Ibtihaj Muhammad’s Olympic Qualification A Ray Of Hope For Muslim-American Women

Ibtihaj Muhammad poses for a portrait at the 2016 Team U.S. Media Summit on March 9, 2016 in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES - Ibtihaj Muhammad was not making a fashion statement. What she wore at the Team USA Media Summit last month in Los Angeles spoke of something much more significant.

She was dressed in blue jeans, a white jacket with a red U.S. Olympic team logo and a charcoal scarf covering her head, ears and neck, lining the oval of her copper-colored face.

It was the scarf that had drawn all the attention. There is an irony in having that dark, monochrome scarf be the attraction, given that Muhammad has such a sense of style she has launched a clothing line full of distinctive apparel in bright colors and intricate patterns.

The scarf, known now as hijab although referred to in the Quran as khimar, is plenty eye-catching in one of Muhammad’s worlds, the world of Olympic sports, where few wear it.

For Muhammad and many Muslim women, hijab is a symbol of both their identity and their spiritual connection to God. And she is soon to be the first U.S. athlete who competes in hijab at the Olympics.

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT TEAMUSA.ORG

Fernández' path to success unlikely as they come

Javier Fernandez (third from right) with (l. to r.) his parents, sister, girlfriend Miki Ando's daughter, Himawari, and Ando last summer on a Spanish beach.  (Courtesy Javier Fernandez via Instagram)

There are many unlikely and compelling scenes, both professional and personal, in the script that recounts how Javier Fernández got to the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships in Boston this week as the defending men's champion.

It's a screenplay just waiting to be made into a biopic.

Start with how he was discovered, convinced to move to the United States and helped financially by a leading international coach, Nikoli Morozov, despite Fernández' thoroughly unimpressive skating when Morozov saw him at a summer camp in Andorra.

Continue with how he was admittedly not the hardest-working guy in the rink most of the time.

Have him become the first Spanish man in 54 years to compete in the Olympic Winter Games two years after coming to North America.

Then make him bounce around as Morozov moved his training group from New Jersey to Russia to Latvia until the instability caused so much stress for Fernández that it led him to Toronto and Brian Orser in the summer of 2011.

Get him into a settled situation at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club and watch Orser prod Fernández into adopting the work ethic that has helped make him the first Spanish skater to win a European title (he has since added three more) and the first to win not only a world medal but, two years later, the world title.

For a little soap operatic touch, put him in a long-distance romance with a two-time world champion from Japan, Miki Ando, who previously was in a relationship with Morozov. Have Fernández introduce Ando in the gala at the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona last December (when he won the silver medal) before she surprised him by skating an exhibition routine and then have them skate as a pair in a Madrid Christmas gala last December. Bring Ando to Boston to cheer on her boyfriend in a men's event that begins with the short program Wednesday night.

Make Fernández' two main rivals at worlds a Japanese, 2014 Olympic and world champion Yuzuru Hanyu, who trains with him at the Toronto Cricket Club; and a Canadian, three-time world champion Patrick Chan, who trains in suburban Detroit.

Flesh out the story with an older sister, Laura, 27, a Spanish champion who twice skated at worlds; a Navy officer father, Antonio, who worked extra jobs to pay for his kids' skating; a mother, Enriqueta, who is a mail carrier; and a 5-year-old cat, Effi, who lives with Javi in an apartment near the Cricket Club. Oh, yes, Fernández is allergic to cats.

Finally, make him a thoroughly unpretentious 24-year-old who often walks or bikes up a steep half-mile hill to the rink, spends summer vacations with his family in tents at a campsite near a beach on Spain's Almeria coast and still can go unrecognized in his hometown, Madrid.

"At first, it was like, 'We have a figure skater? On ice? In Spain?'" Fernández said.

When he beat Hanyu for the world title last March in China, one of his soccer-mad country's sports dailies, Marca, put him on the front page.

"To steal that page from soccer…," Fernández said, shaking his head while vainly searching for words to explain just how big a deal that was.

