loop combination. Another double axel. Triple salchow. Double axel-triple toe. Triple lutz-triple toe.

"It was a little off," Tennell told Myers after the triple-triple. "I don't like messing up."

The error was almost imperceptible. The landings on every jump were rock solid.

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In "I, Tonya," truth is slippery as ice

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In "I, Tonya," truth is slippery as ice

The screen is black.  There is a cough.  And then another.  This is the first 30 seconds of “I, Tonya.”  It is all the time necessary for those of us familiar with anecdotal details about Tonya Harding’s life to know that the screenwriter and filmmakers had done their homework.

Tonya Harding, a living series of contradictions, is an asthmatic who undermined her athletic career by smoking and, consequently, coughing.  Coughing is the first sound – and smoking the first view – of Margot Robbie portraying Harding on the screen.   

In watching the rest of the movie, knowing this story as well as those of us who covered it know this story led to a number of issues.

The first time I saw it, in a theater at October’s Chicago International Film Festival, I got hung up on trying to reconcile the film’s narrative with the facts.

My next three viewings, on a screener provided by the film’s distributors, Neon and 30West, allowed me to see “I, Tonya” for what it is as a movie:  a clever, farcical, sarcastic, wonderfully acted comic tragedy (or tragic comedy?).  But I came away feeling the film had mistakenly fallen in love with Tonya, making it prey to the temptation to pardon Harding for her missteps, her irresponsible behavior and her willful waste of a generational talent. 

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With time on her side, Alina Zagitova, a young woman vibrant in red, catches' judges fancy

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With time on her side, Alina Zagitova, a young woman vibrant in red, catches' judges fancy

As the Olympic figure skating season moves into the national championship phase, a few more observations about the Grand Prix season and Grand Prix Final:

1.  All you Alina Zagitova detractors (that includes you, CBC) aren’t going to like this: the new Grand Prix Final winner, age 15, looks better every time I see her.

Part of it owes to the costuming and free skate program pattern that emphasize her strengths, which are jumps.

The vibrant red in the tutu-qua-dress and long gloves Zagitova wears grabs the eye, says she is portraying a ballerina and limns her movement so beautifully it is easy to forget she does no jumps in the first half of the four-minute free skate to the Russian ballet classic, “Don Quixote.”  And while I hope the rules are changed to eliminate such 100 percent back loading, who can fault her coaches for taking advantage of the point bonus that comes with those jumps?

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