Russia’s Elizaveta Tukhtamysheva is not standing pat after one of the most remarkable competitive seasons a figure skater ever has had. After victories in the Grand Prix Final and European Championships, the 18-year-old from St. Petersburg is working on additions to her technical arsenal as possible program elements in next month’s World Championships. One is a triple axel jump, done this season by no other woman in the world.
The other is the triple lutz-triple toe loop jump combination, done by, among others, her primary rival, Elena Radionova of Russia. That combination has a base value 1.9 points higher than the triple toe-triple toe Tukhtamysheva has been doing. Tukhtamysheva, the 2013 Russian champion, has come back with a vengeance from a disastrous Olympic year, when she failed to make Russia’s team after finishing 10th at her national championships.
She has competed in what likely is an unprecedented 10 events this season, including nine international events recognized by the International Skating Union. Tukhtamysheva won seven of the first nine and finished second in the other two. She dropped out after the short program of the 10th, last weekend’s Bavarian Open, suffering from stomach problems related to menstrual cramps, according to the skater’s coach, Alexei Mishin.
She had tried her first competitive triple axel in the Bavarian Open short program, getting full base credit for the jump but maximum negative grade of execution because she fell. To show that she can land the jump cleanly -- and the new combination, which she had done as a younger skater -- Mishin sent along these videos of her doing them in practice.
As practices begin for the 2015 World Figure Skating Championships in Shanghai, it appears the prevention of a Russian podium sweep in the ladies event could very well come down to US lady Ashley Wagner.
After winning the US nationals by a landslide with two triple-triple combinations and two triple lutz jumps, reports are coming in that Wagner has begun practices on a positive note. "Heard from Ice Network reporter KKany in Shanghai," tweeted reporter Lynn Rutherford on Monday. "He reports Ashley Wagner, Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim had excellent practices."
Echoing this sentiment, Ice Network also conducted a poll with six of its contributors on podium predictions. While everyone has Russia's Elizaveta Tuktamisheva as the next world champion, the votes are split 3-3 between Ashley Wagner and Elena Radionova for either the silver or bronze medal. "The three-time US champion has been such a fighter this season, and with the best-packaged programs of the field, she has the guts to make her first world podium," wrote Jean-Christophe Berlot.
However, Wagner will have to overcome her habit of performing the triple lutz on the incorrect edge and underrotating her triple-triple combinations. As noted by The Skating Lesson, Shin Amano will be the caller for the ladies event at Worlds, who is notorious for being a tough caller on such elements.
This year's U.S. women's figure skating team is incredibly talented. All three women – Ashley Wagner, Gracie Gold and Polina Edmunds – boast triple-triple jump combinations, the most difficult elements, save the occasional triple Axel attempt, in women's figure skating. All three women also have spins that demonstrate the gamut between flexibility and nauseating flexibility.
Why, then, is it audacious to believe the American women will medal at this week's World Championships? Well, for starters, they haven't since 2006. Eight years off the podium might not seem like such a big deal, but consider that even after the U.S. lost its entire team to a plane crash in 1961, it did not suffer such a losing streak. In fact, in its entire history, American women's figure skating has never seen so many years without a medal. Prior to 2007, the team had claimed medals at each of the previous 12 World Championships, and in 1991, the podium went red, white and blue: Yamaguchi, Harding, Kerrigan, for an all-American sweep. Then, in 2006, the bubble burst.
So, in the lead up to this year's World Figure Skating Championships in Shanghai, it was a little surprising to hear U.S. champ Ashley Wagner's take on things: "The team that we're sending, we have the fighting power," she tells me. "We're bringing out the big guns, and I think we're definitely a team that could claim a medal." Could this be the end of the American drought? Sure. Wagner, after all, has had a strong season, reclaiming the U.S. title after a disastrous two-fall long program last year that bumped her into fourth place. And at this year's Grand Prix Final, she took third place. Edmunds won the Four Continents Cup this year. And Gold, the 2014 national champion and figure skating's grand liaison to Taylor Swift, is nothing short of brilliant at her best.
Besides, it must be acknowledged that it's a weird year in figure skating, a statement which might, either in dry humor or genuine bafflement, be answered with the question, "When isn't it a weird year in figure skating?" But in all seriousness, even by the standards of the sport, one in which "flesh-toned" tights are frequently worn over the boots, it is a very weird year. Because this year, the most important competition in the sport won't include the most decorated skaters of the last decade.
Reigning Olympic champion Adelina Sotnikova will not compete at the World Championships due to an injury. Nor will her compatriot and Vladimir Putin's favorite partner in Sochi photo ops, Yulia Lipnitskaya. Three-time World Champion Mao Asada has decided to sit out the competition – and maybe the entire sport forever. Her more decisive former rival, Yuna Kim, has retired after winning two World Championships and Olympic gold and silver medals. You won't see Italy's first-ever singles World champion, Carolina Kostner, either. She's barred from competition for aiding and abetting an ex-boyfriend's doping. That boyfriend's sport of choice?
