Sports fans, let’s get serious about the world for a minute.

Fifty people were killed, and at least 100 shot, in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, last night. It was the most deadly mass shooting in a country - my country - where mass shootings are outrageously common, and it was a hate crime. I’m going to do my best to relate this to sports in a minute, but bear with me, for I am a pissed off queer, and this is my blog. I have put a nice, normal post on hold to talk about this. I can’t say the other post is apolitical, since it deals with the recent International Skating Union Congress, but it seems less important now. I’ll get back to it tomorrow when I’m less furious.

Furious is what I am. I’m sure part of me is grieving, and that when my rage cloud bursts I will find room for compassion for the families and friends of the fifty innocent people who had been celebrating Pride until moments before their deaths. But I’ve seldom been so angry about a tragedy, and I think it’s because my anger is a way of dealing with my fear. Yesterday, I was at the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s most prominent LGBTQ cultural center, for the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, in a crowded room. It was a different type of queer environment, but if a mentally unstable homophobe in my city had wanted to shoot a bunch of queers and other artsy weirdos, CAKE would have been the place to go this weekend. I am lucky, and I am afraid.

Queer spaces are important. CAKE is a more welcoming environment than other comic book events because it’s smaller, and because it’s specifically a showcase for independent artists, but it helps a lot that it’s held at The Center on Halsted. There were times when the World Figure Skating Championships in Boston felt like a queer space, especially when a pair of awesome fans unfurled a rainbow-striped American flag. I wish that feeling of community were more common in figure skating, and among sports fans in general.

This year’s Pride brought some happy gay news in the figure skating world, as Javier Raya - the other Spanish Javi, and a 2014 Olympian - came out publicly last week. Today, his Twitter shifted from cute pictures of him with his boyfriend to expressions of grief about the events in Orlando. Raya probably didn’t come out with any expectation that his openness would give him a political voice, but he’s taken on that responsibility generously and proudly.

Other out skaters, including Adam Rippon and Johnny Weir, have done so as well. But there are a lot of gay and bisexual men in figure skating who can’t or won’t come out, and probably a few bisexual women and lesbians, too. Other members of the LGBTQ community - such as transgender, gender-nonconforming, intersex, and asexual people - are even less visible in figure skating, in sports, and in the world as a whole. Unlike Raya, Rippon, and Weir, they can’t express their grief and compassion as members of the LGBTQ community. They’re invisible, and invisibility is isolating - not just for them, but for fans who might feel solidarity with them.

That’s why I make a big deal out of it when skaters have the courage to come out. I went into this in more detail last year, writing about Rippon’s first competitive performances after talking about his gay identity with the press. Skaters who come out of the closet establish themselves publicly as part of my community, and they make me feel safer and more welcomed as a queer figure skating fan. That’s also why I’m open in my blog about my own identity. My voice and my reach are smaller, but the small voices add up. There are a lot of LGBTQ figure skating fans, and if we keep drawing attention to that, ISU and the various national skating federations might wake up to the fact that we spend a lot of money on the sport we love and provide free advertising. We could, and should, be powerful.

Usually, I sit out Pride weekend. I have excuses. I don’t like crowds; I get sick if I’m outside in heat and sunshine too long; it’s all men and drunk straight people these days. There’s a dance party for women, though, and it’s at night when the sun can’t try to kill me. I need to go. I need to go because I’m furious and terrified, and because I need to practice the visibility I preach. I also need to think about how I can do my part to make Skate America a queerer space when I attend in October. I’ve got a few months to figure that out. I hope you’ll join me.

June is the doldrums, as far as figure skating news goes. There's been plenty going on off the ice, most notably a major International Skating Union Congress at which the ISU elected its first new president in over 20 years. The new guy appears to be the least corrupt and most personable of the major candidates, so I'm good with that decision.

 I'm also not cranky about any of the rule changes. Some are necessary fixes: now, when a skater repeats too many jumps, they only lose credit for the repeated jump, not an entire combination. So, for example, at 2015 US Nationals, Joshua Farris received 0 points for his triple lutz-double toe loop under the old rules, because he'd already done two other double toes. Under the new rule, he still would have earned points for the lutz, and perhaps won a National title. Not that anyone is bitter. Anyway, the point is, we're not going to have that problem anymore. Even the more controversial changes, like the decision to shorten men's and pairs free skates to 4 minutes, are fine with me. The shorter program length will put pressure on skaters who eat up precious seconds doing slow, cumbersome step sequences that exceed their actual ability, and the reduction in required elements will help skaters avoid repeating jumps. 

The biggest news from the ISU Congress is that they finally got rid of anonymous judging. Back in 2002, when the ISU made judging secret, there were good intentions involved: the logic was that, if national federations couldn't figure out which judges gave which scores, they couldn't put pressure on judges to reward or punish certain skaters. In the end, anonymous judging just made it harder to hold judges accountable for strange or unsatisfying decisions, prevented coaches and skaters from gaining information about how they'd been judged, and annoyed fans who would have enjoyed tracking how individual judges respond to certain skaters, elements, or errors. Basically, nobody liked anonymous judging, and we're all happy to see it go. I'm not sure that identifying judges will prevent corruption or dissuade judges from Chanflating their favorites - it sure didn't stop them 14 years ago - but it will at least make things look more transparent.

