Four Continents Championship: Exhibition Videos

Just for fun, as the Four Continents Championship was not aired in the U.S., enjoy some exhibition skates and a medal ceremony.

Why not.

Ladies medal ceremony. I wonder how much practice goes into those pre-podium fancy bows?

Going in podium order, first up: Miki Ando’s celebratory performance, skating as her usual graceful self in yet another white, long-sleeved, high-necked costume. It happens.

Mao Asada’s exhibition performance. I love Asada because when she’s in the zone, she can have this expression like she will just go ahead and end your life if you cross her. Not necessarily in this tulle-skirted exhibition, but after all, there’s no need to strike fear into hearts during the exhibition. Cannot wait to see her defend at Worlds. Also, dear lady throwing triple axels left and right. Fierce.

Mirai Nagasu looking vaguely surprised to hear her name (and possibly relieved to note that the announcer did not again mistake her for a representative from Japan), skating a fun EX after a belated proof that she can indeed take the other American ladies, despite flubs at U.S. Nationals

Daisuke Takahashi soaking up the love from the crowd. Possibly because he won the Words to Bumble Craziest Figure Skating Hair Award; probably because he’s been a top Japanese competitor for a long time.

FYI: there’s a pretty jazzy encore, so if the “Amélie” program is not your thing for some reason, stay tuned because the double feature starts around 4:20.

Yuzuru Hanyu skating to U2. I could make a really bad joke about dizzying nature of figure skating and “Vertigo,” but I’ll just mention the opportunity. Here it feels like he is just skating through the music, but nonetheless, he is Japan’s rising men’s star.

Please someone make the pleather go away. Not OK.

Jeremy Abbott’s adorable exhibition skate to Plain White Ts. He has a prop!

Exhibitions are so fun. Yes?

The Award for Crazy Figure Skating Hair Goes to… Daisuke Takahashi

Also, he took the gold at this past week’s Four Continents men’s competition.

But in this moment, it’s all about his crazy-awesome hair. Take a look and love it.

Short Program/ UniversalSports.com/ Wally Santana/ Associated Press

Free Skate/ UniversalSports.com/ Nicky Lohr/ Reuters

Scott Hamilton Returns: Commentary at Skate America

Sure, Michael Weiss’ commentary based on working with various skaters on Stars on Ice and his empathy for newly risen senior skaters provides interesting insight to the world of figure skating. Tara Lipinski‘s subtle cattiness is splendid at times. And Tanith Belbin is just sweet as sweet all the time, especially when she is offering to find scissors to trim costumes that are too long.

But you cannot beat Scott Hamilton for amaze-tastic commentary. It is not possible.

Skate America 2010 witnessed the return of live in-house commentary by Scott Hamilton, supporting roles awarded to Tracy Wilson and Terry Gannon. Performances were peppered with cries of “Ding!” “Bam!” “Aughauhgghhg!” and “Niiiiiice!”

It was magical.

The dramatic verbosity kicked off immediately with the pronouncement that the participants of this Grand Prix “come to begin a new four-year journey at Skate America.”

While my heart was still doing flips over the return of Scott, he went ahead and elaborated that after an Olympics year “There’s kind of this almost chaotic changing of the guard. You got these grizzled veterans out here, some of these girls are eighteen years old—Carolina Kostner she’s 23—but they’ve got these young emerging talents coming up behind them and kind of nipping on their heels and sometimes getting past them and it’s like, ‘Wait, it’s MY turn!’”

Armin Mahbanoozadeh/Matthew Stock/Getty Images

Let’s get straight to my favorite gems.

“You wanna have the confidence, all that you can muster into the triple axel..and beautiful! That was nothing but neck, that was awesome!” regarding 19-year-old American men’s competitor, Armin Mahbanoozadeh’s free skate to music from Avatar.

In the realm of Scott saying things as I think them, “a lot of interesting body positions [Mahbanoozadeh’s] using in his spins.”

We’re on the same wavelength. Isn’t it great?

Anyway the young American had a great skate, beating his personal best thus provoking a jubilant Terry Gannon to declare, “His best has been—for the free skate—just over 121. And how ‘bout just waving at it as he sails by it?!” as the 143.56 score pops up.

