British and Irish Figure skating 2022-2023 | Page 18 | Golden Skate

British and Irish Figure skating 2022-2023

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Just wanted to update you on a story I posted in last season's thread.



I saw a follow-in report on Sky News this morning. But before I get to that, I have found out that there was an update in July. So, I will post that first.

Here is the video:

https://news.sky.com/video/ukrainian-skater-gets-dancing-on-ice-stars-help-12651473

And here is the accompanying story:

https://news.sky.com/story/dancing-...re-skater-who-fled-ukraine-war-to-uk-12651413

The video is not a proper report. It's one of those mobile phone vertical videos that I hate. But, the story is more comprehensive.

It tells us that, after the initial report was aired, Ameican Pairs skater Matt Evers offered to work with Gosha. It also features British Pairs skater Fiona Zaldua, who is the head coach at the rink in Britstol that Gosha trains at, talking about him.

Fast forward to now, and to the latest update. A proper report!

Here is the video:

https://news.sky.com/video/ukraine-...skater-who-fled-the-war-returns-home-12774755

And here is the accompanying story:

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-...e-uk-now-theyve-risked-a-return-home-12773562

Basically, Gosha was missing his Dad like mad. So, after living in Bristol for 4 months, he and his Mum have now returned home to Kiev.

He's still training, and we see the conditions he is training under at the rink. Suffice to say, it's not great. Because of the power shortages, the lighting is poor.

But, it was interesting to see just how many kids there were on the ice with him. Even with everything that is going on, lots of people are still going to the rink to skate.

I wish all the best to all of them! And hope that they keep safe and well.

CaroLiza_fan
Thank you for this! I wondered how Gosha was getting on. I hope they stay safe and well and peace returns soon.
 
Apologies if I am turning this thread into an extension of the Sky News website, but I have just found out by chance that a few weeks ago they did a feature on another skater that I have posted about in the British And Irish Season threads.

I started a thread about the story over in The Edge about half an hour ago, but I just realised that I should have posted about it in here as well.

BBC Northern Ireland are currently running a fascinating and inspirational story about a young local skater.

As a preview, here are the first 4 paragraphs (the same as is displayed on the BBC's teletext service):

An 11-year-old girl, who is autistic and has ADHD, has said she struggled to express herself until she discovered ice skating.

Teddy Weston is a British and World champion in inclusive ice skating and is one of the first to represent NI.

Inclusive ice skating provides a safe space for people with additional needs and their families to enjoy the sport.

Teddy's mum, Claire, is hoping more children, like her daughter, can get involved in ice skating.

Full Story:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61951584

It's so good to see somebody putting Our Wee Country on the map in another branch of figure skating.

All the best for the future Teddy!

CaroLiza_fan

Well, 5 months after BBC NI ran their story about her, Teddy was featured on the 9th December episode of the Sky News children's programme "FYI". (Can't say I've ever watched that programme before. I suppose it is kinda like the BBC's "Newsround", the difference being that this one is presented by children).

Here is the direct link to the report about Teddy, within the whole episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMLiGSV2SNg&t=679

Don't be put off by the title of the video. It is referring to the main topic under discussion at the start of the episode. The report about Teddy is near the end of the episode.

She is just ADORABLE!!! :love: :love: :love:

Without giving away the elephant in the room, I loved the fact that Teddy's microphone matched something else that she was wearing.

And although she wasn't talking during the report, it was so nice to see Amy Irwin on the ice with Teddy. But, it makes me feel old seeing her acting as a coach. I remember the time when it was Amy that was our up and coming young prospect...

All the best to Teddy in adding to her already impressive collection of medals!

CaroLiza_fan
 
I just had to come in straight away and post this.

Kristen Spours has just won the EDU Sport Trophy in Romania!!!

:cheer: :clap: :rock: :party2: :points: :hb:

It was a British 1-2 after the SP, with Nina Povey just 0.72 points behind her.

Kristen won the FS by only 0.56 points from Julia Sauter (ROU), but won overall by 7.95 points, also over Julia.

Nina finished third in both the FS and overall.

I am delighted. I have a real soft spot for Kristen. And after everything she has been through in her career, she deserves it.

:cheer: WELL DONE KRISTEN!!! :cheer:

CaroLiza_fan
 
I just had to come in straight away and post this.

Kristen Spours has just won the EDU Sport Trophy in Romania!!!

:cheer: :clap: :rock: :party2: :points: :hb:

It was a British 1-2 after the SP, with Nina Povey just 0.72 points behind her.

Kristen won the FS by only 0.56 points from Julia Sauter (ROU), but won overall by 7.95 points, also over Julia.

Nina finished third in both the FS and overall.

I am delighted. I have a real soft spot for Kristen. And after everything she has been through in her career, she deserves it.