Most of these changes won't take effect until after the next Winter Olympic Games, and in the meantime, we have a long, balmy summer to get through. Next weekend, there will at least be some notable North American club competitions - the Broadmoor Open & Aerial Challenge and the Lake Placid Summer Championships - although it sounds like neither will offer a live stream. In any case, I'll be down in St. Louis, reporting on live gymnastics from the cheap seats at the P & G Championships. 

In the meantime, let's watch some skating. Videos have been turning up on YouTube and DailyMotion of many of the summer shows, featuring fun performances from both current and retired skaters. It's hard for me to find much to say about show programs, since it's unfair to critique them on anything but entertainment value, so I'll just embed my two favorites of the summer below. Stephane Lambiel's artistry gets more nuanced and mesmerizing as he matures, and it's been a pleasure to see Denis Ten shake off his nerves and technical troubles to bust out some club moves.

A few skaters have used summer shows to field test new competitive programs; we've gotten tastes of what we'll see from Aliona Savchenko & Bruno Massot and Marin Honda, although in both cases, they shuffled in some easier, more show-friendly moves that make it hard to tell what those programs will actually look like in competition. 

Shoma Uno, on the other hand, isn't watering things down at all, which means he looked a bit of a mess in his Fantasy on Ice appearances. His quad toe loop and two triple Axels were scratchy and low in the knee, but it's impressive that he held them together at all in a dark rink with no boards. His costume is selling sexy tango, but his performance isn't yet - probably because he looks like he's barely memorized his choreography at this point. I hope he'll take some time this summer to get that footwork squared away; it's gorgeous but so hard he can't get through it. This free skate is going to become either a signature program or a legendary hot mess, and a lot depends on whether Uno can keep his jumps under control and play a character at the same time. 

Timothy Dolensky didn't have stage lights to contend with at the Atlanta Open, just a friendly rink where he could exhibition his new short program. The music choice does make it feel more like a show number than a competitive program, but the technical content is a big step forward for Dolensky. His quadruple salchow isn't pretty, but it looks like he's getting it all the way around. If he's planning one (or more) in his free skate as well, he's closed the difficulty gap that has kept him out of the top tier of American men. There's some lovely choreography here, too, with lots of little details and an unusual, challenging Axel entrance. He'll have to maintain enough speed to launch a triple out of his rink-crossing series of edges and turns, and if he can, it's destined to become one of my favorite men's moves of the coming season.

Blogging about a sport you only half understand is a challenge. It's not on par with sticking a triple front tuck on floor, but after many years as that one lady at figure skating events who really knows what's going on, it's disconcerting to watch a live routine and muse aloud, "I'm pretty sure that was hard?" It doesn't help that in gymnastics, there's often an athlete on every apparatus, and sometimes more than one I want to pay attention to. Also, from my particular section of the cheap seats, I can practically see the sweat on the faces of the gymnasts on balance beam, but uneven bars might as well be in another state. 

As live sports go, gymnastics is not for beginners. But the intrepid sports blogger has to start somewhere, so here we go, with more enthusiasm than expertise. I'll cover the junior women in this post and the senior women in a separate post. I missed the first day of men's competition but will attend tonight and blog tomorrow.

Morgan Hurd, one of the favorites coming in and the only junior-level gymnast that most of my skating friends had heard of, got off to a rough start on bars. She's like a kitten, jumping twice her height with feisty energy. It looked like she over-powered one of her release moves, and that's why she fell. On beam, she hadn't shaken the nerves off yet, and she hung on despite several perilous balance checks that made her miss connections. On floor, however, Hurd found her groove, sticking her first tumbling pass and twisting into a series of unique flexibility moves. She finished the afternoon with a solid vault and a prayer of rallying back on day 2 for a win.

Gabby Perea didn't make much of an impression on me live, because she's an understated gymnast, and because her best performance was on bars, far at the other end of the arena. Her bars difficulty is the highest in the junior field, and the amazing thing is how straight and extended she keeps her body throughout the routine.

The biggest tragedy of day 1 was Chae Campbell. Her enormous double-twisting Yurchenko stood out even among the many explosive attempts at that difficult vault. Not only did she almost stick the landing, but she maintained beautiful form in the air and got great distance from the table. After the first rotation, it looked like she might run away with the entire day, but her fortunes reversed entirely on bars. She struggled early in her bars routine with missed handstands and off-kilter swings, then crashed onto her head. After several tense minutes surrounded by medical staff, she walked gingerly off the podium. I haven't found any definitive updates on her status, but I hope she chooses to rest rather than risking the long-term effects of an aggravated concussion.

Trinity Thomas had a lot of wobbles and stumbles, including two out-of-bounds deductions on floor. But the double layout in her opening tumbling pass was so high and breathtaking that the whole arena gasped, "Wow!" in unison.

Deanne Soza fell on beam, struggled on floor, and broke the hearts of many gymnastics fans who had hoped she'd be one of this year's front-runners. I wish her hip-shaking swagger translated to better focus on the podium.

While our eyes were on bigger names having big meltdowns, Maile O'Keefe pulled out a quartet of solid, difficult routines that added up to first place in the All-Around at the end of the afternoon. I hardly noticed O'Keefe until her balance beam routine, where she showed off the mental game that set her apart. Most of her  competitors approached the beam like an adversary, but O'Keefe trusted it to be there when she landed. She showed beautiful form in her leaps and tumbling, and no hesitation as she linked her skills. It was like she was schooling everyone else on how beam is supposed to look. 