That may be the unlikeliest scene in this story, which began when the 6-year-old Javi followed his sister -- now studying to be a pediatric nurse -- to a Madrid rink. He, too, fell in love with a sport hard to find in a country that had just 14 indoor rinks and 600 registered figure skaters among a population of nearly 47 million when Fernández won his first of four straight European titles in 2013.

"I never thought I would be up at that level," Fernández said. "If you told me I would be world champion one day, I would have thought, `You are screwed up.'"

Five years earlier, after Fernández finished 35th and 30th in his first two appearances at the world championships, he went to the fateful camp where Morozov was a guest instructor.

"I can see you have a big talent, but you are not using it and are not motivated," Fernández recalled Morozov telling him. "'If you want to come to New Jersey and train with my team," the coach continued, "you have to do it in 10 days.'''

Fernández, then 17, answered yes before asking his parents, who supported his decision despite knowing they would struggle to afford it. The Spanish Ice Sports Federation could offer little financial help, so Morozov, who coached Shizuka Arakawa to the 2006 Olympic gold, filled in the gaps.

"He took a risk to say, 'Come to me,''' Fernández said. "He paid for costumes and didn't charge me for training at first."

When Fernández arrived in Hackensack, New Jersey, late in the summer of 2008, Morozov was coaching Ando as well as soon-to-be Japanese men's champion Nobunari Oda and then reigning world junior champion Adam Rippon of the United States.

After 18 months, the group became nomads, living in dorms and hotels while training in Russia and Latvia. That existence got old for Fernández by the summer of 2011, so the Spanish federation helped arrange his visit to the Cricket Club for a summer session with its coaches, including Orser.

Fernández immediately liked what he saw. The coaches weren't as sure.

"When Javi first came, he wasn't an athlete, just a talented boy with no discipline, like a pleasure skater," said David Wilson, who has become Fernández' primary choreographer.

Said Orser: "It was a battle at the beginning."

Fernández was used to the Russian philosophy of rarely doing full run-throughs of programs in practice. That approach was reinforced when he won his first Grand Prix Series medals after just a few months of working with Orser. Less encouraging results at the 2012 Europeans and worlds helped convince him otherwise.

"That's when I had to dig in my heels and train him harder," Orser said. "He was lazy. He is not lazy anymore."

Fernández said he now does more full run-throughs in a week of practice than he did in an entire season with Morozov. His newfound commitment began to pay off the next season, when his mastery of quadruple jumps propelled him to the historic European title and a landmark world bronze medal.

In 2014, he won another world bronze after a fourth-place finish at the Olympics, where he missed a medal by barely one point. In 2015, he upset Hanyu for the world title.

This season, as Hanyu delivered what NBC skating analyst Johnny Weir called "otherworldly" performances to win the Grand Prix Final, Fernández did the best free skate of his career but finished a distant second.

That result has led Fernández to increase his technical value for worlds, with a second quadruple jump in the short program and a second triple axel in the free skate. Even if he nails those jumps, Fernández likely cannot outscore an error-free Hanyu.

"It's different to be world champion than to feel like you need to be world champion," Fernández said.

"We both have pressure. I'm sure he is thinking, 'I can't let the Spanish guy beat me again.' And I know it's going to be hard.''

Although he can be a show-stopping performer, as reflected in this year's free skate to Guys and Dolls, Fernández realizes he trails Hanyu in some of the other areas that factor into figure skating's five categories of program component scores.

"I know I have improved a lot, but I also can see my weaknesses, which are some of the skating skills and the presentation," he said.

Fernández insists the rivalry with Hanyu has not complicated their relationship, which does not extend beyond the practice rink in Toronto. It helps that Hanyu, a megastar athlete in Japan, spends a few months each winter training at home.

And maybe it also helps that Fernández is managing another relationship with a renowned Japanese skater, 2007 and 2011 world champion Ando, that was complicated from the beginning.

Fernández first was intimidated by her.

"She was Miki Ando, and I was nobody," he said.

