2018-19 British figure skating

[Dreamer57]

Well the dust has settled and with the conclusion of the Challenge Cup PJ Hallam has gained the minimum TES to go to the World Championships!

His form in the latter half of this season has really improved! I’m gutted for Graham though, he fought hard but it wasn’t to be. Harry showed he really is a gifted performer but those jumps... �� I’m rooting for him though!

Next up Karly to skate in the senior ladies!

Yay for P J Hallam! It's his first Worlds too I think!

That also means we have an entry for every event in Worlds next month!

 

[DSQ]

Yay for P J Hallam! It's his first Worlds too I think!

That also means we have an entry for every event in Worlds next month!

It was touch and go for a month there but British skaters proved they go the grit to keep pushing themselves! While only Lilah and Lewis are in contention for top ten (!!) every single one of the skaters who’ve competed this season can be proud of themselves!

It’s kinda crazy that this will be not only PJ’s first Championship but his first ISU event since he was a junior in 2014!

 

[Edwin]

Well done to the skaters that qualified.
Do Great Britain and yourselves proud in the World Championships.
I'll be rooting for Team GB and hope BBC will bring some coverage.

 

[jersey1302]

I think Fear and Gibson were underscored this year as they were generally unknown. I really hope they get a fair score at worlds if they skate well. They deserve to be in that top 8-10 IMO

 

[DSQ]

I think Fear and Gibson were underscored this year as they were generally unknown. I really hope they get a fair score at worlds if they skate well. They deserve to be in that top 8-10 IMO

It’s strange how these things go isn’t it? They didn’t come up as Juniors but they won a silver medal at Lombardia in their first season. Their FD last season was also very very good imo. I agree if they were more well known I think they’d have gotten on the podium or better at NHK or 5th at Europeans.

As for worlds I really really want them not to give the judges any reason to underscore them. They have a golden opportunity here to be in the top ten I agree. It really all depends on their RD which is understandably their weak point being such a relatively new team.

I think their biggest rivals will be the Canadanes who were really very impressive at 4CC and Hawayek & Baker who have placed above them score wise this season but personally I think with F&G’s meteoric rise could be in danger of being caught. Hurtado & Khaliavin are also in the mix.

My dream is they get 187-190 total score at worlds. Maybe I’m crazy but I think they could do it if the stars aligned.

 

[DSQ]

Well done to the skaters that qualified.
Do Great Britain and yourselves proud in the World Championships.
I'll be rooting for Team GB and hope BBC will bring some coverage.

I hope the BBC cover it too! They covered Nationals. Not a national paper but The Scotsman, the Scottish national paper, sent a reporter to Euros just to report on Lewis and Natasha McKay as both are Scots.

 

[Dreamer57]

I hope the BBC cover it too! They covered Nationals. Not a national paper but The Scotsman, the Scottish national paper, sent a reporter to Euros just to report on Lewis and Natasha McKay as both are Scots.

I hope the Yorkshire Post sends someone to report on PJ
After all, Sheffield does host the national championships and the Euros back in 2012 (so it would be nice)!

 

[DSQ]

You should contact them and ask that they cover WC! Worst they could say is no!

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

I hope the BBC cover it too! They covered Nationals. Not a national paper but The Scotsman, the Scottish national paper, sent a reporter to Euros just to report on Lewis and Natasha McKay as both are Scots.

That is cool. Credit to them for doing that.

During the years that Jenna McCorkell was dominating the British Championships, the national papers over here (Belfast Newsletter, Belfast Telegraph) didn't even bother reporting on it. They would occasionally run feature pieces about her life, but not regular reports about how she was getting on in competitions. Admittedly, during the Sochi Olympics she did get a bit more attention, with feature pieces appearing in all the main papers. But in terms of reporting the actual skating, all we tended to get was just a sentence or two within a round-up story from a news agency.

Ironically, the Scotsman and the Newsletter are ultimately owned by the same company (Johnston Press, as was). So, that is now making me angry that our lot wouldn't make the effort like your reporters did.

I hope the Yorkshire Post sends someone to report on PJ
After all, Sheffield does host the national championships and the Euros back in 2012 (so it would be nice)!

That sounds like the basis of a very good argument for reporting on it. So, I agree with DSQ that you should contact them.

Although, I don't think many newspapers could afford to actually send somebody to Japan to report on, well, anything. But, they could at least get somebody to follow it from home, like we will be doing. :agree:

Before I finish, I should add that when I was complaining about the lack of coverage that Jenna's exploits was getting in papers over here, I was only talking about the national papers. I suspect she may have been getting more coverage in her local papers, the Coleraine Times (also owned by Johnston Press, as was) or the Coleraine Chronicle (owned by a NI based media group). But, I don't actually know, because their distribution areas don't extend as far as where I live.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[La Rhumba]

I hope the BBC cover it too! They covered Nationals. Not a national paper but The Scotsman, the Scottish national paper, sent a reporter to Euros just to report on Lewis and Natasha McKay as both are Scots.