But my real New Favorite of the day is Riley McCusker, who received little mention on the gymternet before yesterday but danced into All-Around second place with body lines more like a ballerina's than an American gymnast's. She began every apparatus with a built-in disadvantage in base difficulty, then made up for it with huge execution scores, since her technique was so good that the judges couldn't find much to deduct. The tumbling passes in her floor routine were not only clean but timed to her music, a level of artistry that most senior-level athletes consider too challenging to bother with. She's also a star on bars, with one of the afternoon's strongest dismounts and flawless toe point. She'll get the credit she deserves for performing above her pay grade, but I hope USAG takes notice of her promise not only as a bar worker, but as a beautiful gymnast whose style will appeal to international judges.

I didn't even manage to live tweet day 1 of the senior women, despite high hopes. I was busy making friends with the people in nearby seats, and there were so many routines to watch, with so little downtime, that I barely had a chance to pick up my phone. By comparison, a figure skating competition is leisurely, with all the scoring breaks and ice resurfacing, and only one skater or team on the ice at a time. Gymnastics goes by in a flash - the senior women began around 8:00 PM, and I was in my car by 10:00 -  but there are no pee breaks.

I'm about a day behind, obviously; I'm finishing this post up at Starbucks just before I head back to the arena for night two. If you're interested in juniors, here's my recap of day 1 of the junior women. I'll have recaps of today's events, as well as of the senior men from last night, later this week.

Maggie Nichols is kind of back, although it looks like she peaked a year too soon. She's clearly not all the way recovered from her disastrously timed injury, and from what I saw last night, it's unlikely she'll be there in time for Rio. Still, she looked solid on bars, and she capped it off with a terrific stuck dismount.

The internet is in a small-scale tizzy about what will happen if Ashton Locklear is named to the Olympic team. She only competes bars and beam, and in a year when Marta Karolyi has said flat-out that Team USA doesn't need any more all-arounders, her focus might be an advantage. She won bars last night, and she won on the basis of her almost impeccable execution, leaping effortlessly between skills and making seamless connections. She's no joke on balance beam, either, and once again it's her E score that sets her apart. Her gymnastics are consistently gorgeous, and there's a strong chance her reliability will win out over the slim chance that one of her teammates gets injured late in the game in Rio.

Christina Desiderio is unlikely to earn a trip to the Olympics, but her floor music is already on a journey to Rio. Her smiles looked genuine when she shook her hips, embracing some cute choreography. She also brought some of the cleanest tumbling of the night.

Similarly, Brenna Dowell probably doesn't have enough in the tank to take her to Rio, although it's cool to see her coming back from collegiate gymnastics to give it a shot. The crowd cheered wildly for her, and her vault gave her fans a sweet payoff. Her DTY was one of the best in the field, high in the air and straight down the middle.

Rachel Gowey is one of the most beautiful current American gymnasts, but her nerves seemed to get the best of her in every routine. She looked lovely on floor, aside from some big steps in her landings and a weird form break in one of her turns, but her difficulty got knocked way down. I'm not enough of a gymnastics expert to understand where those deductions came from, but I'm enough of a fan of pretty things to mark this routine as a highlight despite the low score.

Poor Ragan Smith is in the conversation for Rio, but her nervous performance last night spells trouble. After a nightmarish floor exercise, she bounced back somewhat on beam, with several saves that made me hold my breath. Unlike several others, Smith hung on, and most importantly, she maintained most of the connections that keep her difficulty high. The silver lining for her is that she proved she can refocus in the middle of a troubled routine and finish strong.

I feel like a jerk for skipping Alyssa Baumann, but she was pretty middle-of-the-road throughout. I missed her best performance, on beam, because I was watching someone else, or in the bathroom, or something. That's one of the ongoing dangers of live gymnastics.

MyKayla Skinner is downright overshadowed on the other three events, to the point where she probably won't go to the Olympics despite being one of the best vaulters in the world. She's cleaned up her technique massively, although from my angle in the stands, it still looked a little one-handed as she touched the table. 

I just love watching Amelia Hundley, who finished the evening in a surprisingly strong 6th all-around. In vault, her DTY was one of the largest and most controlled of the night. Hundley stood out most on bars, though, giving a focused and unhurried performance. She made up for a low starting D score by hitting every handstand flawlessly and sticking her landing, to a backdrop of uproarious cheers. Looks like I wasn't the only Hundley fan in the building.

Madison Kocian was pretty good on beam and floor, but she was great on the one event where she had to be, bars. Like the rest of the top bar workers, she's detail-oriented rather than explosive, with her multitude of pirouettes and other in-bar moves picking up more points than a series of showy releases can. Her natural rivalry with Locklear arises from differences in style: Kocian whirls on bars, constantly in motion, sometimes breaking form slightly to squeeze in one more grip change. 

Gabby Douglas lacked her usual sparkle and bounce throughout Friday night, and she admitted in interviews later that she hadn't been all there mentally. Nowhere was her subdued attitude more apparent than on floor exercise, where a serious expression took the place of her usual ebullient smile. She had no trouble on her tumbling passes, though; maybe her detached demeanor was strategic, after all.

In the end, though, Douglas faded because the top three were such showstoppers. Laurie Hernandez was the revelation of night one, earning big scores across the board for a quartet of near-perfect performances. On floor, she showed off her tumbling power, with a double Arabian so high that I thought she might kick out the lights. But she had fun, too, swirling her hips and grinning during her dance moves.

