Boston definitely the hub of figure skating in U.S.

The sellout crowd at TD Garden Saturday for the women's final at the World Figure Skating Championhips.  (Billie Weiss / Getty Images)

BOSTON - Five takeaways from a terrific 2016 World Figure Skating Championships that had something for everyone -- gold medalists from four different countries and medalists from seven different countries.

- Boston has become to figure skating what Eugene, Oregon, is to track and field: a U.S. mecca for a sport that lately has struggled to attract adherents elsewhere.

There were two sellouts (Saturday's pairs and ladies free skates), one near sellout and four crowds of 10,000 or more in the eight sessions at TD Garden, for which the arena capacity in a figure skating configuration was given as approximately 15,000. The smallest attendance was a more-than-respectable 8,425 for the short dance Wednesday.

The previous major figure skating event at TD Garden, the 2014 U.S. Championships, also were a rousing success. The ladies free skate at that event drew 13,980, the largest single-session crowd at the U.S. championships since the 18,035 in Los Angeles for the ladies free in 2002.

Attendance at worlds got a boost from foreign fans, notably the tour groups of passionate, highly sportsmanlike Japanese who bought eight percent of the tickets, according to the Boston Globe.

Even without them, though, the crowds were encouraging. It had been a long time since any figure skating event in the United States did as well as this one, more significant given that no current U.S. skaters came in as title contenders.

Why is Boston so welcoming to figure skating? The city is a U.S. cradle of the sport, and the venerable Skating Club of Boston, formed in 1912, not only has been linked to many of skating's greatest but also has many local movers and shakers in its ranks. These folks have the clout to get things done.

The TD Garden also is in a good location in a city that long has been one of this country's top tourist attractions.

Dozens of restaurants in the city's Italian neighborhood, the North End, are within an easy walk to the arena, making for excellent dining (and touring) opportunities before and after competition sessions. All of central Boston is relatively small and connected by an extensive (if antiquated) public transportation system.

It's a place fervid about its sports that has a century-old attachment to this one.

So it's really no surprise the city that preens as 'The Hub' (as in hub of the universe) is the hub of the figure skating universe in the United States. Its 2016 worlds event organizers did that notion proud.

- When David Baden walked into the room where the ladies medalists were about to do their press conference, one of my colleagues said, "Here comes the biggest winner at worlds."

Baden, an agent with International Management Group, represents five 2016 gold medalists and a silver medalist from four different countries: men's champion Javier Fernández of Spain; pairs champions Meaghan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada; and dance title winners Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. He also represents ladies silver medalist Ashley Wagner of Team USA.

Not only that, but all six are personable, outgoing athletes fluent in English (if it is not their native tongue.)

- It also was a winning worlds for Brian Orser and the rest of the coaches at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club.

Two men for whom Orser is the primary coach, Fernández and Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, took 1-2 in men's for the second straight year at this event.

Gabrielle Daleman of Canada, in her first season with Team Orser (her primary coach is Lee Barkell), left thrilled by the two career-best scores that earned her ninth in ladies -- a marked improvement over her 21st-place finish last year.

Will-o'-the-wisp Kazakhstani Elizabet Tursynbaeva, 16 years old and 66 pounds, was a respectable 12th in her worlds debut to end a long season at the senior and junior levels in which she did two world meets (world championships, world junior championships) on two continents in three weeks.

Second-year Canadian pairs team Lubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch were seventh after a solid free skate.

It wasn't all roses, though. Former world junior champion Nam Nguyen of Canada (fifth last year), who probably should have left bad enough alone after a trying season rather than accept a spot at worlds, was 27th in the short program, failing to make the final.

Two of the club's Spanish skaters, Sonia Lafuente and Javier Raya, also missed the the free skates. Lafuente, going backward over the last three seasons, was next-to-last of 38 in the short program. Raya missed the final by one place.

- Gracie Gold 's feeling that she needed to apologize to her country and the fans after letting a medal slip away with two bad free skate mistakes recalled another such moment.

When Midori Ito returned to Japan after winning only (?) a silver medal at the 1992 Olympic Winter Games, she also apologized to the country.

The fourth-place Gold's analysis of her latest failure to turn her unquestioned physical talent into a medal at nine major or "mid-major" events (Olympics, worlds, Four Continents, Grand Prix Final, at which she has finished fourth to sixth) was both dispassionate and disconcerting.

At 20, as she talked about the future, the two-time U.S. champion sounded utterly flummoxed -- the word she had used to describe a brain cramp mistake at this year's U.S. championships.

"It was a really unfortunate and sad experience," Gold said. "I feel really ashamed of how I skated, and I want to apologize to my country and to the crowd here -- there's really no excuse for it.

