Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara pulled off tear-filled comeback to win Olympic gold

/
Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara pulled off tear-filled comeback to win Olympic gold

Ryuichi Kihara looked crestfallen as he left the ice after the Olympic pairs short program Sunday, knowing his big mistake on a lift would be costly for him and his partner, Riku Miura.

The team’s coach, Bruno Marcotte, quickly tried to temper Kihara’s disappointment, which would increase when he heard the scores that put the reigning world champions from Japan in 5th place heading into Monday’s free skate.

“It’s not over,” Marcotte insisted to Kihara, then repeated. “It’s not over.”

How right he was.

And how different Kihara’s emotions were when it was over, even if someone watching without knowing the context might have wondered why he was bawling, his face contorted by the tears of joy just a few hours after he had finished crying tears of distress.

Read More

Audrey Shin, Balazs Nagy forge unique pairs’ figure skating partnership

/
Audrey Shin, Balazs Nagy forge unique pairs’ figure skating partnership

Over the three seasons after what seemed like a breakthrough bronze medal performance at Skate America in 2020, Audrey Shin had slowly lost both her confidence in the skills needed to be successful in singles and her motivation to keep doing it.

At the end of last season, his first in what seemed a promising partnership with Chelsea Liu, veteran pairs’ skater Balázs Nagy lost Liu when she announced on Instagram in late March she had ended the partnership to prioritize her mental health.

Because of those losses, Shin and Nagy found each other and a new career path in the sport.

Read More

World figure skating championships the latest chapter of Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s comeback

/
World figure skating championships the latest chapter of Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s comeback

There are so many improbabilities in the story of how Canadian pair team Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps got to this week’s world figure skating championships that the whole thing reads like a flight of fancy.

You start with a talented junior singles skater from suburban Chicago named Deanna Stellato, whose skates had sat in a closet at her mother’s home for 16 years after injuries pushed her from the sport.

Read More