Then there was the matter of her off-ice relationship with Morozov, who is 12 years older than Ando. No sparks flew between Ando, now 28, and Fernández until three years after both had split with the Russian coach.

In that time, Ando gave birth to a daughter, Himawari, who will be 3 next month. Ando, who retired from competition in 2014, has chosen not to reveal the father's identity.

Fernández announced on Instagram that he and Ando were in a relationship soon after he competed in the Japan Open in October 2014. Since then, they have been able to see each other for an aggregate of only 3-4 months of the year. Some of that time is when they perform in shows together.

"I always thought she was cute," Fernández said, "but I never said anything to her. I can't even explain how the relationship began. It just happened one day."

They communicate daily, mainly via voice messages because of the time difference between Toronto and Ando's home in Yokohama. Since both have only rudimentary knowledge of each other's native tongue, English has become their common language.

Fernández provides Ando with financial support for Himawari.

"We're in a relationship, and if I want it to go farther, I have to be responsible," he said. "A child is expensive.

"She says, 'Oh no, it's (the child) not yours,' but I like to do it. So I say, 'Can you please take it? This is just for Hima, use it if you need to buy her clothes.' But she does not like to take the money. She does not.''

His Instagram feed includes a 2016 New Year's card with a picture of him, Miki and Hima, and a beach photo of the three of them from last summer that also includes his parents and sister.

"We want to take this step by step," he said of the relationship with Ando.

The final step in his competitive skating career could be the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, unless Fernández lobbies successfully to bring the 2019 European or world championships to Spain. Hosting either would be both a first for the country and a fitting final scene for the unlikely story of Javier Fernández, who has turned a seemingly quixotic quest for a Spaniard into a tale impossible dreams are made of.

(This article originally appeared on icenetwork.)

 

Boston definitely the hub of figure skating in U.S.

The sellout crowd at TD Garden Saturday for the women's final at the World Figure Skating Championhips.  (Billie Weiss / Getty Images)

BOSTON - Five takeaways from a terrific 2016 World Figure Skating Championships that had something for everyone -- gold medalists from four different countries and medalists from seven different countries.

- Boston has become to figure skating what Eugene, Oregon, is to track and field: a U.S. mecca for a sport that lately has struggled to attract adherents elsewhere.

There were two sellouts (Saturday's pairs and ladies free skates), one near sellout and four crowds of 10,000 or more in the eight sessions at TD Garden, for which the arena capacity in a figure skating configuration was given as approximately 15,000. The smallest attendance was a more-than-respectable 8,425 for the short dance Wednesday.

The previous major figure skating event at TD Garden, the 2014 U.S. Championships, also were a rousing success. The ladies free skate at that event drew 13,980, the largest single-session crowd at the U.S. championships since the 18,035 in Los Angeles for the ladies free in 2002.

Attendance at worlds got a boost from foreign fans, notably the tour groups of passionate, highly sportsmanlike Japanese who bought eight percent of the tickets, according to the Boston Globe.

Even without them, though, the crowds were encouraging. It had been a long time since any figure skating event in the United States did as well as this one, more significant given that no current U.S. skaters came in as title contenders.

Why is Boston so welcoming to figure skating? The city is a U.S. cradle of the sport, and the venerable Skating Club of Boston, formed in 1912, not only has been linked to many of skating's greatest but also has many local movers and shakers in its ranks. These folks have the clout to get things done.

The TD Garden also is in a good location in a city that long has been one of this country's top tourist attractions.

Dozens of restaurants in the city's Italian neighborhood, the North End, are within an easy walk to the arena, making for excellent dining (and touring) opportunities before and after competition sessions. All of central Boston is relatively small and connected by an extensive (if antiquated) public transportation system.

It's a place fervid about its sports that has a century-old attachment to this one.

So it's really no surprise the city that preens as 'The Hub' (as in hub of the universe) is the hub of the figure skating universe in the United States. Its 2016 worlds event organizers did that notion proud.

- When David Baden walked into the room where the ladies medalists were about to do their press conference, one of my colleagues said, "Here comes the biggest winner at worlds."