:cheer: WELL DONE KRISTEN!!! :cheer:

CaroLiza_fan
Well, this is marvellous news for a Monday morning! Thank you so much for posting that! (I don't keep up with all the competitions but love hearing about them anyway.) Well done, Kristen. :cheer:
 
For those who still have a subscription, I have just discovered that all of the skating from the university games is on the new Eurosport site.
 
For those who still have a subscription, I have just discovered that all of the skating from the university games is on the new Eurosport site.

Sorry, I never thought of making out a schedule post for the Universiade coverage for this thread. But, I did post links for the livestreams on Discovery+ and the Eurosport website at the start of each segment over in the event thread.

Don't worry, I will do schedule posts for Europeans, 4 Continents and Worlds. And post them both here and in the event's sub-forum.

By the way, to coincide with the closure of the Eurosport Player, the full Discovery+ was made available as part of the basic package on Sky Q. Before then, Sky Q just had the entertainment content. But now the Eurosport content is also available.

And it has given me a dilemma. We have BT Sport which, due to it now being run by Discovery, entitles us to Discovery+. I was planning on signing up to Discovery+ via BT Sport when my current Eurosport contract runs out in 5 weeks time.

The thing is, the only thing we watch on BT Sport is MotoGP. And there are so many question marks over what will happen during the process of BT Sport and British Eurosport getting combined. I am assuming that we will end up with 2 sports tiers, with an expensive premium tier for the mainstream sports like football, rugby, cricket and tennis; and a cheaper basic tier for the other sports.

For all we know, the management might end up deciding to move the MotoGP to the cheaper tier, so that it is alongside all the motorbike racing that British Eurosport has the rights to. If that happens, I would want to get rid of BT Sport in a heartbeat, as it has got so expensive. The problem, though, is that BT like to lock you into 24 month contracts, and our current contract is up this summer. So, if we re-contracted and the MotoGP did get moved out of the expensive tier after that, we would still be stuck paying for the premium stuff for the remainder of the new contract. And by the time the 24 months is up, a completely different broadcaster may well be showing the MotoGP, as the current BT Sport deal runs out at the end of the 2024 season! :drama: (Sky, Viaplay and DAZN all have MotoGP rights in other countries, so may want to add the British Isles rights to their roster).

Unfortunately, if we got Discovery+ via BT Sport, that would mean it would get cancelled if we got rid of BT Sport. And I don't know if having previously had it with BT Sport would prevent us getting Discovery+ via a different route.

We currently have Sky+HD, which does not support Discovery+. I was always against switching to Sky Q, because I liked the way things are done on Sky+HD, while I didn't like the way things were done on Sky Q. But, with Sky adding so many things in recent years that are only available via Sky Q, it is becoming better value for money than Sky+HD. And having the full Discovery+ available on Sky Q could turn out to be the tipping point for me. When I can, I always prefer to watch things on the TV than the computer.

The problem here is that we are still on an old Sky package where Sky Sports F1 was bundled in with the HD channels. And I don't know if our current package can be carried over to Sky Q. I certainly don't want to have to subscribe to the full Sky Sports pack just to continue getting Formula 1. If we can't take our legacy F1 pack over to Sky Q, I would rather stay with Sky+HD and just have Discovery+ on the computer.

And all that is before we get to the figure skating moving to Viaplay next season. :drama:

Oh, everything is so complicated now! :mad: How I miss the days when Eurosport had the rights to all the sports I liked! 😞

CaroLiza_fan
 
Thanks CaroLiza. I don't have Discovery+ at the moment. I'm going to see how things go with Eurosport. I had Eurosport Player for two sports - figure skating and cycling. As far as I know, cycling is staying with Eurosport (I think it's one of their bigger earners) so there seems little point paying the extra for Discovery+ when the skating will be leaving there anyway.
 
Where is the best place to watch the European Championships? I don't have Eurosport unfortunately, no idea if BBC are showing any of it.
 
Where is the best place to watch the European Championships? I don't have Eurosport unfortunately, no idea if BBC are showing any of it.

The BBC normally only have coverage of Worlds. And just the Free Skates at that.

Your best bet would probably be to watch the World Feed coverage on the ISU YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@SkatingISU

Whether we will need a VPN to watch on there, though, is anybody's guess. We did need to last season. But we didn't need to for most of the Senior GP's this season.

Hope this helps

CaroLiza_fan
 
I think there might be an option to get Eurosport on trial for a short period, but you would only be able to do so once (unless you use different email addresses).

Normally if stuff is on Eurosport then the ISU coverage gets georistricted for us, but that did not happen for the senior grand prix this year. It may be that Eurosport have lost interest in protecting it with their rights ending at the end of the season.
 
I’m a skater that currently lives in Canada, but we are moving to Ireland in June. Does anyone know how many rinks there are on the island
 
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I’m a skater that currently lives in Canada, but we are moving to Ireland in June. Does anyone know how many rinks there are on the island

A grand total of two. And both of them are in the County Down part of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.

