Watch Finlandia Trophy Online

Thanks to modern technology, we can watch the competition live (and for free)! It's being streamed here.

Synchro is on tonight!

Tenley Albright Inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame

Tenley Albright/Wikimedia Commons

Last week, the 1956 Olympic Gold Medalist, retired surgeon and director of the nonprofit MIT Collaborative Initiatives was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. The Boston Globe did a great piece on her two weeks ago, ahead of the induction on October 3.

I used to have a poster of Tenley skating on my wall when I was a kid. I wanted to be just like her -- an Olympic gold medalist AND a doctor. Obviously neither of those things happened, and I'm cool with that, but she continues to be a role model for me. What an amazing lady.

She was the first American woman ever to win the Olympic gold in women's figure skating, became a surgeon at a time when being a female doctor was rather rare (and perhaps frowned on), and continues her work today as an octogenarian advancing progress in health and medicine-related public policy. Oh and did I mention she overcame polio as a child? She even still skates a little these days.

I wonder if I still have that old poster of her somewhere. Thinking of putting it up on my daughter's bedroom wall!

Smile, Baby!

A "fake smile" attempt

I don't smile when I skate. It's one of my flaws on the ice, I think. When I concentrate really hard (and add some nerves on top of that), I often "forget" to do things like smiling. And breathing.

I had a skating friend who rocked what she liked to call "fake smile." It was dazzling. She was so good at going out there with a giant smile plastered to her face that stuck there even if she fell. I'm working on my fake smile. I think I made headway on it last season. At least the photos show evidence of it.

I was reminded to work on my smile when I saw this piece on the Rockettes blog: "7 Ways to Improve Your Facial Expressions During a Performance." Some of the advice is practical, like "lift your eyebrows," and "relax your jaw and tongue." But some of it is more emotional, which is harder to practice, but more effective if employed, I think:

When the emotion comes from inside you, your outward expression will be a natural one. Get your whole face involved, not just your mouth. Let it match the energy of the music and the movement, allowing your enthusiasm for dance shine through.

Replace "dance" with "skating" and we're on to something.

Holy Crap, a Quad Axel

I'm sure folks have attempted one before, but I'd never seen it. Now I've seen it all. A quad axel attempt by Artur Dmitrev Jr.

It's not even close, but it's close, you know what I'm saying? Will we be seeing quad axel attempts in competition? I've seen quad salchows, quad toeloops, quad loops and quad lutzes. It's only a matter of time, I'm guessing. (Also, why does no one do a quad flip?)

This is Artur Dmitrev junior

A video posted by Ari Zakarian (@arizakarian) on Oct 6, 2015 at 5:54am PDT

Carolina Kostner Can Skate Again

She has been cleared to compete in 2016 by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

According to the CAS press release, the Italian skater and Olympic bronze medalist was disqualified from competition for lying to a doping control officer in 2012 about the whereabouts of her then-boyfriend, Olympic race-walker Alex Schwazer, when they came a-knocking at her door during an investigation of Schwazer's drug use while competing at the London Games.

A little white lie cost her a year of skating. Unfortunate, but glad to see her allowed back into the fold. The question is, will she compete?

Single Jumps

Single jumps get the shaft in figure skating. For those with Olympic stars in their eyes, singles are just a stepping stone to greater revolution, and we never see them again except maybe on a warm up, or if you screw up and pop a jump in competition.

But if you don't learn your single jumps properly, you're going to hit some major walls (and sometimes the rink boards) when you try to up the technical ante.

This video has some great slow-mo footage of technically stellar single jumps, to give you an idea of how they should look if you want to do triples, or even quads some day.

Figure skating jumps:
Posted by Skating Moments on Thursday, July 2, 2015