Japan's Olympic figure skating champ Arawaka retir
'02 Figure Skating Champ In Central Park, NYC
(11/22/05) - The third and final Marshalls SkateFest of the year with 2002 Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hughes took place at Central Park's Wollman Rink in New York City on Saturday. Skaters of all ages took to the ice with Hughes and local coaches to learn the fundamentals – and the fun – of ice skating.
“I thought it was really fun,” said 10-year-old Jessica Reimertz. “Sarah helped us with our positions on our spins. I thought she was really nice – a wonderful person and a great skater. It's really kind of Marshalls to put this all together – letting us come down and skate with Sarah Hughes!”
The New York clinic marked the final SkateFest to take place this fall, with earlier clinics in Chicago and Houston finding similar success. Throughout the three clinics more than 650 skaters got the opportunity to skate with Sarah, get an autographed poster and learn the fundamentals of the sport.
The goal of the SkateFest program is to create awareness and excitement for the U.S. Figure Skating Basic Skills Program, presented by Marshalls. More than 800 Basic Skills programs are offered in arenas throughout the country, involving more than 95,000 participants. The Basic Skills program allows children and adults alike to discover – or rediscover – the joys of skating. The program keeps skaters enthusiastic about learning from the first time they step on the ice to the moment they reach their goals.
Return of Olympic Skating "Battle of the Carmens"
Lysacek sees 'Carmen' as ticket to Torino
(11/29/05) - 2005 World bronze medalist Evan Lysacek admits he doesn't know much about the role “Carmen” plays in skating history. Yet he knows that his new free skate now has an Olympic feel to it.
“I was trying to find something that sounded Olympic, and I think ‘Carmen' really, really does,” Lysacek told U.S. Figure Skating Online in mid-November.
Lysacek was only 2 when “The Battle of the Carmens” took place at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary between Katarina Witt of Germany and American Debi Thomas. While some fans may express disappointment in hearing “Carmen” once again in competition, it's still new as far as he's concerned.
“I've only been in the sport the last 10 years, and, yes, I've heard a lot of those comments,” said Lysacek, who appears on SKATING magazine's November cover. “It's so new to me. I'm in love with the music, and if I have the opportunity to expose this music to the world another time, then why not?”
Lysacek made the switch following his second-place performance at Smart Ones Skate America in Atlantic City, N.J., in late October. While Lysacek is a fan of the movie “Grease” and its music, he felt that the program didn't represent him the way he would have liked.
“I had a meeting with (coach) Frank (Carroll) the Tuesday after Skate America, and we made the decision (to change),” Lysacek said. “The old program was a lot of fun, but it just wasn't serving its purpose. It was something I really didn't feel represented me or my own realm of personality.”
Lysacek also admits that it's difficult to skate to something upbeat in competition.
“When you're in an intense competition with a lot of pressure and a lot on the line, you aren't feeling light and fun,” Lysacek said. “You want to get into an intense character, and the program didn't allow me to do that.”
Switching a program mid-season isn't uncommon. Stephanie Lambiel of Switzerland, for example, took a new program into last year's World Figure Skating Championships in Moscow and walked away with gold.
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| Evan Lysacek at the 2005 World Championships Photo by Michelle Wojdyla |
However, for Lysacek, this week's competition is more about the experience than qualifying for the Grand Prix Final.
“I think because this is only my second year on the senior circuit that I'm just trying to gain as much experience as possible,” he said. “I'd rather go out and take every risk knowing that I'd learn a lot more from it then not take any risks at all.”
Many skaters have noted how they've upgraded various elements of their preexisting programs to garner more points. Lysacek's choreographer, Lori Nichol, was instrumental in the development of the ISU judging system. This gives him what he feels is a distinct edge in maximizing his point totals with this new program.
“I would say that this program is being choreographed to be much more difficult than the one I already had,” Lysacek said. “I don't know many people who would know the scoring system any better then Lori. Having her on my side is like killing two birds with one stone.”
Lysacek also feels that there's an advantage to seeing what his opponents have done so far this season.