Hernandez showed a more elegant side of her personality on balance beam. After building confidence with a sequence of leaps, she built momentum for clean, connected tumbling passes. She even had the confidence to make a slight wobble on her sheep jump look like part of the choreography. Throughout the evening, Hernandez looked polished and secure, more like a veteran than a first-year senior barely old enough for Olympics eligibility.

Meanwhile, the true veteran, Aly Raisman, had to fight her way into a second-place all-around tie with Hernandez. She looked off-kilter everywhere but floor, relying on high base difficulty to keep her near the top of the vault and beam ranks, and almost throwing it away on bars. But floor exercise is Raisman's domain. In person, it's clear that she tumbles bigger than any other American woman. And her muscles are so defined that even from high above the podium, I could see them shift as she turned and leaped.

Simone Biles is in the lead, obviously. She's on another level, and she makes it look easy. That's what makes her special: every move is so perfectly executed, there's just nothing to deduct. What you can't see on the video of her vault is, she flew more than halfway down the landing runway, and she hit the mat so lightly that I'm surprised she needed that tiny step to center herself. On beam and floor, her routines are so much harder than anyone else's that the deck is stacked in her favor from the start, but she doesn't need the advantage; she also earned the highest execution score on both events. And through it all, she never stops smiling. Nobody on the podium has more fun than Biles.

While I'm in the midst of gymnastics madness - not to mention more real life than this poor blog can handle - let's take a minute to talk figure skating. The Grand Prix assignments were announced a little over a week ago, and I've been thinking about them ever since. These six events are the principal competitions for the top figure skaters worldwide, and each skater or team competes in a maximum of two, which means that match-ups are often crucial and can shape an athlete's entire season. The top finishers at the World Championships are spread out across the events in an attempt to keep the rosters fair, but inevitably, some events look like serious horse races, while others have an obvious front-runner. The Grand Prix assignments also show who's moving up from juniors, who's held up by injuries, and who's making a legitimate comeback. Here are my initial impressions of how each discipline is likely to shake out.

But first, some notes on who's missing. One of the bigger surprises is the large number of top junior-level skaters who will stay in juniors in the coming season. In a number of cases, especially in ladies', athletes are too young to move up: both Junior World Champion Marin Honda and Junior Grand Prix Final Champion Polina Tsurskaya are not yet age-eligible for most other top senior-level competitions, so there's no reason to subject them to the physical and emotional stress of the Grand Prix. It's also not a huge surprise that, for example, Tomoki Hiwatashi will spend another year gaining international experience and riding out his growth spurt. But one wonders why Junior World medalists like Nicolas Nadeau or Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter haven't been called up to the big leagues yet. 

It's equally surprising to see some well-known veterans sitting out the Grand Prix, intentionally or otherwise. Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov have stated that they are giving themselves a strategic break this autumn, which is perhaps a good decision for a decorated team of advancing age. Carolina Kostner, on the other hand, has made much of her return to the sport but has not been granted a Grand Prix assignment. 2014 Olympic gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova achieved middling results in her return to competition last year, and her absence from the Grand Prix suggests that she's quitting while she's ahead. The Grand Prix announcements also prompted the sad news that, as a result of his ongoing struggle with the after-effects of a series of concussions, Joshua Farris has retired from competition. 

But the rest of the big names in figure skating are slated to compete at the Grand Prix this autumn. With a terrific depth of talent currently in the sport and many skaters upgrading their difficulty with an eye toward the 2018 Winter Olympics, most events are hotly contested - if not for gold, then in fierce scrambles for the other steps on the podium. Here's what I'm most looking forward to watching.

Baby Quad Beasts vs. Veterans. The teenage rising stars of men's figure skating won't face off against each other much in this season's Grand Prix. Instead, they'll contend with more established champions with lots of gold on their resumes and astronomical components scores. At Skate America, the new generation has a clear advantage, with Shoma Uno and Boyang Jin as the headliners, but Daisuke Murakami, Denis Ten, and Adam Rippon are all capable of putting them in their place. Skate Canada, on the other hand, favors experience: Daniel Samohin will have a tough time getting past both Patrick Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu. Things get more balanced later in the season, with Javier Fernandez facing Nathan Chen and Sota Yamamoto at Trophee de France and Uno at Rostelecom Cup. After Jin and Samohin battle a bunch of stalwarts to see who can fall down the most at Cup of China, it will be Hanyu's turn to hold off Chen and Yamamoto. Or maybe Jason Brown and Mikhail Kolyada will make artistry triumph over firepower and prove that the whole generational divide is a false dichotomy anyway.

Six Stacked Ladies' Fields. In the other disciplines, there are a few sure things - it's hard to imagine anyone coming close to Javier Fernandez at the Trophée de France - but all of the ladies' events are going to be barnburners. At Skate America, Mao Asada or Julia Lipnitskaia could easily put a wrench in the battle of Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner. Satoko Miyahara turns Skate Canada into a three-way race with Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Evgenia Medvedeva, and I might be unfairly discounting several dark horses on that roster. At Rostelecom Cup, the deck is stacked for a Russian sweep, although it's anyone's guess which order Anna Pogorilaya, Elena Radionova, and Lipnitskaia will finish in - or whether American powerhouses Polina Edmunds and Courtney Hicks will muscle their way to a medal. Medvedeva, Asada, Wakaba Higuchi, and Gold will face off at Trophee de France, and Radionova, Tuktamysheva, Wagner, Hicks, and Rika Hongo are all in the mix at Cup of China. The NHK Trophy features another roster of dark horses, and it'll be a tough fight among Miyahara, Higuchi, and Pogorilaya at the top. The best part is, the deep fields at these ladies' events are because there's so much talent these days. These athletes are pushing the sport forward technically, and most are unique, stylish performers as well.

