Wagner, Gold resigned to morning skating at 2018 Olympics

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Wagner, Gold resigned to morning skating at 2018 Olympics

BOSTON - The news that figure skating competition would begin at 10 a.m. at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea left the two leading U.S. women singles skaters resigned to deal with situation, although Ashley Wagner adopted that attitude more grudgingly than 2014 Olympic teammate Gracie Gold.

“This is all fresh to me, and right now I’m annoyed, because it’s a difficult thing to ask the skaters to do,” Wagner said after her Tuesday evening practice before the World Figure Skating Championships that begin Wednesday at TD Garden.

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EXCLUSIVE: Figure skating in morning at 2018 Olympics

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EXCLUSIVE: Figure skating in morning at 2018 Olympics

Figure skaters will be getting early wake-up calls at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

International Skating Union President Ottavio Cinquanta confirmed exclusively to Globetrotting that all competitions will begin at 10 a.m. at the 2018 Pyeongchang, South Korea, Winter Games.  Day-of-competition final practice will be earlier in the morning.

With the 13-hour time difference from New York, that will put the events in prime time in North America.   It will not be as favorable for Japan, where the sport's popularity now is the highest in the world.

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Yu-Na Kim, Yuzuru Hanyu, Javi Fernandez and friends: how the Toronto Cricket Club became skating mecca

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TORONTO - Put more than a dozen highly decorated figure skaters on the same practice ice at the same time, and there is bound to be some friendly in-your-face stuff.

Yuzuru Hanyu, Javier Fernández and Nam Nguyen will do quadruple jump after quadruple jump, each trying not to be the first to pop a jump or fall. Gabrielle Daleman and Sonia Lafuente will do the same with triples.

What each wants most, though, is to do well enough that Brian Orser, or one of his fellow coaches at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club, rings the 16-inch brass bell that hangs outside the glassed-in, computerized music room on one side of the ice surface.

That sound is the reward for anyone who does a clean run-through of a competitive program in practice.

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Absence makes the art grow stronger for skater Yuzuru Hanyu, coach Brian Orser

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TORONTO - It was the final week of February, and the fan mail for Yuzuru Hanyu sat in a pile on the floor of Brian Orser's office at the Toronto Cricket Club.

The stack was nearly 2 feet high, testimony to how long it had been since Hanyu last was around to collect it.

It also was evidence of the unusual training arrangement between the leading men's figure skater in the world and the man who has coached him to an Olympic gold medal, world title and three straight wins at the Grand Prix Final -- the most recent with one of the most remarkable performances in the sport's history.

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An "every-other-year girl" like Kwan? Gracie Gold can only dream of it

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An "every-other-year girl" like Kwan? Gracie Gold can only dream of it

The question about reigning U.S. figure skating champion Gracie Gold always has been her inconsistency, especially when it counts most internationally.

This time, on a Thursday conference call advancing the World Championships beginning Mar. 30 in Boston, the question was phrased in terms of how much confidence she could gain from knowing her coach, Frank Carroll, had produced big event “money” skaters like Michelle Kwan and Evan Lysacek.

Gold answered it by saying, “They weren’t always perfect.   Michelle kind of was the every-other-year girl.”

Gold undoubtedly was referring to Kwan’s having won her first three of five world titles only in even-numbered years (1996-98-2000) and then, after breaking that pattern, the final two  in odd-numbered years (2001-03).

The odd-even thing was something Kwan joked about in 2000 and 2001.

But Gold’s analysis is just plain silly.

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