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Post by Admin on Jul 11, 2020 23:21:00 GMT
New awards for a new age Held for the first time at the end of a season curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the ISU Awards were hosted by married couple Tanith White (nee Belbin) and Charlie White who both won Olympic ice dance medals, the latter claiming gold at Sochi 2014 with Meryl Davis.  The nominations were decided by online votes registered by the public, media and ISU Members between 1 December 2019 and 10 February 2020, coming from an initial shortlist based on results during the 2019/20 season. The ISU jury of six former figure skating stars - two-time world pairs champion Eric Radford, world champions Chen Lu, Todd Eldredge and Ando Miki, five-time European champion Surya Bonaly, and Olympic ice dance gold medallist Tatiana Navka - picked the winners in each category and sent the results to the hosts. The Best Newcomer award went to Alena Kostornaia after a quite incredible debut senior season which saw her win the Grand Prix Final and the European title. The 16-year-old Russian beat compatriot Alexandra Trusova and Lausanne 2020 YOG gold medallist You Young to the title. Reflecting on her season, Kostornaia said, "It was nerve-racking to start my senior career. When I was in the top three, it gave me extra motivation in training and it pushed me to become stronger. When I started the season, I couldn't imagine that I would be able to achieve this. |
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Post by Admin on Jul 12, 2020 5:51:55 GMT
Kostornaia's trainer Eteri Tutberidze was unable to join in the webcast but claimed the Best Coach award for her work with the '3A' - the third being Anna Shcherbakova - before Trusova's departure to join Evgeni Plushenko in May.
The Most Entertaining Program award went to reigning ice dance world champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron for their 1980s workout-inspired rhythm dance based on the musical 'Fame'.
Kevin Aymoz and Evgenia Medvedeva were the runners-up.
Papadakis said of the routine, "It was really fun. It's a part of our personality that was inside us but we'd never really shown it to the public yet. We were doubtful whether it would be a good idea but we decided to go for it and we don't regret it.
"It's a program that's in the 80s which is not our style, because we're not from the 80s obviously. But I found to get into the mood, it was about listening to 80s music and trying to get into that vibe which was super-fun. We were watching videos of that era, and a lot of the movements that we kept were at first kind of jokes, like, 'It would be so funny to do this movement.' And that's why the program is so fun for us because it started as, 'Let's just have fun.'"
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Post by Admin on Jul 12, 2020 20:53:05 GMT
The French duo's rivals and training partners Madison Chock and Evan Bates beat Hanyu and Anna Shcherbakova to the Best Costume award for their outfits in their free dance.  The costumes were handmade by Quebec-based designer Mathieu Caron with Chock having a big say in the design. She said: "It was really important to make sure that our story was clear, that the costumes emulated our characters very well. For me being the snake, I felt like I wanted the dress to be very fitted and feel like a snake skin. And I think Mathieu and his team did an incredible job bringing that to life. "For Evan's as well, he was the traveller and the charmer who entices me the entire program so his costume, I wanted it to look like he'd been travelling... so rips and tears but in a fashionable way of course." |
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2020 4:45:43 GMT
An emotional Shae-Lynn Bourne took the Best Choreographer award ahead of Lori Nichol and Marie-France Dubreuil.
The inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award went to four-time world champion Kurt Browning.
Despite failing to win an Olympic medal, the Canadian was one of the finest competitive skaters of his generation and still takes part in exhibition events.
He has also choreographed for the likes of Hanyu, Patrick Chan, Javier Fernandez and Tara Lipinski.
Browning said, "I love skating. I am a lifer and I think that there's something that happens when the blades glide across the ice, and then when that's compounded with an audience and music and physicality and challenge and competition and excitement...
"I am so enthralled and thrilled with this sport that I kind of hope I never quit. I hope I'm connected to it somehow someway for the rest of my life. Thank you, everybody." - ISU Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Kurt Browning
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Post by Admin on Jul 14, 2020 6:18:25 GMT
After Russia’s famed figure-skating specialist Eteri Tutberidze was named best coach by the International Skating Union (ISU), furious fans have voiced fierce criticism and disappointment across the internet. But why?
The Inaugural ISU Skating Awards ceremony was held on July 11, with Tutberidze leapfrogging two other nominees – Rafael Arutyunyan and Brian Orser – for the right to be called the world’s best figure-skating coach.
What seemed to be an unquestionable win, as Tutberidze’s skaters had made a golden sweep this season winning all major events, has caused an uproar on social media, with the most vocal critics accusing the ISU of unfair judging and calling the coach an “abuser.”
“Congratulations on awarding abusive choaches and promoting unhealthy methods in your sport,” one person wrote.
“Goes to show @isu_Figure supports very young athletes sacrificing their bodies than the long term survival of the sport. Very disappointing,” another comment read.
“Giving little girls 2 seasons of glory while abusing them, then throwing them out and telling them to get pregnant is not a successful coach. Borser didn’t coach his skaters to 6 world titles, 4 Olympic medals (3 of them gold) and 7 GPF titles, just to be shat on,” one more fan added.
After emerging on the international stage as one of the most talented women’s coaches, Tutberidze has constantly been an target of fierce criticism. During her six-year dominance in ladies skating she has brought to fame dozens of athletes who have claimed Olympic, world and European titles, constantly replacing one another on top of the podium.
She has guided Yulia Lipnitskaya and Alina Zagitova to Olympic prominence, establishing herself as a strong-willed and unbending pundit who knows the secret of raising true champions.
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