Amber Glenn aims to defend Grand Prix Final title, free of fear

/
Amber Glenn aims to defend Grand Prix Final title, free of fear

The old Amber Glenn might have come undone by what happened during the six-minute warmup for the short program at the Finlandia Trophy Grand Prix event.

Glenn competed in Finland just eight days after undergoing a root canal procedure. And she still was getting antibiotics for a sinus infection that had lingered since summer, with the medicine making her feel tired.

And then she popped her two attempts at her most difficult jump, the triple Axel, in the warmup. Popping – doing a single rotation rather than three - can shake any figure skater’s confidence.

About 45 minutes later, Glenn took the ice for her short program, opened by nailing the triple Axel and went on to win that phase of the competition with her season-best score.

“That was 100% the new Amber,” said Damon Allen, her coach, via telephone.

Read More

In memoir, skating champion Nicole Bobek confronts her past head-on, frightening details and all

/
In memoir, skating champion Nicole Bobek confronts her past head-on, frightening details and all

 It's wild how fast life can flip. On minute, you’re center ice with the world at your feet. . .The next you're barefoot in a Florida jail cell shaking so hard you can't even hold the phone steady enough to dial your mom, let alone speak when she answers.

--Nicole Bobek in her new memoir, “Bobek: The Wild One”

 I texted Nicole Bobek last month to let her know I had received the review copy of her book.  She replied, “You might wanna put on your seatbelt for this one.”

Indeed.  As the except quoted above (and several to follow) illustrates, the figure skating champion’s life (lives?) has been a bumpy ride, with more than one crash landing.

Read More

At Beijing Winter Games, now just a year away, figure skating will be a morning and evening affair (as you read here last March)

/
At Beijing Winter Games, now just a year away, figure skating will be a morning and evening affair (as you read here last March)

Under usual circumstances, the day marking one year to go until the next Olympics directs a substantial amount of attention toward the upcoming Games.

But there is nothing usual about the current circumstances of a world turned inside out by the Covid-19 pandemic. So the next Olympics is not the 2022 Winter Games in China, where competition begins with curling Feb. 2, 2022, which is one year from today (the Opening Ceremony is a year from Friday).

Next up is the postponed 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. Beijing 2022 seems much further off than it is.

Read More

Death of Mike Moran means Olympic world has lost his inventive mind, institutional memory, moral compass and ability to create trust

/
Death of Mike Moran means Olympic world has lost his inventive mind, institutional memory, moral compass and ability to create trust

It was coming up on 1 a.m. on a Sunday in Lillehammer, Norway. The Opening Ceremony of the 1994 Winter Olympics had been over for about six hours, just about long enough for those of us who had covered the ceremony to thaw out.

It was a long day for most of the U.S. media, whose 24/7 focus for a month had been on two figure skaters, one of whom (Tonya Harding) already was implicated in a plot to injure the other (Nancy Kerrigan.) Four hours before the opening ceremony, Kerrigan gave her first press conference of the Games.

It was the last place on earth the media-shy Kerrigan wanted to be: facing more than 1,000 journalists and seemingly as many TV cameras from around the world. Many of us who knew Kerrigan by having covered her for several years were as curious about how she would handle this overwhelming situation as we were about what she might say.

Mike Moran made sure she got through it fine.

Read More

Alysa Liu makes history but wants to make more

/
Embed from Getty Images

Twenty-five seconds into her short program Thursday, Alysa Liu made history.

She was the first woman to land a triple Axel in the short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Not bad for a 13-year-old making her senior debut at nationals.

And not enough for Liu. She wants to make more.

“She definitely wants to be the youngest champion,” said her coach, Laura Lipetsky. “That’s in the back of her head.”

It won’t be easy. Liu, second after the short program, likely will need another historic performance to overcome reigning champion Bradie Tennell, who takes a 2.71-point lead into Friday’s free skate.

But one would not be wise to discount the possibility of Liu pulling it off.

For the whole story on NBCSports.Com, click here:

And for a brief story on Bradie Tennell taking command of the short program, click here: