Ex's Drug Trial Spells Trouble for Carolina Kostner

The former World Champ may be in a world of trouble after a prosecutor recommended she be banned from figure skating until after the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, as punishment for allegedly helping her ex-boyfriend Alex Schwazer dope up for the London Olympics.

 I don't presume her guilt or innocence, but that's heavy business. As the USA Today article aptly points out, if convicted, it basically spells the end of her career.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was just watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC, when I learned that the Ronald McDonald float is sporting the world's biggest pair of ice skates.

Daily Mail

Rock on, Ronald. Hope everyone has a fabulous Turkey Day!

Bronze It Is for Josephs

US Figure Skating Hall of Fame

This is a cool story. American pairs skaters, siblings Vivian and Ronald Joseph are finally getting the respect they deserve!

The pair came in fourth place at the 1964 Winter Games, but after a scandal involving the bronze medalists signing a pro contract with Holiday on Ice, they were awarded the bronze. Yet somehow, the IOC never actually changed their records, and people didn't believe them when they said they'd placed third.

Well, finally, thanks to the New York Times, the IOC is officially recognizing the Josephs as the bronze medalists. Better late than never!

This is great for them, and great for US Figure Skating's rep, because it puts the tally of medals won by US skaters at 48--the most won by any country at the Games.

Practice Recap

I hit the ice for practice twice this week, with the focus remaining on choreographing the program and starting to build up the stamina to do it. We're about 4/5ths of the way through.

I just realized I never shared the musical selection I finally went with. I was inspired by my dance lesson at Chicago Arthur Murray to choose a Latin-theme for my program, and ultimately chose Jesse Cook's "Havana." It's really fast, Flamenco-esque music. I don't know what I was thinking. But I love it!

Here it is, for those who aren't familiar. Jesse Cook is tremendous.


And to continue keeping me honest, here's a video of my latest efforts to create a combo spin.

Tryin to crack the combo spin. #skating

A video posted by Jessica Marshall (@jess_on_ice) on Nov 11, 2014 at 8:28am PST

Fashion Friday: Off-Ice Skating Clothes

Cosmopolitan.com / Kathleen Kamphausen

When I was a kid, I used to be mortified by the prospect of wearing my skating "clothes" anywhere but in the rink.

Now that leggings and yoga pants are somewhat en vogue (and my body image is far more stabilized), I have less of a problem with it. I usually hit the grocery store after practice, without a care.

Which is why I laugh at this Cosmo online piece from last year, featuring three editorial assistants donning skating dresses during everyday life in NYC. It pokes perfect fun at my irrational childhood fears of being see in public with skating clothes on.

Trophee Bompard Preview

The fifth Grand Prix event takes the ice in Bourdeaux, France this weekend with a lot of familiar faces.

It features an interesting match-up in the Ladies event, between Russian phenoms Yulia Lipnitskaya and Elena Radionova, who has had a long three-week rest between her victory at Skate America and the competition in France. They are both about equal in terms of technical merit and presentation, so it will go to whichever little blond Russian stick figure skates better. That's why I'm putting my (fake) money on Radionova winning here. I'm not sure Yulia is over her little tank and snubfest at Cup of China.

Tatsuki Machida is going to run away with the Mens' title, and the Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue have a great shot in Ice Dance.

I'm a little less certain of the outcome in the Pairs event, however. It could go either way in my opinion. The Chinese pairs are looking strong, but have been runners-up thus far to the Russians. Yet the Russian pair Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov haven't had much time to rest since their win at Rostelecom just a short week ago. So if they're not full steam, the Chinese pairs could seize the opportunity. That said, neither team stands head-and-shoulders above the others.

The other thing to note about Trophee Bompard, is that the outcome of this competition will essentially determine whether some skaters like Ashley Wagner will qualify for the Grand Prix Final.

Here are my Fantasy Skating picks: (let's hope my ranking goes up!)

Trophee Bompard Event
Ladies A Elena Radionova (RUS)	Ladies B Samantha Cesario (USA)	Ladies C Laurine Lecavelier (FRA)
Men's A Tatsuki Machida (JPN)	Men's B Richard Dornbush (USA)	Men's C Chafik Bessghier (FRA)
Pairs A Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov (RUS)	Pairs B Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres (FRA)	Pairs C Kirsten Moore-Towers/Michael Marinaro (CAN)
Ice Dancing A Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue (USA)	Ice Dancing B Alexandra Paul/Mitchell Islam (CAN)	Ice Dancing C Sara Hurtado/Adria Diaz (ESP)

Upcoming IOC Vote Could Change Things

IOC

The IOC is set to vote on 40 new changes for upcoming Olympic Games in December.

Among them, the proposal to add Synchro to the roster of figure skating events, which I wholeheartedly support!

Also among them, though unrelated to figure skating, is a proposal to include more mixed-gender events. This is fascinating to me, as I've always felt that some sports needlessly separate the genders. Sports like bobsleigh, which to its credit has just made the 4-man event gender neutral.

Synchro skating is already mixed gender. While you don't see a lot of dudes on teams, it does indeed happen (There is one on my old team, Gotham City Synchro!). While I don't think mixing the genders would work well for singles skating - there is too much of a disparity in the technical merit between Ladies and Men - why couldn't it work for pairs and dance? Why can't we have male or female teams rather than the strict male-female pairing? I don't know the answer, but I say it's worth a thought.

A Sectional Sendoff

Sectional competition begins today, woohoo! Those lucky skaters who placed at Regionals will take the ice to duke it out for the chance to compete at Nationals in January. Best of luck to all skaters at the Eastern, Midwestern and Pacific Sectional Championships!

Icenetwork.com will be broadcasting every event at all three competitions, if you're curious about it.

I had the honor of going to Sectionals once, for pairs, with my partner Joe. It was a lot of fun. We were competing at a level that did not advance to Nationals, so there wasn't much pressure. We tried some new throws and nailed our side-by-side 2toes, and had a great time to earn the bronze. After our event, we watched a young Sara Hughes and a young Johnny Weir compete (the were only Junior and Novice level back then). It was a great time, and I felt like a busy and important skater!

Skates on a Plane!

I always wondered about whether you could take your skates on a plane, never having done it (road-tripping to competitions was my modus operandi). And as I will have to do that next year if I am competing in Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City, I kept meaning to look it up.

Well I need look no further. In light of the fast-approaching holiday travel season, the Transportation Safety Administration is directing passengers to its updated list of items one should not bring in their carry-on and checked luggage.

And guess what, ice skates are allowed in your carry-on. Question answered, and any anxiety that my skates will get lost or stolen somewhere between New York and the competition is laid to rest. Phew.

Practice Makes Perfect

I haven't been posting Wednesday recaps for the last two weeks because I wasn't skating on Tuesday nights, thanks to the rink being closed. Instead, I've been hopping on some Sunday morning sessions to choreograph my new program. We've been hard at work trying to squish all the elements into three minutes and 40 seconds.

Frankly though, I'm more worried about my endurance to get through all those elements than actually fitting them into the program. I've got a long, laborious way to go, filled with supplementary cardio training.

Didn't have time to take any videos, but I'm hoping to be able to post segments of the program in the coming weeks.

Rostelecom Recap

Rostelecom Cup was kind of blah. No skater's performance was particularly noteworthy or clean, and there were no real buzzworthy skaters competing. Of course, compared to Cup of China and the crash heard round the skating world, it was bound to be uneventful.

As the precocious toddler of a friend and fellow skater put it, "the Ladies blew." Sorry to say, but they did. There were no top-ranking ladies in the field this time around, so we got to see what happens when the skaters you never see on TV (because they're always at the middle-bottom of the pack) are suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

I'm happy that Javier Fernandez, Madison Chock & Evan Bates, and Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov all won gold, because it helps my fantasy team. I pretty much called every event except for the ladies, yet somehow dropped to 179th in the standings? I don't get it. Oh well, I'll do better next week.

On to Trophee Bompard in Bordeaux!