"It just shows that I'm not up there with the rest of the world, but maybe in the future I can be a better skater. I still have hopes for the 2018 Olympics, but we'll have to step back and re-evaluate what's realistic for my future skating."

- Michelle Kwan will forever be the gold standard for skating in the United States -- for popularity as well as success (nine U.S. titles, five world titles, two Olympic medals).

When Wagner got a rousing ovation from the crowd earlier in the week, she thought it sounded like the spectator reaction Kwan always received. "And I'm no Michelle Kwan," Wagner said.

And when Kwan showed up Saturday night to do an icenetwork interview from a position where 99 percent of the fans could not see her, the crowd stood to applaud her image on the video board projection of the interview.

Kwan was at TD Garden as more than a skating celebrity. She works for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and was with Clinton supporters in a suite.

(This article originally appeared on icenetwork.)

Ashley Wagner douses U.S. medal drought by uncorking her well-aged experience

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BOSTON - It looked as if Gracie Gold was on the verge of ending the U.S. ladies' world championships medal drought with a whimper.

And then Ashley Wagner did it with a bang at the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships, using the intense emotion of her competitive nature to create fireworks in a free skate that rocked a roaring sellout crowd at TD Garden and brought her a silver medal.

It was the first world medal for a U.S. ladies competitor since 2006, when Kimmie Meissner won gold and Sasha Cohen took bronze. The U.S. men have been without a medal since 2009.

Wagner is a 24-year-old who keeps joking about how she is an old lady in the sport. After all, the young woman who beat her with a subtly stirring and record-breaking free skate, Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia, is only 16, and the bronze medalist, Anna Pogorilaya of Russia, just 18.

What Wagner brings at her seemingly advanced age is a performance maturity and an unflagging desire to overcome the many ups and downs of a career that included a worlds debut way back in 2008. The three-time U.S. champion had called herself the "almost" girl, but now that sobriquet can be dispensed with forever.

"I'm like a fine wine, getting better with age -- or at least that's what I like to tell myself," Wagner said. "I'm not old, I'm experienced."

Wagner looked at Medvedeva, sitting next to her during the medalists' press conference, and marveled at what she had seen the Russian do in practices, the skills that allowed her to break Yu-Na Kim's six-year-old world record in the free skate by 0.04 with a score of 150.10 Saturday night.

"I see her doing run-throughs with a triple at the end of every combination and I think, 'Oh, to be 16,'" Wagner said. "Then I remember, I couldn't do that at 16."

What she could do, six weeks before her 25th birthday, was present a program to music from the film Moulin Rouge! with an elan and artistic confidence that the judges rewarded with the highest program components scores of the field. For Wagner, those scores would be the difference between fifth and second place and were enough to overcome the three mistakes (two under-rotations, one edge call) she was dinged for on jumps.

"The fact I won a silver medal because of something I did and not because of something everyone else didn't do is so sweet," Wagner said. 

Medvedeva had a commanding margin of victory, 223.86 to 215.39. Pogorilaya scored 213.69. Gold was fourth (211.29) by 0.68 over Japan's Satoko Miyahara.

It left Gold third before Wagner took the ice as the final skater in the competition.

Truth be told, the 20-year-old Gold had melted down after taking a nearly three-point lead into the free skate. And she was quick to admit it.

"It was a really unfortunate and sad experience," Gold said. "I feel really ashamed of how I skated, and I want to apologize to my country and to the crowd here -- there's really no excuse for it.

"It just shows that I'm not up there with the rest of the world, but maybe in the future I can be a better skater. I still have hopes for the 2018 Olympics, but we'll have to step back and re-evaluate what's realistic for my future skating."

The last time she skated at this venue, Wagner was almost forced to excuse herself for being selected to the 2014 U.S. Olympic team after a dismaying fourth at the U.S. championships. The rules in place clearly justified the decision to send her to Sochi, but there was a public outcry over the exclusion of third-place Mirai Nagasu (who took 10thhere).

Wagner left no doubt that this world silver medal should be hers. On a night when four of the other five skaters who went before her in the final group turned in performances ranging from very good to great to exceptional, Wagner simply outdid all but the untouchable Medvedeva.

"I have had so many people for so many parts of my career say that, 'This has been given to me; I don't deserve this,''' said Wagner, who finished just third at the 2016 U.S. Championships. "I have so many people who doubt why I am still here and why people still support me.

"I earned this silver medal. I knew there had been a bunch of phenomenal skates before me. I put that out of my mind and went out there and did what I needed to do."

It wasn't easy. Wagner had heard the crowd's anguished reaction to Gold's fall and the muted reaction when Gold finished. Her coach, Rafael Arutunian, told her before she got on the ice to seize the opportunity in front of her.

