3 double World champions in 3 disciplines

Crossover · Apr 7, 2016

Except the ladies' event, all the previous World champions in men, pairs and ice dance have defended their titles in Boston.

Javier Fernandez of Spain in men
Duhamel & Radford of Canada in pairs
Papadakis & Cizeron of France in ice dance

The fact is interesting enough for me to check on the winners of the past championships since 1980. And this season's Worlds is the first occasion in the CoP era for the reigning champions in three disciplines to have such consecutive victories in two years. Under the 6.0 system, same occasions occurred in 1989/1990 and 1998/1999.

1989-90 Kurt Browning in men, Gordeeva & Grinkov in pairs, Klimova & Ponomarenko in ice dance
1998-99 Yagudin in men, Berezhnaya & Anton Sikharulidze in pairs, Krylova & Ovsyannikov in ice dance

Interestingly, all three occasions exclude winners of ladies' event. G & G also repeated their title in 1986 after 1985.

There would exist similar occasions in pre-1980. In addition, several Worlds had defending champions with consecutive victories in two disciplines. This info is just for a fun before the whole threads related to the Boston Worlds are achieved.

If all the winners here repeat their titles again in Helsinki next year, that would be also the very first occasion to have 3-time World champions in the 3 disciplines in 3 consecutive years under the CoP era (too many 3s!). Isn't it interesting?

WeakAnkles · Apr 7, 2016

alebi · Apr 7, 2016

It's interesting indeed! And I think now, with this scoring system, it's way more difficult to prove yourself to be a world champion, since every little mistake can you really cost a placement.

sarama · Apr 7, 2016

It was really impressive, and not at all expected to see all three defending champions repeat this year, and to add another coincidence they all train in Canada (there must be something in the water there!)... maybe WeaPo and Patrick Chan should consider training in their country as well :slink:

blue_idealist · Apr 7, 2016

I think it might be harder to repeat in the ladies' event since the ladies are generally younger than the men, pairs and dance teams, and body changes can contribute to a (relative) lack of consistency from year to year. Of course, it might be just coincidence that they never repeated in the same year as all the other three disciplines, since after all, Michelle Kwan was able to win many World titles in a row.

Mathman · Apr 7, 2016

blue_idealist said:
Michelle Kwan was able to win many World titles in a row.

She did it only once: 2000 and 2001.

Michelle was favored in 1999, but lost to Mrs. Rice.

If she had won as expect, that would have given repeating champions in all four disciplines. Has this ever happened?

NaVi · Apr 7, 2016

A more interesting fact IMO... it's the 2nd year in a row where every ladies medalist is a new medalist. Before 2015 and 2016 it had happened 9 times: 2007(Ando, Asada, Yuna), 1991(Yamaguchi, Harding, Kerrigan), 1981(Biellmann, Zayak, Kristofics-Binder), 1977(Fratianne, Pötzsch, Lurz), 1953, 1949... 1947(after WWII), 1922(after WWI), 1906(1st contest).

blue_idealist · Apr 7, 2016

Mathman said:
She did it only once: 2000 and 2001.

Michelle was favored in 1999, but lost to Mrs. Rice. If she had won as expect, that would have given repeating champions in all four disciplines. Has this ever happened?

Oops, for some reason I thought it was more often than that for Michelle. I should check my facts lol.

xibsuarz · Apr 7, 2016

Mathman said:
She did it only once: 2000 and 2001.

Michelle was favored in 1999, but lost to Mrs. Rice. If she had won as expect, that would have given repeating champions in all four disciplines. Has this ever happened?

It has happened! A quick research made me realize that, although it's uncommon, it has happened more times than I expected.

The 1957 and 1958 World Championships had the same Champions on the 4 disciplines: David Jenkins, Carol Heiss, Barbara Wagner/Robert Paul and June Markham/Courtney Jones. And well, perhaps you could argue they kept going on 1959, but Courtney Jones had a different partner (Doreen Denny).

It also happened on 1966, 1967 AND 1968: Emmerich Danzer, Peggy Fleming, Ludmila Belousova/Oleg Protopopov and Diane Towler/Bernard Ford
The last one was on 1971 and 1972: Ondrej Nepela, Beatrix Schuba, Irina Rodnina/Alexei Ulanov, Lyudmila Pakhomova/Alexandr Gorshkov.

4everchan · Apr 7, 2016

canada is a source of much of the drinkable water in the world but maybe it's just good coaching and training conditions ? the pairs and dance both train in montreal... a very nice city.

Patrick and Weapo, well they have at one point trained in Canada but Patrick enjoys training in a more secluded environment... and I don't know about Weapo's preference.

sarama said:
It was really impressive, and not at all expected to see all three defending champions repeat this year, and to add another coincidence they all train in Canada (there must be something in the water there!)... maybe WeaPo and Patrick Chan should consider training in their country as well

khughes · Apr 7, 2016

blue_idealist said:
I think it might be harder to repeat in the ladies' event since the ladies are generally younger than the men, pairs and dance teams, and body changes can contribute to a (relative) lack of consistency from year to year. Of course, it might be just coincidence that they never repeated in the same year as all the other three disciplines, since after all, Michelle Kwan was able to win many World titles in a row.