Get Your Skinny Butt to the Podium

David W. Carmichael via Wikimedia Commons

According to media reports, Cup of China silver medalist Yulia Lipnitskaya ditched the awards ceremony last weekend in Shanghai. That's a big no-no in Grand Prix competition, which makes attendance at awards ceremonies mandatory for all medalists. She is to be fined an unspecified amount, likely taken from her $13,000 winnings.

She claims she got her "dates" mixed up. Yeah, right. I declare shenanigans. In fact, I don't care what her excuse is. You win a medal, you show up for the ceremony. You know EXACTLY when it is. They don't make it hard for you to find out when you get your medal at a Grand Prix competition. But you should really do it at any competition. Period. No matter your level or your performance, it's part of your responsibility as a competitor. Get your skinny butt to the podium and accept your fate.

Which in Yulia's case, also happens to include a large sum of prize money. To me, the fact that she didn't show up shows me that she's an ungrateful little brat who was pissed about how badly she performed. Or she's under the thumb of someone who is pissed about how she performed. That's just insulting to her fellow competitors. It says their hard work and talent mean exactly squat, because apparently the silver medal isn't worth anything to the person who won it.

One time at a competition in Lake Placid, I bombed. I fell on a bunch of stuff, popped a bunch of stuff and just generally skated like crap. Much like Lipnitskaya did at Cup of China. I was so ashamed and disappointed with my performance, that I didn't bother to look at the results. So I hopped in the car with my mom and we started driving back downstate. But just before we got onto Rt 73, I remembered that I left my competition music at the rink. So we turned around. My mom parked outside the rink while I ran in. I walked up to the registration table and asked one of the officials I knew for my music.

"Congratulations!" She said.

"Huh?" I replied.

"You didn't see the results?"

"Um, no."

I had gotten the silver medal, for my craptastic performance. So I ran downstairs, made my mom park the car and ran back in to attend the medal ceremony. Because you don't miss the medal ceremony.

Rostelecom Cup Preview

For Week 4 of the Grand Prix series, we head to Moscow for Rostelecom.

According to the Fantasy Skating rankings, I'm currently in 78th place. (For reference, after Skate America I was 534th.) So I guess that's good?

Regardless, if you've been watching the Grand Prix competition, you'll see some familiar faces at the rink in Moscow.

Javier Fernandez and Anna Pogorilaya are back after earning silver and gold, respectively, at Skate Canada. Ice dance team Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who got gold at Skate America are back, as are pairs team Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier, who got silver.

It should be another fun event to watch. Here are my Fantasy Skating picks for the outcome:

Ladies A Anna Pogorilaya (RUS)	Ladies B Mirai Nagasu (USA)	Ladies C So Youn Park (KOR)
Men's A Javier Fernandez (ESP)	Men's B Takahiko Kozuka (JPN)	Men's C Sergei Voronov (RUS)
Pairs A Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov (RUS)	Pairs B Vasilsa Davankova/Alexander Enbert (RUS)	Pairs C DeeDee Leng/Simon Shnapir (USA)
Ice Dancing A Madison Chock/Evan Bates (USA)	Ice Dancing B Penny Coomes/Nicholas Buckland (GBR)	Ice Dancing C Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov (RUS)

Adelina Sotnikova Out for Grand Prix Season

deerstop / Wikimedia Commons

We won't be seeing the reigning Olympic Champ compete in the Grand Prix season due to a torn ligament she incurred at practice last week.

Ouch. There goes her chance to prove herself post-Olympics before the Russian championships next month.

My prediction is that she will get her butt handed to her by the likes of Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Elena Radionova and potentially Yulia Lipnitskaya (if she gets her head on straight) and/or Anna Pogorilaya. Which means there's a chance we wouldn't see her compete this year at Worlds.

But she does have that clout around her from Sochi. I'm very curious to see how Russian nationals goes down this year...

More on Cup of China, Thanks to Deadspin

Leave it to Deadspin to give me a good laugh over the whole Hanyu/Han crash debacle, calling it "a humdinger of a bell ringer."