"I had a moment of panic because I knew something had happened in Gracie's performance," Wagner said. "I realized there was an opening and maybe I can get onto this podium. Then I realized freaking out over maybe getting onto a podium wasn't going to do anything for me."

Wagner had finished fifth, seventh, fifth, fourth and 16th at her previous five world championships. She made her first appearance at this competition only two years after the medal drought began, so it meant more to her to be the skater who ended it.

"To go out there against such a strong field and get this medal, I'm very proud of myself and very glad I could accomplish this for U.S. figure skating," she said.

She already could take pride in having been outspoken on important subjects, like gay rights in Russia, that few of her 2014 Olympic teammates were willing to touch. She is unafraid to be critical of seeming unfairness in judging (remember that expression on her face after seeing her scores in Sochi?). She is relentlessly self-critical. She is funny, candid, dauntless.

And a world silver medalist.

(This article originally appeared on icenetwork.)

Javier Fernandez, a skater with duende, has transcendent triumph

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BOSTON - There was a transcendent performance at the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships.

It came not from Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu, the man who had been doing otherworldly stuff all season, but from Javier Fernández, the defending champion whom Hanyu had overshadowed.

His was, simply, the greatest free skate in the history of the world championships, whether you judge it by the point total or the total package of jump difficulty, entertainment quality, competitive courage and stylistic sass Fernández showed Friday night before a near-sellout crowd at TD Garden.

The best way to describe it is with the Spanish word duende. No matter that the word has no exact translation but has come to connote ideas like passion, magnetism, inspiration and guts that add up to an intangible sense of genius.

That -- all of it -- is what Fernández embodied on another step in the improbable journey that has taken a 24-year-old from a country with no figure skating tradition to consecutive world titles and four straight European championships.

On top of that, the second title came on a night when Fernández challenged himself to try the most difficult program content of his career despite a right heel inflammation that made it impossible to practice productively the past two days. He thanked the event's medical team for the treatment, including an ultrasound, that made it possible for him to skate at all, let alone give a performance for the ages.

Fernández had three flawless quadruple jumps, one in a quad-triple combination, with two getting the highest possible Grades of Execution (GOEs) one can achieve. He did two triple axels for the first time in one of his three-quad free skates. He gave a presentation of Frank Sinatra's Guys and Dolls so pitch-perfect, in interpretation and skating prowess, that 26 of his 45 component scores were perfect 10s.

"I actually don't know how I did it," Fernández said. "Sometimes it doesn't matter what happened before."

It didn't matter that Hanyu, the Olympic champion and Fernández' training partner under coach Brian Orser, had a seemingly insurmountable lead of more than 12 points after the short program, when the Spaniard fell on one jump and the Japanese skater missed topping his world record score by less than half a point.

"Before skating, I knew I had a chance to win but that I had to do a clean program, and I did," Fernández said.

A combination of Hanyu's flawed skating and Fernández' brilliance allowed the Spaniard to win by more than 19 points, 314.93 to 295.17. Fernández' free skate score, 216.41, is the second highest ever, behind only Hanyu's 219.48 from this season's Grand Prix Final.

Hanyu put his hand down on the landings of two jumps, a quad and a triple, fell on a second quad and had four negative GOEs. He looked lifeless at points in his 4 minutes, 30 seconds on the ice.

The 2014 Olympic and world champion now has finished second to Fernández at the world championships the past two years.

"I can't explain my feelings," Hanyu said. "I am really tired and really happy for Javi. But I am really sad for my long program. I want to do it again."

China's Boyang Jin slogged his way into third (270.99), becoming the first Chinese man to win a world medal, when three-time world champion Patrick Chan of Canada fell apart to finish eighth in the free skate.

As has happened in the past, the judges still were overly generous to Chan, and that cost the United States a third men's spot at the 2017 World Championships. Chan wound up fifth overall, 2.31 points ahead of Rippon. Had their places been reversed, Rippon and Max Aaron (eighth) would have had the requisite total (13) to keep the third spot.

In a bittersweet touch, Rippon, Aaron and Grant Hochstein (10th) all had career-highlight free skates and gave the United States three men in the top 10 for the first time since 2005. (This was the eighth time the U.S. had three men's entrants in that span.)

The revelation of the week was world championships rookie Mikhail Kolyada, 21, of Russia, who did two clean programs -- with a successful quad in each -- to finish fourth, just three points behind Jin.

In the end, though, it mattered little what anyone but Fernández did. The man from Madrid was a winner with duende. It is rare and hard to define but wonderful to recognize.

(This article originally appeared on icenetwork.)