Pairs at Skate America. I could hardly have asked for a pairs roster more guaranteed to make me pay attention when I see it live. China's Wenjing Sui & Cong Han are virtually guaranteed a win, although Sui is recovering from a surgical repair of her Achilles tendon, and some fans worry that their participation in shows this summer has left her without enough time to heal. She's probably in good enough shape to hold off the competition, since no other team in the field comes close to Sui and Han's technical difficulty. It's going to be a tight race for silver and bronze, though, with spunky Canadians Julianne Seguin & Charlie Bilodeau battling the sultry French team Vanessa James & Morgan Cipres, as well as two terrific young Russian pairs, Kristina Astakhova & Alexei Rogonov  and Evgenia Tarasova & Vladimir Morozov. Even Americans Tarah Kayne and Danny O'Shea could spoil for a medal if they bring the kind of performances that earned them a surprise National title. It's a lot of teams with the kind of chemistry and attention to artistic detail that's more common in ice dance than pairs, and for me, at least, that's a big selling point. No other pairs roster is as stacked as the one at Skate America, although it'll be exciting to see World Champions Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford duel with Grand Prix Final champions Ksenia Stolbova & Fedor Klimov at the NHK Trophy.

Made-For-TV Rivalries. It's almost like they planned it that way! In ladies, USFSA has decided to pit Gracie Gold against Ashley Wagner at Skate America. The last time US Figure Skating pulled a stunt like this, they marketed Johnny Weir vs. Evan Lysacek incessantly, only to have Takahiko Kozuka humiliate them both while wearing sweatpants. With a number of strong contenders from Japan and Russia in the mix, I wonder if we'll see that PR nightmare repeat itself. Elsewhere, it's the Japanese and Russian ladies headlining competitions within the competition. In France, Mao Asada will go up against Wakaba Higuchi, the young upstart ten years her junior who beat her at Nationals. At Skate Canada, two consecutive World Champions will face off, with Elizaveta Tuktamysheva on the redemption trail and Evgenia Medvedeva out to prove that she won't fall prey to a similar sophomore slump. The men's field at Skate America provides a pair of incipient rivalries, with Jason Brown and Adam Rippon contending for the title of most entertaining American and Shoma Uno and Boyang Jin trying to both out-jump each other and prove they've leveled up in artistry. At Skate Canada, Patrick Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu will battle their infamous October jitters as well as each other. In ice dance, most of the big rivalries won't come into play until the Grand Prix Final, but the Rostelecom Cup pits three teams of perennial bridesmaids against each other. Americans Madison Chock & Evan Bates and Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje have the more established rivalry, but throwing their Russian counterparts Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev into the mix makes this one even more delicious.

The Return of Virtue and Moir. I have mixed feelings about Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. They revolutionized ice dance at the height of their powers, and their best performances remain stunning to watch. But their technical progress slowed in the last few years of their competitive career, and I'm not sure they live up to the cultish legend that some fans and media outlets have built around them. Their return to competition feels like a bit of a stunt - not to mention an attempt to shore up Canada's ice dance program, which is deflating like a bouncy castle with a hole in the turret - but I'm still looking forward to seeing what they're capable of. They're part of a strong, hard-to-predict line-up at Skate Canada that includes two of the only Canadian teams to survive this summer's epidemic of splits and retirements, Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier and Alexandra Paul & Mitchell Islam. If Virtue and Moir can't skate rings around those two, it's all over, but even if they can, they'll also have to get past two first-class veteran teams, Chock & Bates and Italians Anna Cappellini & Luca Lanotte. Later in the Grand Prix season, at the NHK Trophy, Virtue and Moir will face ice dance's reigning royalty, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, and the outcome will make a definitive statement about whether the new guard has eclipsed the old. 

The Inevitable Cup of China Men's Splatfest. At the ISU Congress earlier this summer, they instituted increased penalties for multiple falls within a program. Considering the men's roster, we might retroactively start referring to this as the 2016 Cup of China Rule. The line-up is a rogue's gallery of meltdown kings: Patrick Chan, Boyang Jin, Han Yan, Michal Brezina, Daniel Samohin, Maxim Kovtun, Sergei Voronov, Max Aaron. If Daisuke Murakami or Ross Miner wins this thing on the basis of not being an utter disaster, it will be the kind of just-desserts hilarity that makes this sport worthwhile. The headcase factor will be so strong that ISU might want to invest in an in-house therapist, and insomniac fans should plan on stocking their liquor cabinets for the trainwreck event of the year.

