With gold, silver and a rich vein to mine, Russian domination of women's skating has just begun

/
With gold, silver and a rich vein to mine, Russian domination of women's skating has just begun

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - On the day before Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva made Russian history by taking the gold and silver ladies medals at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, video began circulating of what one of their younger compatriots had done thousands of miles away.

In Thursday's free skate at the Cup of Russia junior final in the western Russian city of Veliky Novgorod, a 13-year-old, Alexandra Trusova, landed a clean, impressive quadruple salchow -- and Trusova did not even win the event.

The confluence of those skating achievements within about 24 hours of each other is evidence enough that no matter what you call them, be it Olympic Athletes from Russia or anything else, the Russian domination of women's figure skating has just begun.

"It is the beginning of a wave, and they are going to be good for years to come," 1992 Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie said.

Four years after Adelina Sotnikova became the first Russian woman to win the Olympic title, the country has two women on the Olympic singles podium for the first time.

Read More

In the "little war" between top Russian women skaters, generation next - Alina Zagitova - wins first skirmish at Olympics

/
In the "little war" between top Russian women skaters, generation next - Alina Zagitova - wins first skirmish at Olympics

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - Last year, the Russian television network RT did an illuminating documentary on how coach Eteri Tutberidze trains her two enormously talented skaters, Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, and on the relationship between the two teenagers.

At one moment in the 26-minute film, Medvedeva talked about keeping up with the burgeoning technical abilities of the many younger girls whom Tutberidze and her assistants also coach at the Crystal Rink in southwest Moscow.

"I don't want to lag behind the younger generation," Medvedeva said.

Then she laughed about the irony in her words.

"I'm 17, and I'm talking about the younger generation," she added. "Isn't that terrible?"

It is even more ironic that one skater in that generation may have arrived so soon she may take the 2018 Olympic gold medal away from Medvedeva, now 18, winner of the last two world titles.

That would be Zagitova, 15, who beat Medvedeva in a game of "Can you top this?" during the ladies short program Wednesday at the Gangneung Ice Arena.

Read More

Redemptive performance keeps demons at bay for Nathan Chen

/
Redemptive performance keeps demons at bay for Nathan Chen

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - It was the most significant performance to this point in Nathan Chen's competitive skating career.

And Chen's redemptive Olympic free skate Saturday may turn out to be the most significant in his entire career.

"I'm glad I was able to show myself, and everyone else, I can bounce back from a bad performance," Chen said.

To have finished his debut Olympics with nothing to temperhaving done so poorly in the team event and individual short programs would have been a burden Chen couldn't have shaken until 2022 -- if ever.

"These kind of things haunt you," 1992 Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie said.

Chen, 18, not only exorcised the demons-in-waiting -- he also wound up making Olympic history, winning the free skate by a whopping 8.91-point margin over repeat gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan. His performance moved him from 17th after the short to fifth overall but, more important, allowed him to step into a future that again seems as bright as the one everyone has envisioned for him.

Read More

No way to sugarcoat this: Nathan Chen has been awful in his first Olympics

/
No way to sugarcoat this: Nathan Chen has been awful in his first Olympics

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - There is no way to sugarcoat this, to find a silver lining or a saving grace, or to think that the light at the end of the tunnel is anything but an oncoming train.

Nathan Chen has simply been awful in his first Olympics.

As poor as Chen was in the team event short program a week ago, he was significantly worse in the individual short program Friday.

"Honestly, it was bad," Chen said. "I made as many mistakes as I possibly could have."

The most gifted jumper in U.S. men's skating history did not have a clean jumping pass among the six he completed in the two short programs. The three in the individual short produced a fall, two step-out landings and failure to do a required combination.

Read More

Quad revolution Chan helped start swept away his medal hopes, but not his legacy

/
Quad revolution Chan helped start swept away his medal hopes, but not his legacy

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - In his 12 years at the senior level of figure skating, Canada's Patrick Chan has been a transformative athlete.

"I am never going to look at Patrick as anything but a three-time world champion who was the first man to do beautiful skating and multiple quads," said four-time world champion and fellow Canadian Kurt Browning. "He was alpha dog for a long time."

What Browning could not include in that encomium is the one thing missing from Chan's much-decorated career: an individual Olympic gold medal. He let it slip from his grasp in 2014, and it seems out of his reach in the men's competition that begins with the short program Friday morning.

When Chan got his first Olympic gold medal Monday, it was for the team event, in which he had two mistake-riddled performances. That could have made it seem a bittersweet prize, but he refused to see it that way.

"At the end of the day, a medal is a medal," Chan insisted. "I'm going to hold this medal tight to me. That's how I am going to see it. That's how I am going to enjoy it."

Read More