ESPN Olympic Sports

PARK CITY, Utah -- Any edge, no pun intended, could enter into the calculation as ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White pursue the Olympic gold medal that just eluded them four years ago.

Will setting their free dance to a famous piece by a Russian composer (Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade") under the guidance of a Russian coach they unabashedly call a genius help them connect with the crowd at the Sochi Games? If they put together the complete package, they said Tuesday at the Olympic media summit.

The duo said they toyed with using the piece a few years ago, but is glad they saved it for the ideal competitive moment. The music is a way of honoring Russian influence on dance in general and coach/choreographer Marina Zoueva's tutelage specifically, they said.

"It never hurts to have the support of the crowd ... at the end of the day, it's really about moving the audience, making that emotional impact," Davis said.

But in a development no one could have foreseen a decade or two ago when the Russians dominated the discipline, Davis and White will have to try to dethrone fellow North Americans for the title: their friends and rink-mates Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada. The tandems have gone 1-2 at the past four world championships, with Davis and White prevailing in the past two editions.

Davis and White say it wouldn't be "healthy" to focus on the Olympic gold medal itself, and manage to be convincing when they talk about refining their already superlative chemistry.

"When we won worlds in 2011, one of the things that helped us [defend] is that we didn't say, 'Let's continue at this level and expect the same results,"' White said. "Our expectations go beyond any given placement ... staying in character from beginning to end, and keeping everyone enthralled."

The short program could prompt a world-wide sing-along. It will be set to music from "My Fair Lady," including, naturally, "I Could Have Danced All Night."

"It's bubbly, light, elegant, fun," Davis said.

Davis and White joked easily about their snail's progress toward undergraduate degrees at the University of Michigan -- they've crawled past the start lines of their junior years and are taking this academic year off for obvious reasons. "Each passing year is bringing us closer to the Guinness Book of World Records [for tenure as students]," White said.

The refreshing thing about them is their obvious desire to keep learning on the ice after all this time.

PARK CITY, Utah -- Evan Lysacek's scintillating gold medal performance at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics had everything but a quadruple jump. Conventional wisdom said that would be the last time a champion could afford to do without the biggest trick. The sport was advancing inexorably, and even though there are still very few men who can land clean quads consistently in competition, there's no doubt the attempt will be necessary in Sochi.

Lysacek knew that, and he had included a quad toe loop in a short program run-through on Aug. 21. He took a violent spill and stayed off the ice for a month because of an abdominal tear. But the pain returned when he resumed training, and doctor-ordered imaging last week revealed a tear to his left labrum that seriously endangers Lysacek's chances of competing at all this Olympic season.

The 28-year-old Chicago-area native had already pulled out of a competition this month and Monday told reporters at the Olympic media summit that he would be forced to skip Skate America, the first Grand Prix event of the season and an important bellwether for Lysacek back in his heyday. (Jason Brown, who won silver at the 2013 world juniors, will take Lysacek's place in the lineup.)

Lysacek joked that his rehab "has all the makings of a gripping reality show -- constantly developing, new characters constantly entering into the list." But his demeanor was subdued. He called his return to training on ice "a recent development" and didn't delve into specifics, saying only that he is being cautious and following doctors' orders.

In order to compete at the Olympics, Lysacek must first log a minimum qualifying score of 25 points in the technical elements of the short program and 45 points in the free skate -- basically, the equivalent of breathing and staying upright -- at an international competition.

The U.S. national championships in Boston in January, where the team will be selected (results generally prevail, but there is some discretion), doesn't count in that equation. At the moment, Lysacek has no other Grand Prix assignment or invitation. He said he is working with the U.S. Figure Skating Association to find an event or events where he can meet the standard and shake off the rust.

(Read full post)

Gracie Gold has a new coach, and a legendary one at that.

The figure skater announced Wednesday that she has been training with Frank Carroll, who helped Evan Lysacek win gold at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Michelle Kwan take home worlds titles.

"I'm happy to be working with Frank Carroll," Gold said in a statement released by U.S. Figure Skating. "He's a wonderful coach. I'm grateful for this opportunity and I am looking forward to the future."

Gold's previous coach was Alex Ouriashev, but the two parted ways in August.

"I am excited to be coaching Gracie," Carroll said in a statement. "We have been working together for about a week now and I feel like we are a good student-coach match. I'm looking forward to the progress she will continue to make as an athlete."