“Now I'm able to see what everyone else has done and say, ‘How am I going to beat that?' Technically, if I did my new program to the best of my ability, the scores would be higher than anything we've seen so far this season. It's all about execution at this point.”
In the end the move all comes down to the Olympic Winter Games. Lysacek is a medal hopeful who feels that his best shot comes skating to “Carmen,” both technically and emotionally.
“I might have stuck it out with ‘Grease' if this wasn't an Olympic year,” he said. “But right now I don't feel that there will be a great Olympic moment for me if I don't have any feelings for my program.”
Japan's Prospects For Olympic Figure Skating
The Japanese Dilemma - Three Men, One Ticket to Torino
(11/30/05) - When Nobunari Oda, Takeshi Honda and Daisuke Takahashi compete this week at the NHK Trophy, there will be much more at stake than a Grand Prix medal and the points and prize money that come with it.
In Osaka, which happens to be Oda's hometown, these three men will be skating a competition within a competition, with each looking to prove he is the most deserving of Japan's lone men's Olympic berth for the 2006 Winter Games.
Traditionally, Japanese federation officials take into account more than the results of their Christmastime nationals when deciding who gets the nod for the big shows. Whereas countries like Canada choose their Olympic and World teams according to national championship results, Oda, Honda and Takahashi don't have the luxury of building toward that event. The trio must skate to impress every single time out of the gate.
So talented are the Japanese men that pundits consider Japan a contender for an Olympic medal, no matter which one actually makes the trip to Italy.
Right off the top this season, Takahashi, the 2002 World Junior champion, scored a convincing 218.54-point win at Smart Ones Skate America. Until heavy-hitters Evgeny Plushenko and Stephane Lambiel upped the ante at Cup of Russia last weekend posting 241.80 and 225.55, respectively, Takahashi's score had been the highest recorded this season by 3.06 points.
A week later Oda, the 2005 World Junior champion, edged twice World bronze medalist Honda, 193.08 to 191.80, for the third spot on the Skate Canada podium.
Ironically, the men are in this unfortunate situation because Takahashi came undone at the 2005 World Championships after Honda crashed in the qualifying round and was forced out of the competition by a badly injured ankle. That meant Takahashi, then considered Japan's only entry in the event, had to finish 10th or better to keep the country's two spots at the 2006 Olympics and Worlds. He ranked 15th, leaving just one berth for three very worthy competitors.
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| Nobunari Oda Photo by Paul Harvath |
Honda, 24, with a decade of elite level competition under his belt, is once again looking like a contender after ankle injuries thwarted his ambitions for two frustrating seasons.
He believes his federation will name one man to the Olympic team and another will go to the World Championships. After taking fourth in Salt Lake City in 2002, Honda is gunning for the Olympic assignment. At Skate Canada, he announced this would be his last competitive season, and he wants to go out with a bang.
The veteran says the rise of Takahashi and Oda has nothing to do with his decision. Honda feels that at the end of this season, he will have nothing left in his competitive tank.
For seven years, Honda has trained with Doug Leigh in Barrie, Ont., and intends to make his home in Canada when he graduates to a pro career. Now, his countryman Oda, 18, has also taken up residence there, coached by Lee Barkell.
"Training in Canada is very good for me, and the competition is excellent," said Oda, who also trains alongside Jeff Buttle whenever the World silver medalist is home.
Takahashi, 19, who executed a quad toe at Skate America, albeit two-footed, trains both in Osaka and the U.S., where he works with Nikoli Morozov.
Honda's crowd-pleasing programs - "Romeo and Juliet" for the short program and "Tosca" for the finale - were also choreographed by Morozov this season.
Oda and Honda frequently train on the same sessions but, according to Barkell, both keep very focused on their own job.
"It's going to be a battle," Barkell chuckled, as he imagined the last-chance-to-impress showdown at the Japanese nationals.
While Honda did not win a medal in St. John's, his prize was renewed confidence after two seasons of doubt. His win at the Campbell's Classic in St. Paul a few weeks earlier had also been a real ego boost.
"I was surprised," he said about finishing behind Oda in St.John's."But, I was happy. I put two (strong) programs together - short and long. I was the only one who did that."
