I don't know if this is where her name comes from, but "afton" means "evening" in Swedish
It's a cool name in any case!
Thank you for a great recap! I'm trying to find a way to get around the geoblock & would appreciate any tips anyone might have
Cool! You learn something new every day!
Afton and the Icicles were not in the next episode.
Episode 2 - The Big Decision
We again had three strands, but this time it was Ice Dancing, Singles Skating and Speed Skating.
First up was Ice Dance, and Adriano had to make his choice over who he wanted to partner. Of the two, Chloe was the better skater and was more experienced. But she was the taller of the 2 girls, and we have all heard the comments on here about differences in height. Ella was smaller, and Adriano found that he got on better with her.
So, it does not take a genius to work out who Adriano and their coach, Sophie, both picked as their choice!
This is where it gets funny. We were then introduced to 2 older girls who were also without partners, Lauren and Kershia. The girl that was not chosen met up with them at a café. One of them suggested looking for a partner on the internet, and she produced a laptop and brought up Ice Partner Search. Except, because it’s the BBC where you are not allowed to advertise, the website name and all the logos were blanked out!
Well, they did a search using the criteria Chloe was looking, and they came up with one result. In Latvia. So, she was advised to go home and make a profile.
And that was where we moved onto the next strand: Singles Skating. And we met our second Josh of the series. As soon as he came on, I thought “I’ve definitely seen him before!” And, unlike with Afton, this time I was right!
The storyline here was that he was getting ready for “a competition in Luxembourg”. Mmmm. I wonder what competition that could be. It wouldn’t be the Coupe de Printemps by any chance…?
It was so funny the lengths the BBC were going to so as to avoid mentioning the name of the competition. And for what reason?! Like, it is not as if “printemps” is the name of a sponsor or anything. It is the French word for the season the competition is held in! So please, BBC, tell me what is wrong with mentioning the “Spring Cup”?!
Unless it was to avoid us looking up the results and spoiling the story!
So, I looked up the entry list for the Coupe de Printemps, saw Josh’s full name, looked up his ISU Bio (carefully avoiding looking at the results column!), and quickly realised that it was at last season’s Volvo Open that I had seen him. (Now, if it was that competition that was being featured, I would have understood the BBC being so cryptic!)
But, it was later on in the story that this “competition in Luxembourg” was first mentioned. So, time to rewind.
As you know from the first episode, we have another Josh being featured in the series, in Ice Dance. So, I am surprised that the programme makers have not made any attempt to distinguish them. (Perhaps to avoid confusion they are going to make sure they are always in different episodes?) Since I know who the Singles Skater Josh is, I am going to refer to him from now on by his initial, Josh B. And it will soon become clear that there are multiple reasons for doing this!
After we were introduced to Josh B, we were introduced to his story. And it is a very interesting one. Josh B and his family are from Lincoln, 30 miles away from Nottingham. But, because Josh B was going to Nottingham to train every day, they hardly ever had time together as a family. So, they took the plunge and moved to Nottingham. The parents changed jobs, and the children changed schools and had to make new friends. But they all said they were a lot happier now, as they got to see each other more. And this was especially the case with Josh B’s sister, Chloe B.
When we got to the rink, we were introduced to Josh B’s coach, Gurgen, who is described briefly by the narrator as an “ex-Olympic figure skater”. But we know him better as Armenian skater Gurgen Vardanjan, who went on to coach Hungarian skater Júlia Sebestyén.
We were also introduced to a friend of Josh B’s, a Ladies Singles skater called Kloe. (So, that’s the third girl with the same name in one episode. Thank goodness this one spells her name differently!) She is also coached by Gurgen, and Josh B says that having trained together for years, they drive each other on. I have no idea where Kloe is from, but she has a beautiful accent!
After showing Josh B practicing, we moved onto the main strand for the episode. Speed skating with a girl called Maddy. I have no interest whatsoever in speed skating (it’s just going round and round in circles!), but I found Maddy’s story VERY interesting.
Basically, she had to stop skating for 6 months because she had developed serious breathing difficulties. The narrator told us that it is a very common condition that happens to speed skaters that push too hard too young. Maddy’s coach, Mandy, then elaborated, telling us that 2 of her skaters had developed that condition this year, Maddy and Ben. She explained what happens is that the skater runs out of breath, runs out of energy, gets dizzy and ends up having a panic attack.
Maddy explained that because this is happening, she has come to associate it with skating. And even though she loves skating, it is putting her off.
Just like the Icicles in the first episode, Maddy has a competition coming up where she needs to get below a specific time to qualify for international events. So, she decides to try a vegetarian diet to see if that will help. Oh, it was so entertaining watching her attempt to cook! That said, I know fine well that if it was me, I would be making the same mistakes!
We then return to Josh B, and he is talking about his routine. A thing that surprised me is that he gets out of school early every day (14:15) to go to training. Having heard stories about how strict schools in England are on going on holidays during term time, and on how they threaten parents if their child misses so many days during a year, I thought they would not be as accommodating as this.
He was also talking about how he is doing his GCSE’s this year, and that the amount of schoolwork is increasing. And that between this and training, it means he has no social life. He does try to be philosophical about it, saying that he sees his friends at school every day anyway, but then admits that he sees things on Facebook (Shock! Horror! The BBC didn’t edit out the reference to Facebook!) that his friends have been doing, and wishes he was there too.
A week before the “competition in Luxembourg”, Josh B visits a physiotherapist, who finds an injury on his ankle. He works out that it has formed because Josh B has increased his training in the lead up to the competition, and is getting irritated when Josh B is putting his skates on, and doing his “more extreme” moves.
Not what you want to hear in the week leading to a competition. But, Kloe is in a bad situation too. She has injured her foot, and it was hurting so much when she went to training on the Monday that she had to be sent home. So, when we catch up with her, she is resting with an ice pack on her foot. But, she is determined to be back training the following day!
We then return to Maddy, and it is competition day. Since it is a fundamental part of the subsequent story, I have to mention what happened. So, if you don’t want to know, don’t highlight the box!
Maddy had problems with her breathing again, on the last lap. Although she did manage to finish the race, she was 2 seconds outside the time required.
So, realising that that was essentially her season over, Maddy decided to approach things differently in future. She still enjoys skating, but because this happens when she pushes herself, she is not enjoying the competing. So, she has decided to branch out. She wants to continue the training, as she enjoys that, but also wants to do other things in her life, such as going out with her friends more. So, we see her and a friend getting ready for a rock concert.
Oh, did I forget to mention? Maddy is a Goth!!! 
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What I have just discussed about Maddy was actually in 2 different segments. In between these was a segment about Chloe (the Ice Dancer). She was back looking at Ice Partner Search, but this time with her Mum. And she put in what she was looking, and they got a massive shock when the results came up… there were no boys that fitted the criteria!
So, she decided to set up a profile for herself, in the hope that they would find her. We saw her going through the process of doing it (still with the website logo blanked out!), and working out what she wanted and what to say about herself. And she was being very sensible about it. I know that when I was that age, I couldn’t have put something like that together!
We haven’t seen much of Chloe on the ice so far. But if she is anything like the way she is when off the ice, then she has what it takes to do well in this sport. So, I really hope Chloe does find a partner, and that he has the same attitude that she does. Because that would be a very promising partnership.
Next time: we return to Ice Hockey, but this time with an older team (U-16). We meet a younger Ladies skater caller Keira and, judging by the clip, it looks like her Dad is having a go!
Oh, and “Jellie” return!!!
CaroLiza_fan
Sounds like a fun series!
The show sounds really interesting. I really like your reports, CaroLiza_fan 