Are you sure about that? I thought she covered it via watching TV, Twitter, and phone calls/skype to Lewis to get quotes. In fact I'm pretty sure she didn't actually travel to Minsk. I find some of the Scottish reporting quite embarrassing, and often don't retweet it, as it's all "Scottish Ice Dancer Lewis...…" then a brief mention "with partner Lilah, from London". Infact she even reported during Euros that Tweedale and Buckland "are from London". A simple check would've shown her they're not, and she obviously didn't speak to them in Minsk and hear their accents! Then this week we had the dreaded "New Torvill & Dean" headline in an interview with Lewis's parents. After reading it, again not retweeting as I don't want to hex them, I just thought, do the Kerrs and Coomes & Buckland not count? Both Bronze medal winners at Euros over the past decade. it's just lazy journalism. I hasten to add, the last article was not written by Jane Bradley who is reporting on the competitions.

 

[La Rhumba]

Well done to the skaters that qualified.
Do Great Britain and yourselves proud in the World Championships.
I'll be rooting for Team GB and hope BBC will bring some coverage.

Thank you Edwin. Apparently you got much more coverage of Euros this year on Dutch TV, so my friend in Amsterdam tells me. Also glad to hear the Announcer at Challenge Cup change from "Aus Engeland" introducing Karly Robertson in the SP to "Aus Gross Britainean" for the FP.

 

[La Rhumba]

I think Fear and Gibson were underscored this year as they were generally unknown. I really hope they get a fair score at worlds if they skate well. They deserve to be in that top 8-10 IMO

I hope so too, but they were not unknown to the Judges. They competed 12 times last season, including at prestigious events like Finlandia Trophy, (where they were 3rd in FD TES) but the Judges had them always improving after the FD (they've had stronger FDs in all 3 seasons they've competed) but always much higher TES than PCS. That's how this season started too, with PCS being too low, and it's only in the past couple of competitions that their PCS has started to accurately reflect their performances. Unfortunately they began this season with their RD being much weaker, but it's improved hugely, they've worked very hard on it, and hopefully will be even better come Worlds.

Also last season they won medals at events like Bavarian Open, Torun Cup which are watched by diehard fans but not covered greatly unless big names are taking part.
Though I can laugh now, but was fuming at the time, that yes, Judges do score according to nationality/reputation. In only their 2nd competition at Lake Placid in 2016 (their 1st comp was Streatham Open in London, and got rave reviews for their Free Dance) in a field of mostly American couples, some International, they were 11th. A couple of weeks later they won silver at Lombardia, beating couples they were placed behind at Lake Placid, yet skating the same level. What's the explanation? I'll leave you to guess.

 

[La Rhumba]

Found the Results from 2016 Lake Placid International

https://www.ice-dance.com/site/results-2016-lake-placid-ice-dance-international/

Had forgotten Lilah & Lewis were 12th in the SD, 9th in the FD. Apart from wanting to watch them, this was the first competition for Olivia Smart after teaming up with Adrian Diaz and switching to compete for Spain. At the end of the British Championships in Sheffield in December, 2015, which was Lewis's final event as a Singles Skater. NISA held a try out session for him with female icedancers, of which Olivia, IIRC, participated.
Lombardia was 5 weeks later, and their total score had increased from 115.49 at LPI to 139.60.

 

[La Rhumba]

Another former British skater, Molly Lanaghan, who was British Junior Pairs Champion (with Jake Astill, who is now a commercial Pilot), now Canadian Ice Dancer has set up a Go Fund Me page with partner Dmitre.

https://www.gofundme.com/smbvh-molly-lanaghan-amp-dmitre-razgulajevs

Molly initially teamed up with Joe Buckland (though they never actually competed, only skated in Galas). This would've been their SD for the season.

https://youtu.be/WdR2dG1NmsA

So this was really interesting to me, as I honestly didn't realise Dmitre works full time as well as training. Someone asked me recently on Twitter why Stephen Adcock competes in Pairs for Canada when if he competed for his native Britain (being from Essex) he would get International assignments, as we have a sum total of 3 Pairs in Britain, and only Zoe & Chris at Senior level. I assumed that Skate Canada helped generously with funding, but perhaps not?