Honda, one of the charter members of the quad squad, did not attempt the four revolution jump at Skate Canada but promised it would reappear mid-season. Oda, meanwhile, is attempting to master a quadruple. Although he can stay on his feet when he lands the jump, it is not fully rotated and would be counted only as a triple in the new scoring system. Until it's clean, Barkell said, there will be no quad attempt in Oda's programs.
Instead, the strategy is to capitalize on Oda's many other strengths including his consistency, musicality, spins and performance ability.
At Skate Canada, Oda had the distinction of posting the highest technical score (71.74) in the free skate, thanks to seven triples, including a triple Axel-triple toe-double loop combo, strong spins and David Wilson's innovative choreography.
If both he and Takahashi finish on the podium this weekend in Osaka, they could find themselves facing off again at the Grand Prix Final in Tokyo in mid-December, a week before their nationals. Honda would likely need to win NHK to qualify for the inal.
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| Takeshi Honda Photo by Paul Harvath |
At Skate Canada, Oda said he had not really given the Olympics much thought but, instead, was focusing on being as prepared as possible for each competition.
"He is a very, very hard worker," Barkell said. "He's very calm. We don't have to push him. He pushes himself."
Last year when Oda trained for the first time in Canada he was terribly homesick. The fact that he spoke almost no English didn't help. Despite that, he won the World Junior title in Kitchener,
Now that Oda's English skills have improved, he has made a number of skating friends and feels a lot more comfortable. He describes Canada's "big, wide nature" as "relaxing" and has developed a craving for all things maple like maple-flavoured cereal and pancakes with maple syrup.
Oda's new "Barber of Seville" short program is more mature and sophisticated but still contains comedic touches like those that proved so successful in last year's computer game-themed short. The free skate is a holdover from last season. It was so well-received that Barkell felt staying with something familiar would help keep Oda in "a comfort zone".
That strategy paid big dividends at Skate Canada where Oda soared from seventh after the short to third overall. He ranked second in the free skate.
Despite the attention he has attracted of late, Oda said he does not receive fan letters. Honda and Takahashi are the skating stars in Japan, he said.
That may be, but Oda's star is definitely on the rise.
Winter Olympics 2002 Review
Focus on just one moment. It is dusk when, at the top of the bobseld run, Jill Bakken and her push partner Vonetta Flowers, a 24-year-old from Birmingham who had once wanted to be an Olympic track star, toe the line for their final run. Bakken stares toward the first, floodlit turn for a long minute — visualizing, focusing. Then she and Flowers pump their fists, pump up the volume, leap into their sled and are off.
Elsewhere in the Olympic cosmos at the same time, a 5'4", 34-year-old man named Derek Parra churns several swift laps in the 1,500-meter speed skate race, and charges toward the finish, hoping to hold on. Meantime, the Games' marquee event, women's figure skating, is well underway. The usual suspects — Irina Slutskaya of Russia and American teenagers Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes — are already placed 1-2-3 as the elegant 21-year-old veteran Michelle Kwan skates to center ice to begin her short program.
When the ice chips settle all over town, Bakken and Flowers have upset the mighty Germans and set off a frenzy at Olympic Park, Parra has broken the world record and Kwan has spun and jumped flawlessly. More significantly, Flowers has become the first black athlete to win a gold medal in the Winter Games. She is joined in success on this magical night by Bakken, a former soccer player at Oregon State who was one of many U.S. National Guardsmen in attendance in Salt Lake last week; Parra, a Mexican American who had learned to skate on rollers in the streets of San Bernadino, Calif., and Kwan, the star from La La Land, perhaps the country's most famous citizen of Asian descent. The Winter Olympics had never before looked like America, but during this night — this fortnight — they looked just like America.
Of course it was marvelous to behold the triumphant visitors, too. Aamodt and Annan and all the cross country skiers (all those who didn't test poisitve, anyway) — and curlers, even. I watched some curling, and liked it. I apologize for any and all curling jokes made by me or my ink stained brethren in the past.