Gold, who won the silver medal in this year's U.S. Championships, will next compete at next month's Skate Canada International and the 2013 NHK Trophy event in November.

American figure skater Johnny Weir-Voronov talks about Russia's new anti-gay law and its impact on the Sochi Olympics:

LONDON, Ontario -- American pairs skaters are surely tired of being asked when U.S. pairs are going to pull out of their long tailspin on the international scene -- a slide at least partly attributable to the musical-chairs transiency among teams in recent years.

Friday, after making a notably strong statement for a new tandem at the world championships, Alexa Scimeca had an equally strong answer about the staying power she expects of herself and partner Chris Knierim.

"We're in it forever," said Scimeca. "You can quote me on that."

Scimeca and Knierim, together for less than a year, earned a personal best score of 117.78 points for their free skate, set to music from the soundtrack of "Life is Beautiful." Their total score of 173.51 placed them ninth, and that finish, combined with a 13th place from Boston-based Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir, guaranteed the United States two entries in the discipline at next year's Olympic Games. (Combined placement of 28 or better was required.)

Scimeca two-footed her landing on an early throw triple-flip jump, but the pair received high marks for their opening triple-twist lift and other elements, including the dramatic death spiral.

"We got everything we went for," Knierim said. "We felt really good out there -- calm, relaxed, another day at the office."

Scimeca and Knierim are both skilled skaters who are well-matched physically on the ice and exude chemistry that appears to be nourished by their romantic relationship outside the rink. He gently kissed her forehead before releasing her from their program-ending clutch, and she made sure she'd wiped the last trace of lipstick from his cheek before they faced reporters and cameras in the bowels of the Budweiser Gardens arena.

Knierim said they haven't had any problems making sure what happens at home stays at home, and Scimeca added that their open channel of communication complements their training. "We can say to each other, 'I'm not feeling good today, don't take it personally.'"

Their coach Dalilah Sappenfield also works with U.S. pair Caydee Denney and John Coughlin, who are in their second season together and opted out of worlds as Coughlin continues to recover from hip surgery.

"Teams want quick success without [putting in] the time behind it," said Sappenfield, whose training group works in Colorado Springs. "It takes a good team three or four years to jell, and my teams are finally understanding that concept."

Castelli and Shnapir, skating first out of 16 pairs Friday, weren't crazy about their free skate score of 108.32, well under their season's best of 117.04. But they, too, said they're committed to the long haul after nearly breaking up a year ago. Their coach Bobby Martin told icenetwork.com earlier this month it was only the latest of "at least nine times, and maybe more, that one or the other was standing on a cliff, ready to jump."

Shnapir said longevity is going to be the key to any eventual U.S. renaissance in pairs -- "Decades [together], not single digits."

Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman's bronze medal in 2002 was the last podium appearance for a U.S. team at the world championships. Jenni Meno and Todd Sand won a world silver and two bronze medals in the mid-to-late '90s, and Americans have been shut out of Olympic medals in the discipline since 1988, when Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard finished third.

LONDON, Ontario -- The gap that opened up between the world's top two ice dancing teams Thursday night is more like an abyss. Credit near-flawless execution by the U.S. team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White on a night when Canada's favorite son and daughter Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue were not completely in synch.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Davis and White whirled through a precise, dynamic short dance that White called "one of those dream skates." They earned a whopping 77.12 points, tops in the short three-year history of the short dance, an amalgam of the former compulsory dance and original dance competitions.

Canada's defending Olympic and world champions Moir and Virtue, performing not only in their home country but also their hometown, were undone by a botched twizzle (side by side traveling spins) and a couple of other missteps and will be 3.25 points behind going into Saturday's free dance -- a margin that is fair to call insurmountable unless something strange happens.

"That was not only our season's best result, we felt it was our season's best skate," said a clearly elated White, half of the tandem paired in childhood that won the 2010 Olympic silver medal and 2011 world title. "We feel different than we did two years ago, in a good way. Our confidence is as high as it's ever been."

Excellence has become routine for both of these teams, so it was interesting to see Davis and White exceed their own high standard and jarring to watch Virtue go badly off course during the twizzle -- prompting an audible gasp from the section of seats where teams from several countries were watching following their own programs. (All of the teams competed to some combination of polka and waltz music, with some, including Davis and White, adding a march segment.)

