Numbers show regressive impact of Russian ban in skating. Is the decline good or bad?

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Numbers show regressive impact of Russian ban in skating. Is the decline good or bad?

So here we are, hard upon a second straight figure skating Grand Prix Final without Russian entrants as justifiable punishment for their country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, still waiting on a decision in the soap operatic Kamila Valieva doping case almost two years after the Russian phenom tested positive six weeks before the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The Valieva decision, which has delayed awarding the 2022 team event medals, is expected by mid-February.  That presumably is mid-February 2024, but who knows?  Anyway, it can go on the back burner for today’s discussion, which is about the state of the sport without the beleaguered Valieva and her compatriots as the Grand Prix Final begins Thursday in Beijing.

There is no doubt that the absence of the Russian women, who had utterly dominated the sport since 2014, has had a dramatic effect on jumping.

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Isabeau Levito claims final nugget in U.S. gold rush at World Junior skating

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Isabeau Levito claims final nugget in U.S. gold rush at World Junior skating


One after another, the final four skaters in the women’s free skate at the World Junior Championships performed with assurance and compelling quality, brightening the end of a long and muddled figure skating season.

All did clean programs, the best by surprising Jia Shin of South Korea, who won the free and nearly upset favored Isabeau Levito of the United States for the title Sunday in Tallinn, Estonia.

Levito, gritting her way through the free and getting some benefit of the doubt from the judges, held on by just 0.54 points to become the first U.S. woman atop the world junior podium since Rachael Flatt in 2008. Compatriot Lindsay Thorngren earned the bronze.

Levito’s gold medal, following those in ice dance by brother-sister team Oona and Gage Brown and in men’s singles by Ilia Malinin, gave Team USA three of the four world junior titles for the first time since 2008.

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Commanding the ice again after recent downfall, Ilia Malinin wins world junior gold in runaway

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Commanding the ice again after recent downfall, Ilia Malinin wins world junior gold in runaway

When you pick “quadg0d,” for an Instagram handle, the hubris factor comes into play.

It did for Ilia Malinin in the free skate at last month’s World Championships, when the skating gods reminded him that ice is slippery for mortals trying to navigate it divinely on thin blades.

So Malinin found himself reassured to get back on solid footing as he won the World Junior Championships in a runaway Saturday in Tallinn, Estonia.

“I am relieved that I finished the season really, really good,” Malinin said.

He did it with junior record scores in the short program (88.99), free skate (187.12) and total (276.11), beating silver medalist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan by 41.80 points. That was more than twice the previous largest winning margin, 19.12, by Adam Rippon of the U.S. in 2009.

And Malinin did it with four fully rotated quadruple jumps, reprising his dazzling free skate at the U.S. Championships, when his silver medal performance led to controversy after he was not selected for the Olympic team.

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Still just 16, Alysa Liu has met the challenges of going from insouciant prodigy to world medalist

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Still just 16, Alysa Liu has met the challenges of going from insouciant prodigy to world medalist

You look at Alysa Liu, and you see a 16-year-old with braces, and it doesn’t seem possible she still is that young because of how much has happened to her in the past four years, all of it in the public eye.

Liu has gone through adolescence under the relentless glare of a spotlight she attracted in January 2019, at age 13, by becoming the youngest U.S. women’s singles champion ever. She was a prodigy who would bear huge expectations for two seasons before she was even eligible to compete at the senior level in her sport.

It all was so easy at the start, with one landmark achievement after another, a second U.S. title in 2020, victories on the Junior Grand Prix circuit, history-making triple axel and quadruple jumps.

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At worlds, a men’s short program filled with powerful emotion and exceptional skating

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At worlds, a men’s short program filled with powerful emotion and exceptional skating

If they did a highlight reel from the men’s short program at the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships, it might turn into a feature-length film.

It would include scenes of heartrending and powerful emotion. Scenes with one terrific performance after another. A scene showing almost improbable brilliance from a man making an unexpected second appearance at worlds and another scene showing confirmatory brilliance from a teen making a highly anticipated debut at worlds.

Numbers really can’t do justice to what took place over four hours Thursday in Montpellier, France, but they can provide some parameters to assess it.

Twelve of the 29 competitors had personal best scores, a group that included the first (Shoma Uno), third (Kazuki Tomono), fourth (Ilia Malinin) and fifth (Daniel Grassl) finishers.

Each of the top four, led by three Japanese, scored over 100 points, the first time that has happened in a men’s short program at the world championships. Uno had 109.63, Yuma Kagiyama 105.69 and Tomono 101.12, with Malinin of the United States at 100.16.

And the man who finished 22nd, Ivan Shmuratko of war-ravaged Ukraine, brought the crowd to its feet in a touching ovation just by being there, for wearing a simple blue practice shirt with a heart-shaped patch showing the colors of his country’s flag. How sad it was that officials saw fit to give him a deduction for a “costume / prop” violation.

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