Which is, naturally, how I feel about deadlines of course.

Then Scott nearly orgasmed over Adam Rippon’s trademark lutz jumps with both arms over his head which no one else in the world does (Brian Boitano does one arm over his head). One could almost see Scott leaping out of his seat in excitement.

Daisuke Takahashi/Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

And then all three of the commentators wrote an ode to the wonder that is Daisuke Takahashi (all the while, each of them pronounced his name differently), despite a free skate peppered with technical mistakes. A catalog of the madness? Of course:

“He’s an incredible showman. Because of his presentation he has about a six point buffer in the free skate program.” ~Wilson

“It’s the quality of every edge, his presence, the way he interprets the music—and then you throw on his extraordinary jumping ability on top of that.” ~Hamilton

“Look at this footwork, look at the way he moves!” ~Wilson

“So tight, so crisp, every movement is just bam, bam, bam. It brings the audience into the performance.” ~Hamilton

“As he flirts shamelessly with the judges!” ~Wilson

“No one in the world can really deliver choreography with that kind of dynamic. No one touches him in that regard.” ~Scott

If I had more time, I would have forged those comments into a sonnet. Possibly Scott Hamilton has already written one in his spare time.

At any rate despite the whole “moments of brilliance, sloppy at times” (Wilson) issue in Takahashi’s free skate the Japanese World Champion still placed first with countryman Nobunari Oda in second and Mahbanoozadeh slipping onto the podium for the bronze: “I heard the audience cheering for me and as I ended and I saw them standing, I just couldn’t believe it it was a great moment for me… I truthfully wasn’t even expecting to land on the podium, it’s beyonf what I was thinking would happen. I’m just ecstatic, maybe it will sink in tonight, I don’t know… I just feel like I wanna be considered competitive among the world’s best and I think today was a step forward.”

Bravo.

The ladies free skate presentation was prefaced by a replay of fabulous new Japanese lady Kanako Murakami’s short skate, which is adorable and marvelous and made me fall a little bit in love with her at the Grand Prix Japan. Scott cried out in joy for her jumps and Wilson enthused, “Well she’s the bright light that’s already shining through, heading to the Olympics four years away, and I say with four years to improve, her timing could be perfect. She’s got a bounce to her step , she’s a bundle of enthusiasm, she’s so much fun to watch!”

True story.

She does the whole nod emphatically to her coach and then race away to her starting pose, reminding me of Mirai Nagasu’s typical pre-skate demeanor.

Kanako Murakami and coach Machiko Yamada/Universal Sports

She and Scott opened energetically crying, “Triple toe biiiig—and triple toe ! LOTS of speed coming out!”

It wasn’t her most magnificent skate, but she still scored a 110.98 (total 164.93) placing ahead of US Champion, Rachael Flatt… and everyone else for the gold in her second senior Grand Prix event!

Plus, her coach Machiko Yamada is super glam, wearing fabulous scarfed and sunglasses all the time. Love.

Flatt was her typical “Reliable Rachael” self—a phrase of which commentators will apparently never tire. Scott, in a frenzy of praise at the end of her program elucidated, “There’s a work ethic there! If you can just skate like that everytime—and she does—you’re going to have success!”

Thanks for the explanation of her success, Scott. I thought maybe she never practiced or something.

“Ding!”

“Bam!”

“Niiiice!”

Thank you Scott. I look forward to Nationals, where I imagine you will also be commenting.

ISU Grand Prix Nagoya: Japan’s Junior-Senior Rising Stars, Kanako Murakami & Yuzuru Hanyu

Figure skating is back for 2010-2011 (and I am a little behind due to unexpected cable provider issues…)!

The ISU Grand Prix series runs every autumn, consisting of six international competitions featuring pairs, ice dance, men’s and women’s figure skating on the senior level. There is also a junior level ISU Grand Prix, which we will touch on again later. Just note it.

