Here are a few things we learned from the 2013 Figure Skating World Championships heading into next February’s Sochi Olympics:
The US Women are climbing back: Not since 2006 has an American woman won an Olympic or world medal in figure skating. Gold used to be the standard, now the goals have become more modest: survive and earn back the third Olympic birth team USA embarrassingly missed in 2010. That was the single task for these championships and, as 5th place finisher Ashley Wagner stated after the competition, ‘Mission accomplished.”
Hope for a perfect Ten: The new code of points has made it a little more difficult for surprise winners and out of the blue medalists. So often it’s the same names at the top of the podium, the same back stories told again and again. But Denis Ten’s surprise silver medal proved that even if gold is spoken for, the minor medals can be just as thrilling.
Catch Yuna Kim… if you can: Kim ran away with the women’s title after two full years away from the sport, winning by more than twenty points over defending champ Caroline Kostner of Italy, who took silver. There’s nothing else to say other than: “Good luck, ladies.”
America’s got talent: Meryl Davis and Charlie White took home their second world title in Ice Dancing this weekend, by more than four points. Their dominance puts the 2010 Olympic silver medalists as the front-runners for Sochi – perhaps America’s best (maybe only) chance at figure skating gold.
Canada is top dog in the team event: Figure skating isn’t just for pairs and individuals any longer. A new team event will debut next year in Sochi and with the Canadians showing more depth than any other country, along with their final tally of medaling in three of the four disciplines at their hometown worlds, Canada stamped itself the team to beat.
The Code of points isn’t perfect: And neither are the skaters. With more difficulty comes more opportunity for errors. And there were errors at these championships. With degree of difficulty being the marquee attraction for high scores under the new figure skating code, cleanly performed routines have become increasingly rare, and thus increasingly cherished and can prompt hashtags like “Chanflation” to spread around the web in response to Patrick Chan’s fall ridden performance winning gold. The code of points is still a work in progress. So are the routines skaters build around it.