Olympic race walking. Che pazzo. It's as though the sport has turned itself upside down and spilled out the last ten years worth of stars. In theory, this should mean the U.S. women are positioned perfectly to trounce the competition. After all, a Russian team bereft of its two Olympic gold medalists wouldn't stand a chance. But that is not the case. The pool of Russian figure-skating talent is both wide and deep, and this year, at the European Championships, Russia's Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Elena Radionova and Anna Pogorilaya won gold, silver and bronze respectively.
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva has been so far ahead of the rest of the women's figure skating field this season, she didn't think twice about adding a much more difficult element to her repertoire of high-flying jumps. It was far riskier to attempt it in the most important event of the year. The 18-year-old Russian landed a triple Axel on her first leap of the world figure skating championships on Thursday in Shanghai, opening a massive lead over the rest of the field after the short program.
"When I landed the triple Axel, I got goosebumps and I thought, 'Is this a dream or did I really just do the triple Axel at the world championships?"' she said. Only a handful of women skaters have successfully landed a triple Axel in international competition, among them Tonya Harding, Midori Ito and Mao Asada. Tuktamysheva landed the difficult jump in one of the biggest competitions of her career after only practising it for a couple months. "It was a risk to do the triple Axel in the short program, but figure skating has to evolve," she said. "The men are doing three quads in their programs and the girls also have to develop."
A year after inconsistent results kept her off the Russian team for the Sochi Olympics, Tuktamysheva is having a banner season. She has captured seven titles in nine events, including the European Championships and Grand Prix Finals, and is now closing in on her first world title. With a technical level far above the other women, Tuktamysheva scored 77.62 in the short program, more than eight points ahead of countrywoman Elena Radionova in second. Japan's Satoko Miyahara finished third on her 17th birthday.
Wagner scored just 57.81 after falling on the second jump of her combination, stepping out of a double axel and under rotating the triple flip. It was her lowest short program score at an international competition since the 2012 worlds, when she rallied to finish fourth. “It just wasn’t my day,” she said. "I feel like anything I say right now is going to sound like an excuse, and that was an inexcusable performance for someone at my level. "To be sitting in 11th place when I’m a national champion is a tough spot to be in. This is another bump in the road. Saturday I have nothing left to do but prove that I belong at these World Championships. I have nothing to lose."
For Gold, it was yet another disappointment in a season she'd rather forget. After pulling out of the Grand Prix Finals in December with a stress fracture in her foot, she failed to defend her title at U.S. Nationals and finished fourth at the Four Continents Championships in South Korea. "It's just been a tough year for me. I've just had so many ups and so many downs, it's not like me," she said. "I'm just looking forward to doing a great long program on Saturday so I can redeem myself and just prepare for next season."
American female singles skaters failed to make the podium for the ninth year in a row at the World Championships on Saturday, while the U.S. men also failed to medal for a sixth year running. It’s the longest medal drought in American figure skating history. To their credit, Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold just barely missed the podium finishing fourth and fifth, respectively, and they both improved on their previous performances. Nineteen-year-old Gold was second in the free skate Saturday and moved from eighth place to fourth overall. Wagner, 23, also jumped from 11th to fifth this weekend.
Still, the Americans had a perfect opportunity to break their losing streak this year with reigning Olympic champion Adelina Sotnikova and three-time World Champion Mao Asada both sitting out. Perhaps it’s a dated Cold War mentality, but women’s figure skating fans have always expected America to be on top—or at least make it to the podium. Even after Team U.S.A. lost 16 members in a 1961 plane crash, the program didn’t have such a long dry spell. (Peggy Fleming won bronze for the U.S. in 1965.) In 1991 when Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan took home all three medals from the worlds, American figure skating seemed unstoppable. And American women medaled every year from 1995 to 2006.
In part, Russia’s success can be attributed to the Russian government decision to increase funding for ice skating by a factor of 10 in 2006—the last time the American women medaled. Meanwhile American skaters, like many other American athletes, largely have to fund their expensive training on their own. It’s also possible that the less cutthroat American training system is finally taking its toll. Whereas Russian skating programs encourage competition at a young age, mercilessly cut those who cannot execute and relocate promising athletes to top skating schools, American programs tend to be more lenient. Young U.S. skaters are rated in a non-competitive setting and are permitted re-skates if they fail at certain skills. Some coaches have suggested that these child-friendly practices don’t ingrain the mental toughness needed under extreme pressure, as Rolling Stone pointed out earlier this week.
That mental toughness and perfectionism is essential in the current judging system. Until 2005, skaters were given two scores—one for technical merit and one for presentation—on a 0 to 6.0 scale. Crowd-pleasing spins were prioritized over perfect execution. But after a cheating scandal in 2002, the International Skating Union instituted a new, complicated judging system that scrutinizes every move and gives it a numerical ranking for both difficulty and execution. Skaters are encouraged to be technically perfect and less creative, and, to make a generalization, Russian skaters have tended to be better at the details than American ones.