Moir and Virtue wore brave faces afterwards, but it would have been hard for them to convince anyone they were in the vicinity of satisfied. "We find ourselves in a little bit of a hole, but hopefully it's not over yet," said Moir, who was quick to shoulder some of the responsibility for their score of 73.87. "It wasn't just the twizzle, although that's the easiest thing to point to. The way we do our twizzle, it's tricky. We cover a lot of ice. It takes a millisecond to get out of control."

The Canadians certainly are accustomed to home pressure, having endured the highest form of it at the 2010 Vancouver Games. But the intimate confines of Budweiser Gardens presented a different kind of stress. Both Moir and Virtue were born in London and first trained together in nearby Ilderton. Asked if they could recognize faces in the seats, Moir said, "We try not to. We could recognize a face in every row if we wanted to."

LONDON, Ontario -- Dizzying best describes the past year for U.S. pair Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim, whose impressive unison spins helped them keep their equilibrium in the short program at the world figure skating championships Wednesday. They finished 12th out of 18 pairs in their worlds debut with a score of 55.73 points. Fellow Americans Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir are just behind them with 55.68 points.

Scimeca, 21, of Addison, Ill., and Knierim, 25, who grew up in San Diego, are an upstart team who began working together just 11 months ago, matched up by coach Dalilah Sappenfield at the Colorado Springs World Arena. The athletic partnership quickly blossomed into a romantic one, as well.

"I don't really recommend it, but they are [an off-ice couple]," Sappenfield told reporters, laughing. "They're adults, they're not little kids, so I have no problem with it ... what happens in the rink, they don't take it home. They're very good about that."

Their bond may have worked to their advantage in the intense environment of a world championships -- a trip that was far from a sure thing after their second-place finish at nationals in January. "I told them to stay focused and connected with each other, because they find comfort in each other," Sappenfield said.

Boston-based Castelli, 22, and Shnapir, 25 won in Omaha to secure a spot on the world team. 2012 U.S. champions Caydee Denney and John Coughlin, who are also part of Sappenfield's Colorado Springs group, did not compete at nationals as Coughlin was still recovering from hip surgery, but successfully petitioned to be named to the world team based on past results.

However, in mid-February, Denney and Coughlin elected not to go to worlds so Coughlin can "heal correctly," in Sappenfield's words, and focus on an Olympic bid in 2014.

Scimeca and Knierim said they trained all along as if they were sure things rather than first alternates. They've drilled spin technique, a previous weak link, in four sessions with specialty coach Janet Champion over the past few weeks.

"It's paying off really well," Scimeca said. "She's given us both different things that we've never really looked at before. We try really hard to match each other's fly and sit positions. We were both shocked by how different things were."

Scimeca said she has had to "train smart" because of a bone bruise and tendonitis in her right foot that forced the pair to withdraw from last month's Four Continents event, but the condition has largely cleared up in the past two weeks.

Castelli and Shnapir recovered well from Shnapir's fall on side-by-side triple Salchows when he launched her into a huge throw triple Salchow.

"It wasn't our best. I definitely think we can do better and we will do better," Castelli said of the program, also their first at a world championships.

Both stressed they're competing here for experience and trying not to dwell too much on placement. "We know it's worlds, but we do our best to ignore the signs," Shnapir said, gesturing toward the hard-to-miss championship logo-laden backdrop behind him.

While Sochi organizers have promised snow will be on the ground despite warn temps in the coastal town (on Thursday, it was 66 degrees there and 59 in the mountains), one thing we can say for sure: The venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be there.

Here's a look at some of the locales you'll see next year:

Shayba Arena

The Shayba Arena will host ice hockey games and is in close proximity to other ice skating venues. Capacity: 7,000.

Fisht Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, and most medal ceremonies. Capacity: 40,000.

'Ice Cube' Curling Center

You guessed it -- curling competitions will be held here. The venue is in the center of the "Coastal Cluster," where all of the ice-based venues are located. Capacity: 3,000.

Bolshoy Ice Dome

The ice hockey venue is said to be modeled after a "frozen water drop," but spectators may think it resembles a disco dance floor when they see the roof light up in multiple colors at night. Capacity: 12,000.

(Read full post)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek still hopes to compete at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships after having surgery to repair a sports hernia.

Lysacek will be off the ice for about six weeks following Tuesday's surgery in Los Angeles. Once he returns, he'll be evaluated on a week-to-week basis. Nationals are nine weeks away, with the men's short program on Jan. 25 in Omaha, Neb.

