Breathtaking Olympic performances highlighted figure skating season

Breathtaking Olympic performances highlighted figure skating season

Some random observations on the competitive figure skating season that ended last week at the World Championships in Milan:

1.  The enduring memory will be of the overall excellence at the 2018 Olympics – the best skating in all four disciplines at the 11 Winter Games I have covered.

The full flowering of the quad revolution led to boggling feats in the men’s event, where Japan’s peerless Yuzuru Hanyu won a second straight Olympic title with a balance between athleticism and art unmatched by any man during the 14-seasons the IJS has been used at global championships.

Russians Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva were flawlessly stunning in taking gold and silver, respectively, in the women’s event, and Canada’s Kaetlyn Osmond won bronze with her huge jumps, expressiveness and sense of choreographic purpose erasing one relatively minor mistake.

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Bouquets, brickbats (and some of both): a 2018 Olympic figure skating scorecard

Bouquets, brickbats (and some of both): a 2018 Olympic figure skating scorecard

Lynn Rutherford and I checked in with our winners and losers from the figure skating competition at the recently completed 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

Some of my winners:

Eteri Tutberidze

Although early records are incomplete, the coach of Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva is almost certainly the first person to be by the boards for both the gold and silver medalists in an Olympic singles event.

Skate Canada

The best possible realistic scenario for the Canadians was two gold and two bronze medals, and that is exactly what their skaters won -- and they were on the podium in four of the five events. No other country medaled in more than two.

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5x3 = astounding for Russia's Alina Zagitova, jumping toward Olympic title

5x3 = astounding for Russia's Alina Zagitova, jumping toward Olympic title

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - It was just after 10 a.m. Thursday, and the leading group of women was winding down its next-to-last practice before Friday's Olympic free skate.

Olympic Athlete from Russia Alina Zagitova, the short program winner, already had done the run-through of her free skate to music from the Minkus ballet Don Quixote.

It included a combination of three triple jumps: lutz, toe loop, loop. Zagitova apparently did it just because she can; the element is not a planned part of her program.

It was only the first course of the sumptuous jumping banquet Zagitova offered to the small audience at Gangneung Ice Arena.

After doing two more combinations of three triple jumps, which are common fare for her, the 15-year-old sated everyone's appetite with an extraordinary concoction.

She did a triple lutz followed by a triple loop and another triple loop and another triple loop and another triple loop. One lutz, four loops. A combination of FIVE triple jumps.

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In the "little war" between top Russian women skaters, generation next - Alina Zagitova - wins first skirmish at Olympics

In the "little war" between top Russian women skaters, generation next - Alina Zagitova - wins first skirmish at Olympics

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - Last year, the Russian television network RT did an illuminating documentary on how coach Eteri Tutberidze trains her two enormously talented skaters, Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, and on the relationship between the two teenagers.

At one moment in the 26-minute film, Medvedeva talked about keeping up with the burgeoning technical abilities of the many younger girls whom Tutberidze and her assistants also coach at the Crystal Rink in southwest Moscow.

"I don't want to lag behind the younger generation," Medvedeva said.

Then she laughed about the irony in her words.

"I'm 17, and I'm talking about the younger generation," she added. "Isn't that terrible?"

It is even more ironic that one skater in that generation may have arrived so soon she may take the 2018 Olympic gold medal away from Medvedeva, now 18, winner of the last two world titles.

That would be Zagitova, 15, who beat Medvedeva in a game of "Can you top this?" during the ladies short program Wednesday at the Gangneung Ice Arena.

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