This year the Grand Prix opened with the NHK Trophy in Nagoya, Japan over the weekend October 22-24. Inexplicably, NBC did not air its selections until the following weekend, which got me all mixed up with my dates and general comfusion—but onwards. Skate Canada went down over Halloween weekend, the Cup of China is coming up next (Nov. 5-6), then Skate America (Nov. 12-14), Cup of Russia (Nov. 19-20) and concluding with the Grand Prix of France Trophée Eric Bompard before the final to be held back in Beijing over December 9-12.

So that’s that informational introduction to the whole Grand Prix shebang.

Mao Asada/Getty Images

The NHK Trophy competition saw a mixture of disappointment and triumph for established Japanese figure skating stars. Mao Asada, reigning ladies’ World Champion and Olympic silver medalist had an upsetting start to the 2010-11 season, finishing in only 8th place on home ice. Meanwhile, Daisuke Takahashi—reigning men’s World Champion and Olympic bronze medalist—turned in a typically strong performance, taking the NHK Trophy gold.

The real story for this post, however, is about two newly risen junior champions, skating for the first time at the senior level of competition. The reigning ISU Junior World Champions are both young Japanese skaters (15 years old) who made quite a splash in their first senior Grand Prix. Kanako Murakami beat out one of her heroes, Mao Asada, placing for bronze with a 150.16. Yuzuru Hanyu came just short of the men’s podium with a strong fourth place début performance, totalling 207.72.

Commentators Terry Gannon, Tara Lipinski and Michael Weiss loved the fresh skates given by Murakami and Hanyu, reflecting time and time again that at this time last year they were still skating in the juniors.

At the start of Murakami’s free skate

Kanako Murakami/UniversalSports.com/Toru Yamanaka/AFP Getty Images

to the Mask of Zorro soundtrack, commentator Terry Gannon said, “[She] may be the next Japanese star on the horizon… who won every event in which she entered last season—all on the junior level the wins were though—and she is the reigning world junior champion. Now in the senior , skating internationally and in a position to win!”

Michael Weiss followed up reflecting on the junior to senior transition: “It’s difficult, you’re coming off of winning everything as a junior, there’s a lot of expectations on you, especially with the history of the Japanese skaters. And to come out in your home town for your first event—a lot of experience will be gained in this performance.” And then later: “I remember when I first came up from juniors, making that transition, to be on the ice for the first time with your heroes… and you wonder, do I belong here? You won everything as a junior and making that transition is a difficult transition, but she obviously has the elements with that huge triple-triple at the beginning.”

She had a lot of energy and the hometown audience continued to feed her speed and attacking mentality throughout the free skate program, despite a of couple falls in the second half. Tara Lipinski was also commenting for NBC and praised Murakami’s tenacity: “Even with these mistakes, she is not slowing down, she just attacks these jumps. She has so much speed going into them.”

And despite a couple of glitches and spills, Murakami came out of it with a bronze medal—not too shabby for her first senior level international competition, in her hometown of Nagoya.

Fun fact: Miki Ando and Mao Asada, two current Japanese greats are (naturally) Murakami’s heroes. One of the reasons she selected her high school is because that is where Ando and Asada studied. Asada even gave Murakami the blazer that she wore at the school’s entrance ceremony.

As for Yuzuru Hanyu, “another star from Japan on the rise,” he decided to get started with a great quad (going to have to talk about quads at length in a future post), just to note that even though he just came out of the juniors, he can do it all technically.

Yuzuru Hanyu/NPR.com/Getty Images

In terms of criticism, Weiss talked about how when you come up from the juniors and “it doesn’t look like anything can slow [you] down technically,” the area in which young skaters have to grow the most is performance quality in terms of connecting with the audience by maximizing the pull of arm movements and facial expression. Creating and keeping that connection has a lot to do with keeping up stamina throughout a peice—poor Hanyu looked like he just wanted to fall over of exhaustion in the last third of his program.

But it was an impressive program all the same, just out of reach of the podium. Weiss and Gannon talked a lot about potential for Hanyu’s future as a skater and noted that this performance was “a glimpse into the future.”

I just love commentators. And I am so glad that figure skating is back.

Up next? Let’s talk about Jeremy Abbott from the perspective of Stars of Ice co-star Michael Weiss…