Lysacek has been struggling with a groin injury since this summer, and the injury forced him out of last month's Skate America, which would have been his first competition since winning gold at the Vancouver Olympics. A recent exam found he'd actually torn an abdominal muscle.

I wasn't surprised when I saw Johnny Weir's comeback announcement. All the planets in his personal universe have aligned to make a return to competition completely logical. If he attacks his mission with all the purposefulness he promises, Weir could have the best of two worlds: Representing his country in a country he loves.

The 27-year-old Weir, long coached by Russians, speaks the language and has immersed himself in Russian culture; earlier this month, he married an Atlanta-based lawyer of Russian heritage. What better place to visualize the skate of his life than his home away from home during the 2014 Sochi Olympics?

There's another intangible. Weir has always been comfortable in his own skin, and he is a thoughtful, witty interview, but there was one area where he stubbornly asserted his right to remain silent. Now that his sexual orientation is a non-issue (as it always should have been), that's one less distraction from his goal. If he's called on to be a spokesman for gay athletes, my guess is he's ready.

I also wasn't surprised to see Weir's news go viral. There may be better jumpers and spinners among the pool of men gunning for Sochi in two years, but there is no better pure performer, and that has won him a huge and loyal fan base.

Limber and elegant, a risk-taker in his costumes and choreography, Weir's artistry is hard to fit within the rigid mathematics that now circumscribe figure skating. I thought Weir's scores in the free skate at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics were too low, and I wasn't alone. He'll have to earn his way into the stony hearts and calculators of the judges again, and that will likely involve full mastery of a quadruple jump.

There are no sure bets two years out from the next Winter Games. But I have no doubt it will be interesting to see Johnny Weir give skating another go.

Ross Miner's elegant 2010-11 long program was set to the iconic soundtrack of "Casablanca." This season, he's competing to a moody medley of selections from "The Untouchables," but Miner said there's no particular connection between the two pop culture references.

"I've never even seen the movie, and I'm not trying to portray any character," Miner said by telephone from Sapporo, Japan on Sunday night. "I don't feel like it's an iteration of last year."

No, Miner was playing the part of himself, with fluid lines, sharp footwork and spins, and it served him well. He came from sixth place after the short program all the way to the podium with a bronze medal at the NHK Trophy, his first Grand Prix medal with a composed performance in the long that included two triple Axels. His total score of 212.36 points was a personal best.

"I really approached this trying to get off the ice happy with each practice, each session," said Miner, 20, a native Vermonter who trains with coaches Mark Mitchell and Peter Johansson at the Skating Club of Boston. "I'm building this year for sure, still growing as a skater."

Miner, the 2011 U.S. bronze medalist and a former national junior champion, is in his second season of senior international competition. He finished seventh and ninth in his two Grand Prix appearances last year and 11th at the world championships in Moscow this past April, a competition that was relocated from Tokyo and delayed six weeks after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

He said he was glad to have the chance to skate before a Japanese audience he described as "very knowledgeable, and always loud," supportive of its favorite sons and foreign rivals. Early in his exuberant post-event exhibition number set to Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," Miner treated the fans to the Cantilever -- a showy strength move he perfected as a boy but does sparingly now.

As has become routine with the men, quadruple jumps were a focus of attention. Gold medalist Daisuke Takahashi thrilled the home crowd by hitting a quad flip in warm-ups, but couldn't quite execute it at the start of his long program. Brandon Mroz of the U.S. landed a quadruple Lutz in his short program, a first at this level of competition, but struggled mightily in his long program and finished ninth overall.

Mroz was elated after hitting the quad Lutz, a jump he said he chose to work on specifically because no one else was doing it. He landed it in an invitational event in September, then had to wait weeks before the International Skating Union certified it. This time, there was no "upon further review" and no doubt. He said he was proud of himself for "keeping my flow after such a big trick, keeping my composure," and found himself in third place after the short.

But Mroz couldn't recover after falling on his opening jump in the long. Visibly frustrated as he awaited his scores in the kiss-and-cry area, he half-humorously hit himself in the head a few times. "I let stuff get the best of me," he said by phone after landing in the United States on Monday.

This was the first big competition of the season for the 20-year-old Mroz, who trains in Colorado Springs under coach Tom Zakrajsek. Mroz had a strong Grand Prix showing last year with two top-three finishes, but couldn't translate that into a podium placement at the national championships, where he competed injured and finished seventh.