A Full Stable of Dark Horses. I love having a good underdog to root for, and this year's assignments have made lots of room for my sentimental favorites. For the first time in years, Canada has a solid ladies' team, with Gabrielle Daleman, Alaine Chartrand, and Katelyn Osmond all talented enough to spoil for a medal. I'm also excited to see Latvian up-and-comer Angelina Kuchvalska, American comeback queen Mirai Nagasu, graceful Russian second-stringer Maria Artemieva, and US Nationals scene-stealer Tyler Pierce receive assignments where they stand a fighting chance. The men's field provides Grant Hochstein with two new chances to finish a surprise fourth, as well as opportunities for scene-stealing second-stringers Keiji Tanaka, Deniss Vasiljevs, Elladj Balde, Misha Ge, and Ivan Righini. Canadian underdogs will also be a big factor in pairs, with Lubov Iliushechkina & Dylan Moscovitch and Kirsten Moore-Towers & Michael Marinaro potentially upsetting some higher-ranked competitors along with the PA announcers who have to pronounce their names. Among the ice dancers, we'll get quirkiness from Poland's Natalia Kaliszek & Maksim Spodirev, edginess from first-year French seniors Marie-Jade Lauriault & Romain Le Gac, balletic elegance from Ukraine's Alexandra Nazarova and Maxim Nikitin, and charming giddiness from Finland's Cecilia Törn and Jussiville Partanen. We'll also see Russians Elena Ilinykh and Ruslan Zhiganshin on a redemption warpath so intense, things might start to look like Game of Thrones.

Of course, there will be a number of injury withdrawals and team splits over the next three months, plus quite a few "TBA" spots to be filled. Chances are, the actual Grand Prix will look so different that this post will feel more like fantasy sports than an actual preview by the time October rolls around. Except for the Cup of China splatfest prediction. Replacement skaters can only make that one more epic.

Skaters are doing their best to be kind to their news-starved fans. Even more than in past years, athletes are premiering and workshopping new competitive programs at summer shows in Japan and Korea. Meanwhile, the North American club competitions are well under way, with the Broadmoor Open, L.A. Open, and Philadelphia Open already in the books, and significant meets taking place every weekend from here on out. Some offer live streams, and most don't complain about home videos posted to YouTube. Still, it's tough to find video of many performances, and programs with copyright-infringing music are getting blocked or removed ruthlessly.

That means I can't share several performances by up-and-coming Americans. In some cases, that's for the best, since the clip I saw of Tomoki Hiwatashi's free skate was a nightmare. He doesn't have a handle on his challenging senior-level choreography yet, and it's tying his technical content into knots. Rumors of a coaching change and cross-country move might play into the state of his skating. It's not clear whether he's moved permanently to Kori Ade, or if this is just a summer workshop. 

Other videos from the Broadmoor Open haven't been completely removed, but they're marked private, which means I'm not going to link them directly. The highlight for me was Emily Chan's new free skate, to an orchestral version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." It shows off her long lines and gorgeous performance quality, but the transitions might be too simple to succeed in seniors. Her jumps weren't there, either, although it was hard to tell how many were errors and how many were intentional doubles so she could focus on getting the routine laid out.

The technical content seems to have backslid for Rika Hongo, too, although she probably kept her jumps conservative at Dreams On Ice because she was skating in the dark. Not everyone is as nuts as Shoma Uno, throwing in extra quads in a rink with no boards. It does look like she's planning a triple lutz-triple toe loop at the top of this new short program, and I hope she's able to take off more confidently in competition than she did here. I love the footwork entrance into her double axel, though, and the intricate steps throughout will look a lot better once she's committed them to muscle memory. It's good to see Hongo building upon the performance style that sets her apart: she's so overdramatic that she can keep up with Carmina Burana. I'd feared that she might be corralled into a more delicate and conventional style, but instead, she's recommitted to her role as Team Japan's go-to Disney villain.

Sean Rabbitt's new free skate was one of the many casualties of this summer's YouTube copyright blocking bonanza, but his terrific short program from the L.A. Open got to stay. He scored 73 points with only a double Axel, highlighting the speed and musicality that keep him in the conversation among American men's skaters even when his technical content can't keep up. He's going to need a secure triple Axel to contend elsewhere, but I hope this clean skate, which is impressively polished for mid-summer, will catch some eyes. He's in the international selection pool this year, and he's looking strong enough to merit some senior B assignments.

But the real highlight of the L.A. Open was Junior Ladies' winner Kaitlyn Nguyen. Only 12 years old, and returning to the ice after an injury took her out of the novice field at 2016 US Nationals, she might be the most promising pre-teen skater in the United States right now. She opened her free skate with a huge triple lutz-half loop-triple salchow and kept her momentum throughout her performance, nailing a double Axel-triple toe loop in the second half. It's fun to hear the audience gasping with amazement as the jumps seem to get bigger and bigger. Nguyen's choreography is understandably simple for now, although she gets a few opportunities to show flexibility and a canny sense of rhythm. Let's hope she stays healthy, because this is definitely one to keep an eye on.

Bless the phone-wielding wizard who captured this one. Adam Rippon field-tested his new short program at something called the Cactus Classic, and we have receipts. He played it safe technically, replacing his usual quad lutz attempt with a no-sweat triple lutz-triple toe loop and making me wonder if this is the only time we'll get to see him skate this program clean all season. It looks like he's still getting his head around the choreography, and there's way too much empty space for crossovers and telegraphing, especially at the beginning of the program. On the other hand, EDM is a great look and sound for Rippon, especially when the step sequence gives him a chance to cut loose. 

I'll wrap this up with a sticky summer treat. If you haven't watched Johnny Weir's fan dance duet with Hao Zhang from Amazing on Ice, go do yourself a favor. 