This has got to be my favorite line:

"...Hanyu, the reigning Olympic champion and thus a badass of the highest order, managed to weather this debacle and finish second at the Cup. See? Happy ending. This has been figure skating news brought to you by our shared appreciation for violence and pratfalls."

For those of you who did not see and aren't bothered by a humdinger of a bell ringer, here's the replay of the crash.

A Smashing Cup of China Recap

Luu / Wikimedia Commons 

Too soon?

Once again, I didn't have time to watch the whole competition this weekend, so I am only commenting on what I saw, which was the men's and ladies' freeskates.

We'll start with the ladies. The rumors are true. Yulia Lipnitskaya is human, and not a robot. I don't want to say she skated poorly, because that's not even accurate. She straight-up gave up halfway through her freeskate. That's more shameful for a championship-level skater, in my opinion, than skating and falling. I don't know what she needs to work more on, her skating or her attitude, but she better buck up. She called it "the worst skate of my life." I hope she learns something from it.

And now for the men. Forget the performances for a second and let's focus on the crash heard round the skating world. Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu and China's Yan Han had a high-speed collision during their freeskate warm-up. Both were bleeding from the face/head, and the competition was suspended until their injuries could be assessed. Both returned to the ice about 45 minutes later and skated, bandaged up. Hanyu ended up with a respectable silver medal. Han ended up sixth.

Without any further explanation, that seems like a noble thing to do in our sports-obsessed world, right? The QB gets clocked, but pushes the docs away, says "put me in coach!" and rallies for the final play that wins the game. The audience goes wild. Well, at least in figure skating, it's not noble. It's freaking dangerous.

Both men could barely keep their $&#! together out there. A visibly disoriented Hanyu fell five times, and was a half-conscious, hot mess in the kiss-n-cry.

Hanyu's coach, Brian Orser, told the media he let Hanyu skate because he wasn't showing signs of concussion and because he insisted on skating. I'm not alone in thinking this was a terrible call on Orser's part, and the part of whoever was responsible for letting Yan skate as well. Regardless of whether either had a concussion or other serious injury that would have been exacerbated during the performance, the emotional trauma of the situation took their heads out of the game, and that can cause serious injury in and of itself. It's not Worlds or the Olympics. You can skip Cup of China and not miss out on your big chance. Sometimes looking out for No.1 is not skating.

I get that skaters put blood, sweat and tears into training for these events, and not competing feels like a sign of weakness or failure. But it would be all for naught anyway if they incur a catastrophic injury because of bad judgment. There's no policy for prohibiting skaters from competing after a warm-up crash like that, but perhaps there should be.

Nicole Bobek Joined the Circus

Icenetwork.com

Just the other day, I found myself wondering, "whatever happened to 1995 National Champion Nicole Bobek?"

Well, I guess she joined the circus.

Seriously. She travels around with Miami-based Rainbow Circus, contorting her body on the lyra (that's an aerial hoop, for those keeping track).

I can't deny I've been meaning to try something like aerial yoga, or doing something with aerial fabrics, as it's a great workout.

Nicole found herself in some trouble over the years, but it looks like she has straightened out and found something that keeps her busy.

#tbt The First Quad

All this talk of quads reminded me that the first person to ever land a quad in competition was 4-time World Champion Kurt Browning, who vaulted from 9th place after the short program to win the World Championship in March of 1988 after landing the quad on one foot.

It wasn't the most flawless quad ever landed, but it was the first solid, deduction-less one.

Don't believe me? It's in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Interestingly, Browning later confessed that he was surprised quads didn't catch on more quickly after his first. It took another decade or so before men started performing them regularly, and another few years after that before they became pretty much essential to winning. Sheesh, you'd think popping off quads was difficult or something.

And here's a video of that historic freeskate:

Synchro Stamps

Stumbled on this over at GetItCalled.com - Synchro World Champs Marigold IceUnity of Finland are going to be on a Finnish stamp. That is so cool!

