Four years ago, the U.S. figure skating team had its worst results ever at the Winter Olympics.
The 2022 team named after the U.S. Championships ended Sunday could do better than 2018 – although it may not be a substantial improvement, and the assessment of it will depend largely on Nathan Chen’s performance in men’s singles.
Read MoreIt was something of a war of attrition, the women’s singles event at these 2022 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, with Covid or physical issues eliminating one contender after another.
So it was no surprise that the survivor, Mariah Bell, was a skater who had doggedly stuck it out, season after season, before battling through the free skate Friday to win a first national title in her ninth try.
At 25, Bell also became the oldest U.S. women’s champion in the 95 years since Beatrix Loughran won at 26 in 1927.
And, most importantly, no matter that the decision won’t be announced publicly until Saturday afternoon, Bell also claimed a spot on the U.S. team headed to the 2022 Winter Olympics next month in Beijing. The other two places will almost certainly go to Karen Chen, who finished second, and Alysa Liu, forced out of the free skate after testing positive for Covid earlier Friday.
Read MoreKaren Chen left the 2018 Winter Olympics so disappointed over the subpar performances that left her in 11th place that she immediately vowed to try again.
“When I got off the ice, I remember telling myself, `You’ve got to go for another four years. This was not your dream,’” Chen said in a recent media conference.
Yet a season later, after battling an injury that kept her out of all but one minor competition, Chen no longer was so sure.
She had been admitted to Cornell University, which would mean both training far from her coaching team in Colorado Springs and chasing around near the college to find ice time. She had struggled with boot-related foot problems for years. She had accomplished the original part of her dream, which was simply making the Olympics.
Before her first semester of college, Chen thought about calling it a competitive career at age 19. She had a family meeting to discuss the issue and wound up deciding both to give it another go and also that she wanted to be a full-time student at the Ithaca, New York, school.
Read MoreAbout 12 years ago, Chiara Garberi decided to check out the ice rink in her New Jersey neighborhood to see if it might be a place where she could skate for fun on weekends.
With her daughter, Isabeau Levito, in tow, Garberi arrived at a moment when competitive figure skaters were training. Levito, then age 2 ½, took one look at the situation and asked if she could go on the ice.
“I told her, `You need special shoes for that,’” Garberi recalled. “She saw a pair of rental skates next to the ice sheet and said, `Are those mine?’”
They would be, soon enough. Because what followed was a progression familiar to parents of kids who wind up in figure skating’s highest levels.
First came weekly learn-to-skate classes, which Garberi originally made a reward for her daughter if she finished her meals. Next, a year later, was asking a coach who was working with the beginners if Levito, at almost 4, was ready for a private lesson. (The answer was yes.) And then, a few years later, daily lessons. Now, all day at the rink, six days a week, with schoolwork fit in between and after skating sessions.
“Isabeau always tried to be better than everyone else, even in learn to skate,” said Yulia Kuznetsova, who has been Levito’s coach for 10 years.
Read MoreWhat a long, strange trip it has been for figure skating over the past 13 months.
From the cancellation of the 2020 World Championships in Montreal when the first wave of the pandemic hit full force last March through dealing with two more COVID waves since then, the International Skating Union had to:
*Cancel six of the 10 events (and indefinitely postpone two more) in the second-tier Challenger Series of international events.
*Remake the top tier, six-event Grand Prix Series as domestic-only, with no Final and both France and Canada cancelling their GP events. (Canada also cancelled its national championships.)
*Cancel its two regional championships, the European Championships and Four Continents Championships.
For all that, the season came to a satisfying end. The ISU pulled off both the 2021 World Championships last month in a Stockholm, Sweden, bubble with no spectators other than skaters and officials and the 2021 World Team Trophy last week in an Osaka, Japan, bubble with limited spectators – while Osaka prefecture was in a state of emergency due to a surge in COVID cases.
Here are some takeaways from the 2020/21 season (such as it was):
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Philip Hersh, formerly Olympic specialist for the Chicago Tribune, has covered 20 Olympic Games. He often uses sport as a way to write about the culture of a country or athlete. READ FULL BIO
