Since I attended Skate America in person, I thought I’d share some of my personal highlights/impressions from ladies, men, and ice dance. No scoring analysis here; just some opinions, based on seeing the competition live! Continue reading “Skate America 2016: Highlights from Ice Dance, Mens, and Ladies”
Month: October 2016
Skate America 2016: Pairs Review
The Grand Prix season started this week at Skate America in Chicago, and luckily, I got to see the event live! This was my second year attending Skate America, and it was a lot of fun! The level of competition in the pairs event wasn’t the highest. But there was drama and some emotional highlights, too. Let’s take a look at what happened.
Walking in the Judges’ Shoes: The Sochi Judging Project
Figure skating fans love to talk about judging–everyone has an opinion on it! But, talking about the judges’ work is quite different from actually getting in there and doing it yourself–as I recently found out.
This spring, the Naked Ice web site launched a judging project (“We’ll Be the Judge of That!”) in which fans would actually judge an entire competition, issuing a full set of TES/PCS marks for each skater, just like real judges. Not only that, Naked Ice upped the stakes by choosing the 2014 Sochi Olympics ladies’ event—one of the most controversial of the IJS era—as the competition to be judged. The results of the project are available tonight on the Naked Ice site: “We’ll Be the Judge of That–2014 Sochi Olympics Results.”
I participated in this project as one of the 7 judges. It was really interesting and a lot of fun! It was also a lot of work; and very educational. To be honest, I think this is one of the most important fan projects I’ve ever seen done in the skating community. Because, as much as we all talk about judging, very few of us have actually done the job and really understand the challenges. This project gave us a window into what judges really experience when they’re using IJS. And I have to say: Judging under this system is not easy. Continue reading “Walking in the Judges’ Shoes: The Sochi Judging Project”
Artistika Interview
This summer, I was honored to have my web site featured in Artistika, an online magazine devoted to the arts and the artistic sports. Artistika republished my interview with Marissa Castelli/Mervin Tran, and also included a little interview with me about pairs skating in general. Many readers have probably already seen this interview, but I wanted to post a direct link to it here, in case anyone missed it earlier.
A big thank-you, again, to Artistika for featuring A Divine Sport! If you haven’t seen an issue of Artistika already, I encourage you to check it out! The magazine is gorgeous and includes lots of skating articles, in addition to stories about gymnastics and the arts. It’s great reading! 🙂 The first edition of the magazine had a great story on World champions Papadakis/Cizeron; the second edition includes an interview with British champion Philip Harris, as well as beautiful drawings by figure skating artist Yoshie Shibaike. Enjoy!
A Divine Sport 