In figure skating’s long, strange trip of a season, Nathan Chen showed the way

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In figure skating’s long, strange trip of a season, Nathan Chen showed the way

What 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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Once again, World Team Trophy has six countries, but only three medal contenders...and that doesn't add up to much of a competition

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Once again, World Team Trophy has six countries, but only three medal contenders...and that doesn't add up to much of a competition

The big problem with the competitive aspect of the World Team Trophy is having just three countries with a chance to win medals now that Canadian skating has hit a fallow period since its athletes won the team gold medal (and three individual medals) at the 2018 Olympics.

Only Canada, Russia, the United States and Japan ever have won medals at the World Team Trophy, which has a six-country field, two entries per country in each segment of singles and one couple in pairs / dance. Canada’s last WTT medal came five editions ago (2013.)

Only Canada, Russia and the USA have won team medals at the Olympics since the 2014 addition of the event, where the field has 10 countries with only one singles skater and one couple in the short programs, after which the field is cut to five countries for the free skates.

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For reigning U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu, growing pains shrink expectations

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For reigning U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu, growing pains shrink expectations


It’s easy to understand why Alysa Liu has altered her perspective for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships next week in Las Vegas.

“I don’t necessarily care about my placement anymore,” Liu said via telephone Wednesday.

The two-time defending champion realizes she will be hard-pressed to make it three straight. Getting onto the awards podium might even be out of reach, given what the 15-year-old Liu has been dealing with this season:

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His optimism challenged by ‘life on repeat,’ Jason Brown learns to take each day as it comes

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His optimism challenged by ‘life on repeat,’ Jason Brown learns to take each day as it comes

Jason Brown’s usually boundless optimism finally hit its limits about a month ago.

“I just shut down,” Brown said.

His intrinsic motivation to keep improving and his consummate love for figure skating had already been challenged several times since Brown returned from his parents’ home in the Chicago suburbs to his Toronto training base in late June. Eventually, in December, he found himself thinking about practice like a 26-year-old terrible two, his mind saying louder and louder, “I DON’T WANT TO GO.”

“A lot of weird moments,” he said.

There were days when his training was going so well he felt the sky was the limit but more days when, for the first time in his two decades in the sport, he felt burned out and done.

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A taller Alysa Liu also hoping to show growth as a skater

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A taller Alysa Liu also hoping to show growth as a skater

Word on the street is Alysa Liu has grown.

The two-time reigning U.S. figure skating champion said that’s true… to a degree. The two inches of height she added between last season and her 15th birthday in August don’t change Liu’s perspective.

“I just went from really short to very short,” Liu said, wryly, via telephone after a training session last week in San Francisco. “I’m up to 5-0. I like the five-foot number, but it’s still short.”

Anyway, the more important measure will be how much Liu has grown as a skater since her successful 2019-20 debut in international junior competition.

As is the case for all skaters, especially those in North America, such skating growth risks being temporarily stunted by restrictions on training and lack of competition caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And physical growth, even if it is only two inches, can also be problematic.

In Liu’s case, issues related to the pandemic have complicated her sudden shift to a new coaching team in late June, when she announced a split from Laura Lipetsky, who had coached her since age 5. Cancellation of the Junior Grand Prix series is giving Liu more travel-free time to adapt to the new situation, although, ironically, travel restrictions are keeping her from having the two-country, three-coach arrangement work the way it was planned.

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