Zakrajsek said he wants Mroz to point toward nationals and worlds and keep polishing all the elements in his two programs (both choreographed by former world champion and Olympic bronze medalist Jeffrey Buttle of Canada), as well as making the quad Lutz (and at least one other quad) a surer thing. It's a lot to ask, but as one U.S. official told Zakrajsek after the short program at NHK, "We want it all."

"Brandon had a lot of success early on and there's pressure on him to deliver again," Zakrajsek said. "While we were over [in Japan], I felt that dealing with jet lag and practices was not as smooth as I wanted it to be. I want him to be a little better trained going into the Cup of Russia [Nov. 25-27]. He's got some nice things going on, but it's a whole process."

Mroz has a quick turnaround before flying to Moscow in fewer than 10 days. He said his weekend of extremes won't deter him from continuing to take risks in his skating.

"I could do a program that's much easier, but I want to put something new out there, push the boundaries and bring freshness and athleticism to the sport," Mroz said.

Miner has added a quad Salchow to his repertoire and originally intended to compete with it this season, but decided he would be better off focusing on the more nuanced aspects of his skating.

"The quad is definitely important, and at some point I'm going to need one, but there's a way to get where you need to get without one," he said. "Brandon has a great program, but some other guys, they land a quad and that's their program."

Miner's Grand Prix season is done; he placed sixth at Skate Canada last month and won't compete again until the U.S. championships in late January. That break should make up for an offseason shortened by the rescheduling of worlds.

"A lot of time to work on things," he said.

But not to rent "The Untouchables." That will wait until he's no longer living it.

2010 Olympian Rachael Flatt will start working with a new coaching staff as she begins her academic career at Stanford University in late September.

Flatt announced that she will be working with Justin Dillon, Lynn Smith and Sergei Ponomarenko in the Palo Alto, Calif., area.

"I'm looking forward to the beginning of my academic endeavors and my training in northern California," Flatt said in a statement released by U.S. figure skating. "I'm excited to work with Justin and Lynn and eventually compete at the U.S. Championships that will take place near my new training sites."

Flatt will train at Sharks Ice San Jose (the official practice venue of the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Championships), Sharks Ice Oakland and Ice Oasis.

Flatt worked with Tom Zakrajsek and Becky Calvin at the Broadmoor Skating Club in Colorado Springs, Colo., for the past 10 years. She won the 2010 U.S. title, the 2008 world junior title and three silver medals at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships while working with Zakrajesek and Calvin.

"With regard to my skating, there are so many people who have been part of my team," Flatt said. "I'd like to thank Tom and Becky especially for being part of that team from the beginning."

The biggest takeaway from last week's figure skating world championships was the confirmation that ice dancing coaches Igor Shpilband and Marina Zoueva are not only in a class of their own but constitute a sort of border-less country unto themselves. Shpilband-Zoueva Nation's accomplishment in putting three teams on the podium is obvious. What's more subtle and admirable is the juggling act that has to go on behind the scenes.

This is no cookie-cutter operation. Each of the three medal tandems -- newly crowned world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S., runners-up and 2010 Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada and senior world debutants Maia and Alex Shibutani of the U.S. -- displays a distinct style that plays to its strengths. How the Russian-born coaches pull this off in one suburban Detroit rink, giving each duo customized treatment and making sure they have the time and attention they deserve in an apparently rancor-free atmosphere, is nothing short of remarkable.

(Read full post)

An odd sporting time warp will end next week when the top figure skaters who were supposed to compete at the world championships in Tokyo the week of March 21 gather in Moscow for the event postponed by the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

In interviews this week, U.S. skaters said that after the initial period of uncertainty -- worlds were in limbo for almost two weeks as officials pondered canceling them altogether -- they slipped back into the harness of their daily routines without much trouble and even benefited from the extra month on the ice.

(Read full post)

• Life in Japan won't be anything approaching normal for a long time, and that includes the sporting scene. Other international federations are going to have to weigh the same factors the International Skating Union did when it first postponed, then relocated, the World Figure Skating Championships from Tokyo (where the event was scheduled for last week) to Moscow. The World Gymnastics Championships, the main qualifying event for London 2012, are slated for Tokyo in October, and international gymnastics officials said they'll decide next month whether the site is still appropriate. They have the luxury of weeks, rather than days, to analyze the situation. Here's hoping their choice is based on what's right for the athletes, rather than what's politically correct or sponsor-driven.

(Read full post)