New medals: dancing, twirling and jumping at the YOG in Lausanne.
I have to admit that I haven't seen all skates and dances today. It is a monday and a working day, so I had to wait until I was home after that to watch. Still, I did see some interesting skates and dances at the second day of medals, so here goes another review. Please feel free to add about skaters and Ice Dance couples I missed, but were also worthy of note (as I imagine all were in the end).
Can I start with being disappointed about there being no victory ceremonies on ice that can be watched? At least at the 'proper' olympics you get to see an Ice ceremony with the skaters in costume, even if there's a medal ceremony later where they wear their country jackets and so on. There were ice ceremonies here as well, I know because I could see on site that they were planned, but the live streams all stopped before that happening. If someone's got a link: yay. Please forward them.
I'm also quite unhappy about the (lack of) exposure of these Youth Olympic Games. Oh, there's enough on the Olympic channel, the Lausanne website and so on, but why is there nothing on the ISU site? {Edit: they did put a summary on eventually:
https://www.isu.org/isu-news/news/1...e-2020-figure-skating-review?templateParam=15. I suppose Senior Short track 4 Continents and European Speed Skate championships are considered more important, but the ISU president is present at the YOG (at least he was at the medal ceremony of the Pairs and the men). That would indicate that the YOG are important (and they should be). So far it seems as if Junior Worlds is more important, and I think that's odd. This is an Olympics after all. For Juniors, but still an Olympics. The crowds seem to enjoy the skating though.
Ice Dance
What an unhappy day for the Canadians. Both of their Dance Teams skated well, but it wasn't enough for a medal. I really expected one of them to capture one after the RD, but it was not to be. We had the wonderful Japanese team, who skated rather classically (and were wonderful to watch, but slightly old fashioned in my view) who skated past both of the Canadian teams in the Free, but didn't manage to pass them in the standings. And then there were America's Katarina and Jeffrey who haven't skated together very long, but somehow showed a togetherness together (see what I did there) with some great edges and difficult elements, and just overtook them. The resulting scores were pretty close for all four teams, which made it an exciting competition. But perhaps even more disappointing for Natalie and Bruce expecially. The Russians were one and two (deservedly I think), but I really loved Sofya and Alexander's Dance the best, while (sorry, had to agree with Chris on this one) Irina and Dario just made me think of Susanna Rakamoh and Petri Kokko in 1994. Much more technically demanding, but still. Nice for the USA to get a medal here. Although I would have been really happy for the Canadians to fight off the 4th place curse at YOG events. Good to see a couple of Japanese doing well in Dance though.
Ladies
Usually it's the men with the splat fest, but - even if I missed quite a few skates - today the ladies showed they can do it too. Argh. However, there were still some beautiful performances. I love Alessia from Italy (although she had a pop; no fall though). What a beautiful, mature skater. 0.01 point better than Alina from Georgia who also skated well (and was fun to watch - in a totally different style) in the Free, so not enough to overtake her in the standings. Makabe had a powerful skate to Black Swan with a triple axel, and a fall but still with some great elements. Anna is a beautiful skater, but it wasn't her day (2 falls). Makabe won the Free, but personally this time I would have had her in front of Anna in the end standings. Luckily for Anna, the judges did not agree: they gave Makabe the win on the free but not with enough points to overtake Anna. Anna was so unhappy about her skate, and I could hardly begrudge her that medal! Kseniia was wondrous today. Okay, she had a bit of a problem with one jump (but not a fall) and a deduction because of overskating in time, but she looks really gorgeous on the ice. The best however was saved for last. 10 years after Yuna Kim's win at the Olympics at Vancouver, another Korean young lady got herself an Olympic Gold. At the YOG, but still: Olympic Gold. And deservedly so. She did a triple axel, she was elegant, some beautiful combinations, and just a terrific skate. Congratulations to Young You.
Only the Mixed Team event left as far as Figure Skating is concerned. Although I am very much in favour of this kind of thing (getting team spirit among different countries), I'm not sure yet how I can review that as - it's a working day again - I won't be able to watch everything. I'll try to find a way, but for now: that's all folks.