Baden, an agent with International Management Group, represents five 2016 gold medalists and a silver medalist from four different countries: men's champion Javier Fernández of Spain; pairs champions Meaghan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada; and dance title winners Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. He also represents ladies silver medalist Ashley Wagner of Team USA.

Not only that, but all six are personable, outgoing athletes fluent in English (if it is not their native tongue.)

- It also was a winning worlds for Brian Orser and the rest of the coaches at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club.

Two men for whom Orser is the primary coach, Fernández and Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, took 1-2 in men's for the second straight year at this event.

Gabrielle Daleman of Canada, in her first season with Team Orser (her primary coach is Lee Barkell), left thrilled by the two career-best scores that earned her ninth in ladies -- a marked improvement over her 21st-place finish last year.

Will-o'-the-wisp Kazakhstani Elizabet Tursynbaeva, 16 years old and 66 pounds, was a respectable 12th in her worlds debut to end a long season at the senior and junior levels in which she did two world meets (world championships, world junior championships) on two continents in three weeks.

Second-year Canadian pairs team Lubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch were seventh after a solid free skate.

It wasn't all roses, though. Former world junior champion Nam Nguyen of Canada (fifth last year), who probably should have left bad enough alone after a trying season rather than accept a spot at worlds, was 27th in the short program, failing to make the final.

Two of the club's Spanish skaters, Sonia Lafuente and Javier Raya, also missed the the free skates. Lafuente, going backward over the last three seasons, was next-to-last of 38 in the short program. Raya missed the final by one place.

- Gracie Gold 's feeling that she needed to apologize to her country and the fans after letting a medal slip away with two bad free skate mistakes recalled another such moment.

When Midori Ito returned to Japan after winning only (?) a silver medal at the 1992 Olympic Winter Games, she also apologized to the country.

The fourth-place Gold's analysis of her latest failure to turn her unquestioned physical talent into a medal at nine major or "mid-major" events (Olympics, worlds, Four Continents, Grand Prix Final, at which she has finished fourth to sixth) was both dispassionate and disconcerting.

At 20, as she talked about the future, the two-time U.S. champion sounded utterly flummoxed -- the word she had used to describe a brain cramp mistake at this year's U.S. championships.

"It was a really unfortunate and sad experience," Gold said. "I feel really ashamed of how I skated, and I want to apologize to my country and to the crowd here -- there's really no excuse for it.

"It just shows that I'm not up there with the rest of the world, but maybe in the future I can be a better skater. I still have hopes for the 2018 Olympics, but we'll have to step back and re-evaluate what's realistic for my future skating."

- Michelle Kwan will forever be the gold standard for skating in the United States -- for popularity as well as success (nine U.S. titles, five world titles, two Olympic medals).

When Wagner got a rousing ovation from the crowd earlier in the week, she thought it sounded like the spectator reaction Kwan always received. "And I'm no Michelle Kwan," Wagner said.

And when Kwan showed up Saturday night to do an icenetwork interview from a position where 99 percent of the fans could not see her, the crowd stood to applaud her image on the video board projection of the interview.

Kwan was at TD Garden as more than a skating celebrity. She works for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and was with Clinton supporters in a suite.

(This article originally appeared on icenetwork.)

Ashley Wagner douses U.S. medal drought by uncorking her well-aged experience

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BOSTON - It looked as if Gracie Gold was on the verge of ending the U.S. ladies' world championships medal drought with a whimper.

And then Ashley Wagner did it with a bang at the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships, using the intense emotion of her competitive nature to create fireworks in a free skate that rocked a roaring sellout crowd at TD Garden and brought her a silver medal.

It was the first world medal for a U.S. ladies competitor since 2006, when Kimmie Meissner won gold and Sasha Cohen took bronze. The U.S. men have been without a medal since 2009.

Wagner is a 24-year-old who keeps joking about how she is an old lady in the sport. After all, the young woman who beat her with a subtly stirring and record-breaking free skate, Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia, is only 16, and the bronze medalist, Anna Pogorilaya of Russia, just 18.