Tuk had gone through puberty the year before (it seems), so that doesn't explain what went wrong for her this season. The Americans should get points for not flaming out Russian style. But something tells me Medvedeva has staying power.

Crossover · Apr 7, 2016

sarama said:
It was really impressive, and not at all expected to see all three defending champions repeat this year, and to add another coincidence they all train in Canada (there must be something in the water there!)... maybe WeaPo and Patrick Chan should consider training in their country as well

It indeed is another interesting fact to know. Javi training in Toronto, D/R and P/C in Montreal.
Detroit where Patrick trains is very close to Canada, so the water he drinks would be same as residents in Ontario

Hanyu perhaps needs to increase his training time in Canada.

Virtue/Moir will join in Dubreuil/Lauzon's group...so well. Canada has a lot of talented skaters from all over the place.

Crossover · Apr 7, 2016

blue_idealist said:
I think it might be harder to repeat in the ladies' event since the ladies are generally younger than the men, pairs and dance teams, and body changes can contribute to a (relative) lack of consistency from year to year. Of course, it might be just coincidence that they never repeated in the same year as all the other three disciplines, since after all, Michelle Kwan was able to win many World titles in a row.

Along with Kwan, Katarina Witt and Kristi Yamaguchi repeated their titles in a row since 1980. Katarina Witt repeated that twice; 1984 and 1985 & 1987 and 1988. (what an incredible skater she was) However, in those years when the ladies' champions defended their titles, only each pairs and ice dance produced defending champions in a row.

1987-88 Katarina Witt in ladies, Natalia Bestemianova & Andrei Bukin in ice dance
1991-92 Kristi Yamaguchi in ladies, Natalia Mishkutenok & Artur Dmitriev in pairs

4everchan · Apr 7, 2016

all our ladies train in canada... maybe we should send them to japan or russia ?

mind you, they are on the right track .

Crossover said:
It indeed is another interesting fact to know. Javi training in Toronto, D/R and P/C in Montreal.
Detroit where Patrick trains is very close to Canada, so the water he drinks would be same as residents in Ontario

Hanyu perhaps needs to increase his training time in Canada.
Virtue/Moir will join in Dubreuil/Lauzon's group...so well. Canada has a lot of talented skaters from all over the place.

Crossover · Apr 7, 2016

xibsuarz said:
It has happened! A quick research made me realize that, although it's uncommon, it has happened more times than I expected.

The 1957 and 1958 World Championships had the same Champions on the 4 disciplines: David Jenkins, Carol Heiss, Barbara Wagner/Robert Paul and June Markham/Courtney Jones. And well, perhaps you could argue they kept going on 1959, but Courtney Jones had a different partner (Doreen Denny).

It also happened on 1966, 1967 AND 1968: Emmerich Danzer, Peggy Fleming, Ludmila Belousova/Oleg Protopopov and Diane Towler/Bernard Ford
The last one was on 1971 and 1972: Ondrej Nepela, Beatrix Schuba, Irina Rodnina/Alexei Ulanov, Lyudmila Pakhomova/Alexandr Gorshkov.

Thanks for the research. I knew that must be similar cases before 1980, but I felt anything dating back to the pre-1980 in figure skating is too distant history for me (and got lazy too). It would be wonderful if all four disciplines have reigning champions in a row someday in future.

Mathman · Apr 8, 2016

Crossover said:
Detroit where Patrick trains is very close to Canada,…

True. Ontario is just south of Detroit.

Trivia question: If you go directly south from Detroit, what are the first two foreign countries that you come to? Answer: Canada and Cuba.

Crossover said:
Thanks for the research. I knew that must be similar cases before 1980, but I felt anything dating back to the pre-1980 in figure skating is too distant history for me (and got lazy too). It would be wonderful if all four disciplines have reigning champions in a row someday in future.

But then, too, it is also wonderful when someone new comes along.

jeff goldblum · Apr 8, 2016

Mathman said:
She did it only once: 2000 and 2001.

Michelle was favored in 1999, but lost to Mrs. Rice. If she had won as expect, that would have given repeating champions in all four disciplines. Has this ever happened?

However, I believe she is still the only person to regain the world title three times.

3 double World champions in 3 disciplines

Crossover

All Hail the Queen

WeakAnkles

alebi

sarama

blue_idealist

Mathman

NaVi

blue_idealist

xibsuarz

4everchan

khughes

Crossover

All Hail the Queen

Crossover

All Hail the Queen

4everchan

Crossover

All Hail the Queen

Mathman

jeff goldblum

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