This weekend, the MIdwest is wilting under a heat wave so severe that we're all being told that we're better off if we just stay inside. Fortunately, it's nice and cold in my air conditioned apartment, and it's also refreshingly chilly in the rink at the Detroit Skating Club, which hosts an annual club competition that has practically become a senior B event, attracting skaters from all over the United States and Canada as well as a variety of other countries, many of them with extensive high-level competitive experience. There's no ice dance event at Skate Detroit - odd, since the Detroit area is such a Mecca for ice dancers - but it's attracted great rosters in ladies, men, and pairs, at levels from pre-juvenile up to senior. And the best part is, it was all live streamed for free. 

I gave myself a tutorial in video capture software and recorded all of these videos off the live stream myself. The stream was fairly lo-res, and the rink had intermittent audio issues throughout the weekend, but I will take full credit for bloopers like accidental mouse trails. I uploaded a number of videos that I didn't embed in this post, and you can watch the whole playlist on YouTube. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to do this in the future, but I'll try! You can thank the weather this time.

Ladies

Coming into Skate Detroit, the headliner was Mirai Nagasu, who debuted two new programs. They're still works in progress, with much of the choreography uncertain and confused, and Nagasu struggled with her jumps in both the short program and free skate. At least some of the doubled jumps were intentional, and her double Axels are so powerful that YouTube commenters are speculating that she might start competing the triple Axel she's been working on. In any case, this lovely cover of "The Winner Takes It All" is an inspired music choice, and it allows her to make a mature, personal artistic statement. 

Beyond Nagasu, there wasn't much excitement in the senior ladies' event. German skater Lutricia Bock and Canadians Emy Decelles and Kelsey Wong gave strong performances, but none showed the kind of consistency that will put them on the map past the summer. Emily Mei-Lin Chan struggled painfully, as if overwhelmed by the demands of senior programs, although her artistry and spins are always a delight. 

Instead, the real ladies' action was at the junior level. Brynne McIsaac, who has gotten lost in the middle of the US junior ladies pack during the past couple of seasons, showed that she's capable of a clean, confident free skate. Her opening jump combination is just a triple flip-double toe loop for now, but she has enough speed going into the second jump that I suspect a triple-triple on the horizon. And in a mind-numbing sea of pop songs (I counted at least four programs to orchestral arrangements of OneRepublic's "Secrets"),  McIsaac made Carmen seem retro cool.

Making bigger headlines among the skating fans is Ashley Kim, who has just moved up from novice to juniors and has never qualified for US Nationals at any level. That should change this season, since she opened both her short program and free skate with roof-raising triple-triple combinations. There are lots of rough edges in her skating, but if she can stay healthy and build on her current technical abilities, she might be the future of US figure skating. Yeah, we've all heard that one before, but if we keep saying it, someone's going to break through and be the next Michelle Kwan.

Pairs

Lower-level pairs competitions terrify me, and this one had its share of shaky lifts and precarious throw jumps. However, there were a number of strong teams at Skate Detroit, and as a group, they proved that American pairs has its deepest bench in years. The short program music selections sounded like a mix tape I made in middle school, with performances to Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Artistically, my favorite of the bunch were Jessica Pfund and Joshua Santillan,  who brought a perfect balance of quirkiness and angst to their interpretation of "Purple Rain." Unfortunately, there's no way to get a Prince song past the YouTube copyright filters, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier were the biggest names in the pairs field, and Skate Detroit marked their return after a year away from competition as Denney recovered from injury. They only competed their free skate, and they simplified some of their jump content, either to protect her health or to make sure they got through the program confidently. Their music, from the soundtrack to Somewhere in Time, got turgid here and there, but they sold their chemistry well. Like many teams who have been skating together since a young age, they have a warm, natural connection that boosts their performances.

The other standouts in pairs were Jessica Calalang and Zack Sidhu, who showed off a consistent throw triple lutz and a high, confident triple twist in both their short program and free skate. Their Carmen is a standard, affectionate take on the ultimate figure skating warhorse, and hey, some of us like Carmen. They were only a few points behind Denney and Frazier on their technical mark but trailed by 12 points on PCS. Now that they've upgraded their elements, they'll need to beef up their speed and transitions if they want to make those big throws count at Nationals.

Men

The junior men were a tough slog even for juniors, with lots of botched jumps and skaters who looked like they were in over their heads. Canadians dominated the event: Joseph Phan's consistency earned him a gold medal, and Stephen Gogolev's high all-around technical difficulty brought him a close silver. But my favorite of the juniors was another Canadian teen, Conrad Orzel, who threw gorgeous triple Axels in both programs. Problems elsewhere meant his performances were only good enough for bronze, but he has an "it factor" that makes me hope he'll iron out the kinks and move up the ranks soon.

In seniors, quads won the day, but performance quality won the most hearts on Twitter. So it's a good thing that Keegan Messing has stepped up his artistic game, even though he had the gold medal in the bag with clean quadruple toe loops in both his short program and free skate. He's kept his Pink Panther free skate from last year, but his "Singin' in the Rain" short program is charming and a good fit for his style. It looks like he's worked hard on his spins, and I'm glad to see him rotating fast and striking some interesting positions. His reputation as a one-dimensional jumper has held him back, and he's put admirable effort into challenging it.

Most of the other senior men pushed themselves technically, and they struggled as a result. Alexander Johnson fought for most of his landings, barely hanging onto his triple Axels, although his signature triple lutz-half loop-triple flip was fantastic. Roman Sadovsky, who's suffered from growing pains ever since he qualified for the Junior Grand Prix Final last season, endured three painful falls in his free skate, becoming an early victim of the increased scoring penalties for multiple falls. Shaquille Davis, who competed only in the short program, performed a fabulous quad toe loop-double toe loop but couldn't hold anything else together. In the midst of all these disasters, Daniel Kulenkamp's short program was a smooth, elegant pleasure, with three clean jumping passes and an exuberant smile in his step sequence.