The Odyssey Arena, near the centre of Belfast, is generally not open to public skating (it sometimes is over the Christmas period). The rink is mainly used for ice hockey matches, and the arena doubles up as Northern Ireland's main concert venue.

The Dundonald Ice Bowl is the main rink for the public and figure skaters to use. It is in the suburb of Dundonald, and is about 5 miles from the Odyssey. It is where all the Irish figure skaters that are still based on the island train.

There used to be a rink at the Jet Centre in Coleraine, on the North Coast. But it closed about 20 years ago. That was where I had my first experience on the ice.

It wasn't always the case that the only rinks were in Northern Ireland. There also used to be a rink in Dundalk, County Louth, exactly half-way between Dublin and Belfast. It closed in 2010. There have been a lot of rumours in recent years about the Dundalk Ice Dome re-opening. But, so far, nothing has come of it.

I feel sorry for the Tkacheva sisters. They live in County Wexford, in the south-east corner of the island. And they have to do a 350 mile round trip to train in Dundonald. At least if Dundalk re-opened, it would only be a 230 mile round trip for them.

But, even if Dundalk did re-open, it would still mean that all the rinks on Ireland would be in the North-East quarter of the island. There would still be nothing for anybody in the rest of the island.

Whereabouts in the island are you moving to? I'm right slap bang in the middle of Northern Ireland, in County Tyrone.

If there's anything you need help with, feel free to ask me.

CaroLiza_fan
 
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I’ve got that used to events starting on the Thursday that it didn’t cross my mind until there now that the European Championships might be starting earlier in the week. And, sure enough, they are starting tomorrow.

Unfortunately there are a lot of other sports happening this week that always get priority on Eurosport, i.e. cycling, snooker and tennis. Consequently, the majority of the coverage is on Discovery+. (You will notice that, now that the Eurosport Player has closed down, I have changed my abbreviations).

Of the Short Programme segments, the only coverage on the linear channels will be 90 minutes of highlights of the Men’s SP. There is no TV coverage of the other categories.

All of the Free Skate segments apart from the Pairs will be getting highlights on the linear channels, though. The reason the Pairs are not getting highlights is because there is LIVE coverage of the whole segment on the TV.

The Men’s FS and the Free Dance will also have LIVE coverage on the TV, but it will be joining late. There will be no LIVE coverage on the TV of the Ladies, but there will be highlights straight after the LIVE coverage of the Free Dance ends.

Hope this helps

CaroLiza_fan


🇬🇧 British Eurosport (All times GMT)

Wednesday 25th January 2023
DISC+ 11:10 – 13:30 Pairs Short LIVE
DISC+ 14:44 – 15:15 Opening Ceremony LIVE
DISC+ 15:30 – 19:53 Men’s Short LIVE

Thursday 26th January 2023
BES2 08:00 – 09:30 Men’s Short
DISC+ 11:10 – 16:00 Ladies Short LIVE
BES1 16:00 – 17:25 Men’s Short
DISC+ 17:25 – 20:00 Pairs Free LIVE
BES1 17:25 – 20:00 Pairs Free LIVE

Friday 27th January 2023
DISC+ 11:10 – 15:00 Short Dance LIVE
DISC+ 15:55 – 20:15 Men’s Free LIVE
BES1 18:35 – 20:00 Men’s Free LIVE

Saturday 28th January 2023
DISC+ 10:55 – 15:15 Ladies Free LIVE
DISC+ 16:25 – 20:15 Free Dance LIVE
BES1 18:35 – 19:50 Free Dance LIVE
BES1 19:50 – 21:00 Ladies Free

Sunday 29th January 2023
DISC+ 13:30 – 16:00 Gala Exhibition LIVE

Monday 30th January 2023
BES2 02:00 – 03:00 Free Dance
BES2 03:00 – 04:00 Ladies Free
BES1 04:00 – 05:00 Free Dance
BES1 05:00 – 06:00 Ladies Free
BES2 06:00 – 07:00 Free Dance
BES2 15:30 – 16:30 Free Dance
 
Lots of lovely skating to look forwards to. 💖

Does anyone know whether there is a way of watching US nationals from here?
 
I am hopeful that the Euros might be available to us on the ISU Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/@SkatingISU/streams They are showing as upcoming streams and if I click on them I get the trailer thing and a 'notify me' option - so I think we might have escaped them being geoblocked (although I could be wrong...).
 
I loved watching Anastasia and Luke at Euros. So fierce. So part of the choreography, I don't really care about the mistakes. And 10th. Does that mean two British couples next year? Yay!
 
I loved watching Anastasia and Luke at Euros. So fierce. So part of the choreography, I don't really care about the mistakes. And 10th. Does that mean two British couples next year? Yay!
I think it might - if Harry and Lydia get the TES. They had one programme but not the other last time I looked. I think the newer Dundee pair (Lucy Hay and someone whose name I have forgotten...) are still age eligible for Juniors next season and, if so, would benefit from consolidating there for another year.
 
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