Outgoing U.S. skating president says team's poor Olympic performance scared people

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Outgoing U.S. skating president says team's poor Olympic performance scared people

Samuel Auxier's four-year term as U.S. Figure Skating president ends Saturday with the election of his successor during the annual Governing Council meeting in Orlando.

Auxier, an international judge, will continue to serve the organization as past president and possibly as head of its International Committee.

With the exception of ice dance, in which U.S. couples have been consistent medal winners at junior and senior global championships for more than a decade, Auxier has presided over four years that have brought decidedly mixed results for U.S. skaters.

The 2018 Olympic Winter Games was a low point for U.S. ladies and pairs, bringing the lowest placement ever for the top U.S. woman (ninth; sixth was the previous low) and the lowest aggregate finish at any of the 16 Olympics in which the U.S. had three women entered; and the lowest placement ever for the top (and, in this case, only) U.S. pair (15th; previous low was 10th).

At 15 global championships since 2006, the U.S. has won just one singles medal at the Olympics (Evan Lysacek's 2010 gold) and four at worlds (golds by Lysacek in 2009 and Nathan Chen this year, bronze by Johnny Weir in 2008 and silver by Ashley Wagner in 2016). The U.S. has not won a ladies medal at the world junior championships since 2012 and has not had a woman at the Junior Grand Prix Final since 2013.

With all that in mind, icenetwork sat down last month with Auxier to get his thoughts on the state of the sport in the United States.

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An old debate about the young in figure skating heats up again: is it time to raise the minimum age for seniors?

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An old debate about the young in figure skating heats up again: is it time to raise the minimum age for seniors?

Is it time to raise the age minimum for singles figure skaters in senior international competition?

Rafael Arutunian thinks so. The coach of the only two U.S. skaters to win senior World Championship medals since 2009 brought up the idea unprompted during our lengthy recent conversation at his training base south of Los Angeles.

For a number of reasons, including health, career longevity and competitive equity, Arutunian favors a minimum age of 18 for senior men and women rather than the current 15.

“Everyone now talks about jumping too much and people starting to damage themselves,” Arutunian said.  “How do you want to stop that?  In my mind, there is only one way: not allow them to compete (at seniors) until 18.

“If I am 12 years old, and I know real money is after 18, do you think I will do too many quads, or I will do just enough quads to win and save my body for later?”

Several other coaches and skaters contacted by phone, email or text message, including Alexei Mishin of Russia, Brian Orser of Canada and Tom Zakrajsek of the U.S., agreed with Arutunian, especially where female skaters are concerned.

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Wait for It: Stars on Ice shines brighter as show goes on, leaving you wanting more

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Wait for It: Stars on Ice shines brighter as show goes on, leaving you wanting more

The first half of Sunday’s Stars on Ice show at Allstate Arena in suburban Chicago felt like an interminable rock concert with skating as an incidental accompaniment to music blared at twice the necessary volume.

The decibels didn’t drop much in the second half.  But, despite a difficult two days of travel, the skaters amped themselves up after intermission with programs richer in choreography and polish.  Those performances thankfully dampened the music, putting the skaters at the center of the icy stage and allowing the visual to take the expected precedence over the aural.

By the penultimate star turn, with new world champion Nathan Chen doing “Nemesis,” his competitive short program this season, this was a show that clearly understood the maxim to always leave the audience wanting more.   As Stars finished with the entire cast - 13 U.S. Olympians - combining on “You Will Be Found” from “Dear Evan Hansen,” the two hours of entertainment had become more and more compelling.

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Drive to push limits of greatness makes Hanyu my icenetwork Person of Year

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Drive to push limits of greatness makes Hanyu my icenetwork Person of Year


Yuzuru Hanyu has never been satisfied with the idea of doing just enough to win.

The Japanese star has always longed to be on the cutting edge of figure skating, to be one of the leaders in the quadruple jump revolution that swept the sport during the four years that followed his first Olympic gold medal in 2014.

That relentless commitment to challenging himself would allow Hanyu to make jump history first in early autumn 2016, when he became the first skater to land a quad loop in competition, and then again the next spring, when he won his second world title by adding a fourth quad -- the loop -- to his free skate at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships.

And it was that same unrelenting drive that nearly ended his hopes for a landmark Olympic achievement in 2018.

That made Hanyu's February triumph at the Gangneung Ice Arena both melodramatic and brilliant. It was as much a testament to his competitive will as it was to the skating mastery -- both athletic and artistic -- with which he has made a strong case to be called the greatest men's singles skater of all time.

In becoming a man for the ages by winning a second straight Olympic title, Hanyu had to overcome a considerable setback to be the man for this season. That makes him my choice for icenetwork Person of the Year.

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Comings, goings and questions as coach Rafael Arutunian looks to next season

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Comings, goings and questions as coach Rafael Arutunian looks to next season

LAKEWOOD, Calif. -- In an upstairs locker room at Lakewood ICE, a skating facility with three rinks 21 miles south of Los Angeles, each dressing stall has a plate above it with the name of a figure skater or coach who regularly trains or teaches there.

On a recent afternoon early in what passes for the (brief) off-season in figure skating, odds and ends of clothing lay in the dressing stalls assigned to Team USA members Nathan Chen, Ashley Wagner, Adam Rippon and Mariah Bell. Michal Březina of the Czech Republic and Romain Ponsart of France have their fair share of personal belongings in the locker room as well, as do their coaches, Rafael Arutunian and Nadia Kanaeva.

Which of those skaters will be using the stalls next season remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: there definitely will be some new ones working with the only person who has coached U.S. singles skaters to World Championships medals since 2009 - Chen's gold last month and Wagner's silver in 2016.

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