What Wagner brings at her seemingly advanced age is a performance maturity and an unflagging desire to overcome the many ups and downs of a career that included a worlds debut way back in 2008. The three-time U.S. champion had called herself the "almost" girl, but now that sobriquet can be dispensed with forever.

"I'm like a fine wine, getting better with age -- or at least that's what I like to tell myself," Wagner said. "I'm not old, I'm experienced."

Wagner looked at Medvedeva, sitting next to her during the medalists' press conference, and marveled at what she had seen the Russian do in practices, the skills that allowed her to break Yu-Na Kim's six-year-old world record in the free skate by 0.04 with a score of 150.10 Saturday night.

"I see her doing run-throughs with a triple at the end of every combination and I think, 'Oh, to be 16,'" Wagner said. "Then I remember, I couldn't do that at 16."

What she could do, six weeks before her 25th birthday, was present a program to music from the film Moulin Rouge! with an elan and artistic confidence that the judges rewarded with the highest program components scores of the field. For Wagner, those scores would be the difference between fifth and second place and were enough to overcome the three mistakes (two under-rotations, one edge call) she was dinged for on jumps.

"The fact I won a silver medal because of something I did and not because of something everyone else didn't do is so sweet," Wagner said. 

Medvedeva had a commanding margin of victory, 223.86 to 215.39. Pogorilaya scored 213.69. Gold was fourth (211.29) by 0.68 over Japan's Satoko Miyahara.

It left Gold third before Wagner took the ice as the final skater in the competition.

Truth be told, the 20-year-old Gold had melted down after taking a nearly three-point lead into the free skate. And she was quick to admit it.

"It was a really unfortunate and sad experience," Gold said. "I feel really ashamed of how I skated, and I want to apologize to my country and to the crowd here -- there's really no excuse for it.

"It just shows that I'm not up there with the rest of the world, but maybe in the future I can be a better skater. I still have hopes for the 2018 Olympics, but we'll have to step back and re-evaluate what's realistic for my future skating."

The last time she skated at this venue, Wagner was almost forced to excuse herself for being selected to the 2014 U.S. Olympic team after a dismaying fourth at the U.S. championships. The rules in place clearly justified the decision to send her to Sochi, but there was a public outcry over the exclusion of third-place Mirai Nagasu (who took 10thhere).

Wagner left no doubt that this world silver medal should be hers. On a night when four of the other five skaters who went before her in the final group turned in performances ranging from very good to great to exceptional, Wagner simply outdid all but the untouchable Medvedeva.

"I have had so many people for so many parts of my career say that, 'This has been given to me; I don't deserve this,''' said Wagner, who finished just third at the 2016 U.S. Championships. "I have so many people who doubt why I am still here and why people still support me.

"I earned this silver medal. I knew there had been a bunch of phenomenal skates before me. I put that out of my mind and went out there and did what I needed to do."

It wasn't easy. Wagner had heard the crowd's anguished reaction to Gold's fall and the muted reaction when Gold finished. Her coach, Rafael Arutunian, told her before she got on the ice to seize the opportunity in front of her.

"I had a moment of panic because I knew something had happened in Gracie's performance," Wagner said. "I realized there was an opening and maybe I can get onto this podium. Then I realized freaking out over maybe getting onto a podium wasn't going to do anything for me."

Wagner had finished fifth, seventh, fifth, fourth and 16th at her previous five world championships. She made her first appearance at this competition only two years after the medal drought began, so it meant more to her to be the skater who ended it.

"To go out there against such a strong field and get this medal, I'm very proud of myself and very glad I could accomplish this for U.S. figure skating," she said.

She already could take pride in having been outspoken on important subjects, like gay rights in Russia, that few of her 2014 Olympic teammates were willing to touch. She is unafraid to be critical of seeming unfairness in judging (remember that expression on her face after seeing her scores in Sochi?). She is relentlessly self-critical. She is funny, candid, dauntless.

And a world silver medalist.

(This article originally appeared on icenetwork.)