If I had to pick a favorite foreigner it would be Janica Kostelic, whose story might be the most compelling of the Games. She and her brother, who also competed here, grew up poor in Zagreb when it was part of Yugoslavia. Their dad drove them to the hill when he could. They became champions, but Janica's career was constantly interrupted by injury; she's had three knee surgeries in the past few years. She came in here hoping for perhaps one medal, any shade. She left with four, three of them gold. No skier had ever won so many and no woman had ever finished first that often (only Jean Claude Killy in 1968 and Tony Sailer in 1956 had been triple-gold among men). Kostelic alone made Croatia look like a pretty formidable team. U.S. alpine women, by contrast, didn't reach the podium. That provides a brief glimpse of how formidable the courageous and charming Kostelic was.
But I want to return to what I see as the key to these Games (and as I do so, I hasten to claim, if defensively, that this isn't mere jingoism, though it does involve the U.S. effort). American athletes, who won an astonishing number of medals, came from Florida, New England, Washington State, Southern California and all points in between. They included slacker dudes on snowboards and distinguished veterans like the magnificent speed-skater Chris Witty, who fought through a pre-Olympics bout of mononucleosis to set a world record at 1,000 meters. They brought American flavoring to such traditional sports as figure and speed skating, and red, white and blue pizzazz to the newer events. A few of the world's top snowboarders bypassed the old, gray Olympics, but surely they now regret their decision, as their sport juiced what became, in Salt Lake, a vibrant, joyous pageant,
Russia didn't enjoy itself much, apparently, and South Korea felt hard done by in a speed skating race. After a precedent had been established with a second set of gold medals for the Canadian pairs skaters, everyone was asking for arbitrations and replays and re-runs and extra medals. It wasn't pretty, all these sore losers. What was pretty was the sight of the heavily favored German bobsledders hoisting Vonetta Flowers on their shoulders at Olympic Park. Those four Germans, who among them had won every single race on this season's World Cup bobsled circuit, never entertained any thought of boycotting the Closing Ceremonies.
Flowers' was only one of many feel-good stories in Salt Lake City. Chris Klug, liver transplant recipient, won a bronze medal in giant slalom snowboarding. Bode Miller, with his ferocious final runs in event after event, established himself as the most exciting comeback kid in skiing history. Parra, separated for much of the last year from his wife, who was back home in Miami giving birth to their first-born while he was training with the team in Utah, said he hoped his dedication would inspire kids of Latin heritage. Cuban American speed skater Jen Rodriguez, who won two bronze medals, said the same. Apolo Anton Ohno, the smooth, smart, diamond-studded, hyper-charismatic short-track speed skater from Seattle, proved himself a wonderful sportsman when a late-race crash left him in second place in the 1,000-meter event. He was then rewarded for his graciousness with a gold medal at 1,500 meters to go with his silver in the 1,000.
Ohno, a 19-year-old Japanese American who just may be the coolest teen on the planet, is an avatar of the new breed of Winter Olympian. Jim Shea Jr. is the ultimate throwback, and his triumph in the age-old but just reintroduced sport of skeleton was a fairy tale to top all others, except possibly Kostelic's. Riding with Shea inside his helmet was a photograph of his grandfather, a former speed-skater who had been America's oldest living Winter Olympics champion until his death in a car crash just before the Games. The Sheas are legends in Lake Placid, America's Cooperstown of winter sports tradition. Now Jim Jr. is a legend throughout the land, having slid through the storm on his small sled to dramatic, unexpected victory. And he, alone among athletes in Salt Lake, tried to take it to another level. He said medals and golds and winning were not important. He said what was important was doing it, along with all these other different people: doing what his granddad had done, doing what his father had done in combined in the 1960s. Doing it, and doing your best. That was all that mattered, said Jim Shea.
Rather old, astonishingly young, man, woman, boy, girl, in all ethnic variety: The American Olympian who turned the Salt Lake Games into precisely the triumphant and joyous moment needed by this bruised country was marvelous to behold. Two weeks ago there was no predicting that a cauldron supporting a flame represented the melting pot. On Sunday that flame was extinguished, but the spirit of what was accomplished in its realm lives on. The Winter Olympics, once the domain of elites representing ski, skate and toboggan clubs, has been changed forever. What a glorious thing these new Games are. They are Olympian.