 

[DSQ]

Are you sure about that? I thought she covered it via watching TV, Twitter, and phone calls/skype to Lewis to get quotes. In fact I'm pretty sure she didn't actually travel to Minsk. I find some of the Scottish reporting quite embarrassing, and often don't retweet it, as it's all "Scottish Ice Dancer Lewis...…" then a brief mention "with partner Lilah, from London". Infact she even reported during Euros that Tweedale and Buckland "are from London". A simple check would've shown her they're not, and she obviously didn't speak to them in Minsk and hear their accents! Then this week we had the dreaded "New Torvill & Dean" headline in an interview with Lewis's parents. After reading it, again not retweeting as I don't want to hex them, I just thought, do the Kerrs and Coomes & Buckland not count? Both Bronze medal winners at Euros over the past decade. it's just lazy journalism. I hasten to add, the last article was not written by Jane Bradley who is reporting on the competitions.

I thought that she took a picture from inside the stadium (https://twitter.com/janekbradley/status/1088800940197584896?s=21 it could be a screen grab not that I look at it...) but yeah her coverage of the English skaters was not great!

Another former British skater, Molly Lanaghan, who was British Junior Pairs Champion (with Jake Astill, who is now a commercial Pilot), now Canadian Ice Dancer has set up a Go Fund Me page with partner Dmitre.

https://www.gofundme.com/smbvh-molly-lanaghan-amp-dmitre-razgulajevs

Molly initially teamed up with Joe Buckland (though they never actually competed, only skated in Galas). This would've been their SD for the season.

https://youtu.be/WdR2dG1NmsA

So this was really interesting to me, as I honestly didn't realise Dmitre works full time as well as training. Someone asked me recently on Twitter why Stephen Adcock competes in Pairs for Canada when if he competed for his native Britain (being from Essex) he would get International assignments, as we have a sum total of 3 Pairs in Britain, and only Zoe & Chris at Senior level. I assumed that Skate Canada helped generously with funding, but perhaps not?

Yeah this confuses me but perhaps it’s the political power they’re looking for? Be one of the top pairs in Canada and you’ll go to GP events.

Thank you Edwin. Apparently you got much more coverage of Euros this year on Dutch TV, so my friend in Amsterdam tells me. Also glad to hear the Announcer at Challenge Cup change from "Aus Engeland" introducing Karly Robertson in the SP to "Aus Gross Britainean" for the FP.

They must have been told off I hope! I’d be fuming if it were me. As I said on Twitter so many countries/languages use England and Great Britain interchangeably but Dutch has no excuse! xD

 

[DSQ]

Just found this lovely video of Lilah, Lewis and Graham when they all visited Pyongchang with the Team GB Ambition program:

https://youtu.be/VAMc4Kkr-e8

 

[La Rhumba]

Our friend Jane Bradley from the Scotsman asked PJ to follow her back on Twitter so she could DM him and has now written this article.

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/gb-to-send-full-team-of-skaters-to-world-championships-1-4878980

I'm so delighted for him, but just as heartbroken for Karly, who did so well to finish 6th in a such a high class field at Challenge Cup yesterday. I really do think she should go to Worlds too instead of being 1st Reserve, she has the potential to achieve a higher placement with a wider variety of triple jumps, and I personally love her programmes. The British Championships result could have gone either way.

In the article Jenna McCorkell-van der Perren's instagram comments are quoted (it's so easy to be a professional journo nowadays ). Who would've thought Jenna would become a high powered business woman with her own sports clothing company? Certainly not me! But loving that she is still associated with Team GB.

So anyway, Jane Bradley and I are now following eachother :agree: and grateful that a newspaper reporter is covering our Sport. I go back to the days when National papers like the Times, Telegraph & Guardian had a Skating Correspondent, and reported on all the big events. Nowadays all we get is regional papers covering the British Championships, if at all. Thank god for the internet. Really, it is Skating's best friend by a mile.

 

[La Rhumba]

Just found this lovely video of Lilah, Lewis and Graham when they all visited Pyongchang with the Team GB Ambition program:

https://youtu.be/VAMc4Kkr-e8

Love it! Lilah always speaks so well. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the time difference. Sochi was so great in that respect. I can honestly say I never saw one second of the Beijing Summer Games live. :noshake:

 

[jersey1302]

I really hate having to say that they got underscored because they were not known to judges. The new scoring system is supposed to prevent this type of thing from happening with a certain base value of an element. The judges all have experience giving GOE and all know what a high GOE vs no or low GOE looks like. It shouldn't matter how new or veteran the team is. They should be scored accordingly to that specific performance.

 

[litenkyckling]

Love it! Lilah always speaks so well. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the time difference. Sochi was so great in that respect. I can honestly say I never saw one second of the Beijing Summer Games live. :noshake:

Same! I loved the times of the Rio games because I could catch some on my lunch break and then quite a bit after work as well (yay for Montreal worlds time difference)