A description of the stamp from Finnbay.com:

January’s sports-themed stamp is Synchronized skating, designed by Ari Lakaniemi and Susanna Rumpu, known for their many award-winning stamps. The stamp is based on a skating competition photograph taken by Olli-Pekka Juhola of Helsingin Luistelijat ry’s Marigold IceUnity synchronized skating team, which won the world championship for the fourth time in April 2014. The elegant sheet is printed on a glossy foil paper with a silvery ice crystal pattern added in gloss paint.


They are a fantastic team. If you've never seen them skate, you need to head on over to YouTube. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Cup of China Preview

We're entering the third week of Grand Prix competition and things are just heating up. Cup of China will feature a roster of highly impressive skaters, even more so than in the previous two events, imho.

I'm really excited to see two Olympic champs compete this weekend in Shanghai - Russia's Yulia Lipnitskaya (won gold in the team event) and Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu. They are both phenomenal skaters, in that they're both technically amazing, but also have quirky stylistic elements that they rock that set themselves apart from the rest of the field. I'm expecting both to win gold by a significant margin here. I also think Russia's Elizaveta Tuktamysheva as a good shot at the podium again, but if Yulia performs flawlessly, Elizaveta may be stuck with silver again.

As for the Americans, I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not particularly impressed with Polina Edmunds. Her skating is very junior-level. But given the fact that the field is thinned (not everyone on the world stage is competing), she may have a chance to medal. I also think the Shibutani siblings have a good shot at a medal (maybe even gold??) in the dance competition.

Here are my Fantasy Skating picks for Cup of China:

Cup of China Event
Ladies A Julia Lipnitskaia (RUS)	Ladies B Gabrielle Daleman (CAN)	Ladies C Hae Jin Kim (KOR)
Men's A Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN)	Men's B Richard Dornbush (USA)	Men's C Yi Wang (CHN)
Pairs A Cheng Peng/Hao Zhang (CHN)	Pairs B Xuehan Wang/Lei Wang (CHN)	Pairs C Jessica Noelle Calalang/Zack Sidhu (USA)
Ice Dancing A Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte (ITA)	Ice Dancing B Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron (FRA)	Ice Dancing C Shiyue Wang/Xinyu Liu (CHN)

My Long Lost Skate Canada Recap

Luu / Wikimedia Commons

Ugh, sorry real life got in the way of blogging, But I'm back!

Sadly, I didn't get to watch much of Skate Canada this weekend, but I did catch the tail-end of the ladies competition. Looking at the results, I can say proudly that my Fantasy Skating team killed it this week—I called the gold or silver medalists in every event, woohoo!

See all results here.

A few thoughts about the ladies competition:

Russia's Anna Pogorilaya, who won last weekend in Kelowna, is not the strongest of the Russian ladies. In fact, she's far below the rest of the pack in quality, in my estimation. She looks like she's lumbering through her program from one jump to the next with no connecting moves or feeling. There was nothing exciting about her, except for maybe her loudly colored Firebird costume. She did land her jumps, which I must say are technically good, but she just left me feeling blah.

The third place finisher, Japanese skater, Satoko Miyahara, is cute and good, but totally cookie cutter. She'll do decently in the rankings if she continues to perform well, but she needs to set herself apart with more personality or something. Again, I'm just blah.

And finally, some thoughts on Ashley Wagner, who won silver. I was impressed with her Moulin Rouge program. I thought it was great music for her and her presentation was strong. But her jumps are still not that great. She shied away from doing a 3 lutz in her program, worried that the deduction she would get from "flutzing" (taking off on the inside edge instead of the outside) would hurt her. Frankly, I think not trying it hurt her more. You still get points for an attempt, and in this league where everyone is throwing down as many points as possible, Wagner is not doing herself any favors by keeping points off the table. The flutz deduction is not that much, fer cryin' out loud! Also, the fact that she didn't do a triple-triple combo of any kind is going to hurt her too.

Competition is not about staying on your feet anymore, one of the things I actually like about the modern judging system. Ashley Wagner stayed on her feet, but that alone is not going to vault her to the podium at Nationals and Worlds.

Next stop, Shanghai for Cup of China, where we're probably going to see some really stellar skating.