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Post by Admin on Mar 23, 2019 17:23:59 GMT
Japan's two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu was unable to come all the way back on Saturday as he finished runner-up to defending men's champion Nathan Chen of the United States at the World Figure Skating Championship. Hanyu, third after the short program, threw down the gauntlet at Saitama Super Arena outside Tokyo with a 206.10-point free skate for a 300.97 total score. But Chen, the short program winner, went one better, scoring 216.02 on his free skate for a 323.42 total to equal Hanyu's total of two world championships. "I'm disappointed. (Chen) beat me in both programs. I really wanted to win," said the 24-year-old Hanyu, who competed at his first competition following a four-month injury layoff. "I just lacked ability. I want to come back with a strong mindset and improve to a level that nobody could challenge me."
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2019 18:34:51 GMT
http://instagram.com/p/BvYKSbzppl1 The Russian figure skater, champion of the world, Europe and the Olympic Games Alina Zagitova published a photo on Instagram on the background of blossoming cherry trees. Fans were satisfied with the picture and wrote many warm words in the comments. http://instagram.com/p/BvaqELfJs__ varlamov28.10 : "How can you match the blossoming sakura, and you are a young, beautiful and blossoming girl, you are our golden!" teamzagitova : "You look stylish !" sns1905 : "Alina, you are straight, like that sakura! Gentle, young, clean, beautiful ..." On Sunday in the Japanese Saitama ended the world championship in figure skating. 16-year-old Zagitova won gold on it and now has the highest awards of all major international tournaments.
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2019 18:53:21 GMT
It was eye-popping enough to watch Chen, 19, repeat as world champ, but he also did so over rival Yuzuru Hanyu, while skating in Hanyu-mad Japan and having to follow Hanyu’s roof-blasting free skate just prior to him. The Yale freshman did all that to cap an undefeated season, which also included a third national title and three more grand prix golds. “I don’t even know what the plan is going for next season,” Chen admitted to reporters after his win in Saitama. In the year after the Olympics, Chen has impressed with his schedule at school in New Haven, Connecticut, while getting video coaching from Rafael Arutunian via video conferencing several times a week. But will he continue with the same routine in the season(s) to come? Guess we (and he!) will find out. While Alysa Liu was a historic women’s champion at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January (more on her below), 2018 U.S. champ Bradie Tennell and two-time U.S. medalist Mariah Bell will lead the senior field internationally, both aiming to climb the global ranks while solidifying themselves as mainstays as the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 draw closer. Tennell, seventh, and Bell, ninth, will want to improve their world championship finishes should they make it to Montreal, particularly to earn the U.S. a third spot at worlds for 2021, making it more likely Team USA has three women’s spots for Beijing. (To do so, they’ll need a combined finish of 13, versus the 16 [7th + 9th] they earned at worlds last weekend.) Tennell, who focused on her artistry this season, wants to make better her already-strong technical prowess, while Bell hinted at triple axel training, as well as a triple-triple combo, which she doesn’t currently possess.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2019 18:26:08 GMT
Olympic silver medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron from France won their fourth World title in Ice Dance at the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships on Saturday. Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia maintained second to earn the silver—their first world medal, while USA’s Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue moved up won spot to claim the the bronze. Overnight leaders and defending champions Papadakis and Cizeron delivered a superb routine to music by Rachael Yamagata, earning high grades of execution (GOE) on every element. The 2019 European champions were were awarded many “10s” in the Program Components, mostly for performance, composition, and music interpretation. All elements were graded a level 4 and they earned a new season’s best of 133.19 for a first place finish in the free dance and overall (222.65). “We are so happy with our performance today!” said Cizeron. “It was such a tough competition. All competitors have worked very hard and it is such a high level in ice dance this year. We did a good job today and we are proud of ourselves. We always feel so supported in Japan.” “Every year it is a little different,” said Papadakis. “We go through difficulties every year. This year was so different from last year, it is post-Olympic. We had shorter preparations, not as many competitions as before, everybody was a little bit more tired than last year. It is always a challenge, but we take them easily. We wanted to enjoy this competition this year, and we achieved exactly what we wanted to do today. It was a tough competition, it always is. We had a lot of competitors here. It is never easy to fight against stress and pressure, and we are just very proud that we did it again this year.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 30, 2019 19:00:21 GMT
The World Figure Skating Championships have come to an end in Saitama, Japan. The most-discussed event of the championships, the women’s singles competition, took place on March 22. In that division, Russian athletes Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva won gold and bronze respectively while Sofia Samodurova made the top eight. Elizabet Tursynbayeva of Kazakhstan also made the podium, earning a silver medal and becoming the first woman to complete a quadruple jump in any seniors’ competition. Meduza asked sports commentator Yekaterina Kulinicheva to discuss the significance of those results and explain why the Russian women’s win can be considered a true sports miracle. Was it even possible that a Russian woman might not win the 2019 worlds? Yes, that was a real risk — this season has been very difficult for each of the leading skaters on the Russian team. Evgenia Medvedeva, the 2016 and 2017 world champion, took a long time to adapt when she decided to find a new trainer and move to Canada after the 2018 Olympics. She has begun working with coach Brian Orser’s team on new skating and jumping techniques, but that is never a speedy process. Throughout it all, her figure has continued to change. Medvedeva did not make the Grand Prix final and then performed poorly in the Russian National Championships, placing seventh. At first, she was not a part of Russia’s traveling national team, and she missed the European Championships as a result. Olympic champion Alina Zagitova lost this year’s Grand Prix final, took fifth place in the National Championships, and let the gold go to Sofia Samodurova in the European Championships. The most alarming factor in Zagitova’s skating career has been that she began growing very quickly after the 2018 Olympics. As a result, her free skate has turned from an impressive adaptation of Carmen into a torturous struggle against her own body. Zagitova said openly in the course of the season that her feet were hurting her; foot pain is a common problem for athletes who continue to train actively during growth spurts. At some points, it seemed that the wisest choice for Zagitova would be to take a break, finish the season early, and spend time coming to terms with herself while working toward the future. However, it was clear that Zagitova’s team and its maximalist trainer, Eteri Tutberidze, would be unlikely to make that move. 2015 world champion Yelizaveta Tuktamysheva began her season marvelously, bringing back her signature move, the triple axel, and finishing third in the Grand Prix final. However, she was hospitalized almost immediately after that competition with severe lung inflammation, and she missed the National Championships. Since then, she has been unable to regain the form she had in December. In the February finals of the Russian Cup, whose results have become an unofficial basis for the selection of the World Championship team, Tuktamysheva placed second but clearly struggled to skate cleanly. Stanislava Konstantinova, who was the highest-placing senior skater at the National Championships (she took fourth place), performed badly at the European Championships and has skated inconsistently overall. The only truly stable Russian women’s figure skater this season was Sofia Samodurova, who became the new discovery of the year in the Russian figure skating world. However, this was her first season competing in the seniors’ division, and 16-year-old Sofia does not yet possess much authority in the eyes of figure skating judges (a necessary condition for winning gold at the World Championships). High-value jumps can trump any level of authority by sheer mathematical power, but Samodurova does not yet perform them.
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