2002 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships: Highlights

Held outside of Seoul, South Korea, the Four Continents Championships- the alternative to the European Championships for skaters from North America, South America, Asia, and Australia- took place from January 21-27. With the opening ceremonies of the Olympics just two weeks away, most of the top North American skaters elected to skip the event in order to focus their training on the big prize. In their places, many federations sent their “B” team- skaters who will not be at the Olympic Games or World Championships this year, but whose strong performances at their national championships make them good prospects for the future. While originally intended to be an equivalent to the European Championships, where the best skaters outside of Europe would come together to compete before the World Championships, Four Continents has come to serve an entirely different purpose: to give exposure and prize money to skaters outside of the top echelon.

American Jennifer Kirk, 2000 Junior World Champion and…

Dubreuil and Lauzon: Dancing With Emotion

After three years as the fourth place ice dance team in Canada, Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon leapt to the top of the podium in 2000, earning a trip to their first major internationals, the Four Continents Championships and Worlds, where they finished second and tenth. With the return of Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz in 2001, the talented dancers slipped to second in Canada but still showed well internationally with a bronze at Four Continents and 11th at Worlds. They also competed in their first Grand Prix Final that season, finishing sixth. This year they finished second behind Bourne and Kraatz at Canadian Nationals, but with their highest marks…

Frisch and Bommentre Show Promise

For several years, ice dancing has been declining in the United States, especially in seniors, but there are a number of talented couples in the junior ranks that could become successful seniors. One of the contenders is the team of Kirsten Frisch and Brent Bommentre, both 16. The team has an exceptional look, with the willowy strawberry-blonde Frisch complimenting Bommentre’s dark good looks.

Frisch and Bommentre won the bronze medal in novice in their first U.S. Nationals in 2000, then finished sixth in juniors at the 2001 U.S. Nationals. At the Lake Placid Dance Championships in August, they won all four compulsories and finished third in both the original dance and the free dance. This year they finished fourth…

Jimenez and Leftheris Build Hope for the Future

When the winter Olympics schedule was changed in 1994, skaters had the opportunity to compete in three Olympics in six years. This provided an unprecedented windfall to those who were near the top, like the pairs teams of Jenni Meno/Todd Sand and Kyoko Ina/Jason Dungjen, both of which ended up in the top five at the 1998 Olympics. But with few of the top pairs moving into the professional ranks, opportunities for younger pairs to move up and compete internationally were limited. That resulted in a down cycle for U. S. pairs that has been so severe that there were only a handful of senior pairs left at the 2001 U. S. Nationals.

Fortunately, there are a number of talented pairs teams that could resurrect the U. S. pairs tradition by the 2006 Olympics. Among the most impressive is…

2002 European Figure Skating Championships: Highlights

The European Championships, the last major competition before the Olympic Games for most of Europe’s premier skaters, was held in Lausanne, Switzerland from January 14-21. Many European countries use the results of competition, rather than their national championships, to determine their representatives to the Olympic Games and World Championships. Furthermore, several countries also have various Olympic qualification standards that require athletes to achieve a certain placement in order to prove themselves worthy of competing in the Olympics. With that on the line, Europe’s skaters took to the ice for one final tune-up prior to the big show.

Thanks to a change in factored placements to adjust for the qualifying round, twenty-nine-year old Maria Butyrskaya walked away with a third European title, her first since 1998, despite skating poorly in the free skate. A controversial first in her qualifying round, Butyrskaya earned 0.4 factored placements, the same as rival Irina Slutskaya did in her qualifying skate. In the short program, Butyrskaya…

2002 Canadian Figure Skating Championships: Highlights

The 2002 Canadian Championships were held in Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ont. from January 7-13. Following the competition, Skate Canada named its Olympic and World team of two men, three pairs, two dance teams, and one woman. The Four Continents Championship team, consisting partly of Olympic team members and partly of up-and-comers, was also named. Additional skaters were named to the World Junior team, which will be finalized after the conclusion of the Canadian Junior Championships (for novice level skaters and below) later this month.

Like his American counterpart Todd Eldredge, Elvis Stojko proved to the world that the old guys still have it. Skating to the soundtrack from “Dragon,” the same program that carried him to Olympic silver and World gold in 1994, Stojko rediscovered a bit of his youth as well as his quad combination en route to winning his sixth Canadian title.

Stojko will be joined on the Olympic team by Emanuel Sandhu, last year’s Canadian champion and…

2002 US Figure Skating Championships: Highlights

The city of Los Angeles and the All Year Figure Skating Club hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championships from January 6-13. Fields of up to 18 skaters vied for three Olympic berths in singles and two in pairs and dance. Following the competition, the United States Figure Skating Association named its team for the Olympic Games, the World Championships, the World Junior Championships, and the Four Continents Championships.

Tenley Albright. Peggy Fleming. Janet Lynn. Michelle Kwan moved ahead of all three by claiming her sixth U.S. title in front of a home crowd in Los Angeles. The twenty-one year old World Champion enters the Olympics bolstered by two perfect scores of 6.0s for her free skate to “Scheherazade.” Completing six triple jumps, Kwan nevertheless left room for improvement at the Olympics. Her planned triple toe-triple toe combination, which she has not landed cleanly all season, became a triple-double. The audience of 18,500 couldn’t have cared less, giving America’s best hope…

Monnier Skates to a Different Beat

France’s Gabriel Monnier marches to the beat of a different drum. When he skates, Monnier does not play the comic like Laurent Tobel nor the swashbuckler like Philippe Candeloro. “One of my favorite skaters was Petr Barna. Even if he was not one of the best skaters of his generation, I like his precision and style, in the jumps and in the choreography,” he stated. Monnier emulates that style.

Monnier won the French Nationals in 2001 after finishing second in 2000. “Winning nationals is for me a big thing because, as usual, I had a lot of injuries this year,” he stated. Now he’ll have the chance to compete at Europeans and possibly the Worlds and the Olympics, depending on the results from Europeans.

Monnier started…