Timothy Dolensky, who premiered a new free skate to a Gotan Project tango medley, finished second overall and earned the highest program components at the event. Artistically, he's stretching himself this season, with choreographic moves that showcase beautiful edge work. A tango isn't the most natural fit for him, and I hope that as the season progresses, he projects more smolder and intensity. I also hope he gets a firmer handle on his quadruple salchow; it's great in the air, but it looks like he's not sure how to time and control the landing. 

Nicolas Nadeau just missed the podium at Skate Detroit, but his performance might have run away with the whole weekend. When skaters do Elvis medleys, they don't normally think '70s Vegas Elvis, but Nadeau is all in, with voice-overs and a white rhinestone jumpsuit. His jumps were mostly a nightmare, although he was clearly more focused on hitting the choreography and putting on a show. In some respects, it's a greater artistic challenge to compete a program like this than a more standard, serious one: Nadeau has to stay in character and commit to the absurdity, and he has to execute those technical elements. If he can get himself back on the form he showed at Junior Worlds earlier this year, this is destined for my end-of-season best list. It's hard to imagine a funnier or more original free skate.

I wrote this up as I watched the main feed of the live stream so I don't get any further behind on my Olympics coverage. I've given up on covering men's gymnastics at all, and I'm going to save sports other than gymnastics (such as my weird judo obsession) for post-event wrap-ups. I'm in the process of watching every single performance from Women's Team Finals, so expect a long, out of order post on that soon.

For now, though, it's the first rotation, and we're vaulting! Three Amanars in a row, all of them fabulous. Rebeca Andrade was so perfect in the air, she looked like she'd been hanging out with the Americans, and she controlled a wobbly landing with a little hop to the left. Aly Raisman's landing was her best of the Olympics, with only a tiny step to the right. Simone Biles's was actually her worst Amanar so far, with some toe crossing and a huge step forward at the end, but she still got more amplitude than should be physically possible. Wang Yan's Tsukahara looked tiny in comparison, especially since she stepped out of bounds. Aliya Mustafina, on the other hand, threw the prettiest vault of the first rotation, a graceful and nearly stuck DTY that was almost a convincing argument for doing an easier vault ridiculously well. Seda Tutkhalian's DTY was fine, too, although after Mustafina's, it was all too easy to nitpick her form in the air.

The feed stopped showing random shots of athletes milling around the pit just in time for Shang Chunsong's life-changing balance beam routine, which included a walkover to sheep jump that made Courtney Kupets Carter lose all her chill. Shang's only moment of weakness was a little hop on her landing, but since her dismount was a triple full, it's hard to complain. 

From there, attention shifted to Asuka Teramoto, whose confidence was clearly riding high after Team Japan's surprise fourth-place finish on Tuesday. She seemed to be taking bigger risks on her releases: not different content than before, just making them bigger and more powerful. Elisabeth Seitz blew her out of the water, though, bars-wise. She's only 5'3" but looks about six feet tall while she swings, reaching into perfect handstands every time. Seitz's score was lower than in quals or Team Finals, but I was so solidly in "she did a pretty" mode that I have no idea where those two tenths went. Nonetheless, she slotted fourth after the first rotation, losing only to the trio of Amanars.

On to the second rotation. Ellie Downie's DTY was almost as beautiful in the air as Mustafina's and even more solidly stuck. Somehow, her score was lower.

Aly on bars was Aly on bars. No giant mistakes, just some low handstands and late swings. Biles, on the other hand, did her best to channel Ashton Locklear, making the most of her body extensions and launching so high into her dismount that she'd finished rotating before she'd passed the high bar on the way down. My only fashion comment in this blog post: Simone's silver eyeliner is stunning.

Mustafina got flaily and off her timing on bars once or twice, but just-okay Mustafina on bars is like a just-okay bowl of pho: satisfying and full of cool little things you don't expect. 15.666, the bars score of the Beast. Once again, Tutkhalian looked lackluster in comparison, or maybe more admirable, because a less resourceful gymnast would have fallen off the bars on at least two of those releases. 

Andrade's bars routine was start-to-finish terrifying, and yet somehow, she hit it, other than a giant to save a missed connection. She was very serious about earning redemption for Team Brazil. 

On floor, Shang Chunsong stuck her triple full to punch front and showed a ton of personality to boot. A janky wolf turn at the end broke the spell, but the judges forgave her with a huge and well-deserved 14.600. We got to see Lieke Wevers' floor routine, because the international feed has good taste. Her gym!twizzles were a little short but fun to watch. She did a couple of pirouettes while taking her bows because she hadn't already spun around enough. 

For now, Biles was three hundredths of a point behind Mustafina, and the commentators were pretending there was some suspense here. 

Rotation 3! Simone on beam! We should expand our definition of artistry to include "I will destroy you" as a theme, because Biles had full-on warrior face throughout, in the best way. She made her 2.5 wolf turn look graceful, and her tuck to wolf jump was almost more exciting than her dismount. Mustafina did her best to destroy right back, but she seemed to get too into her head. At first, it was just a couple of balance checks, but she freaked out toward the end and missed her aerial sequence entirely. It was the first big miss among the top contenders, and it broke my heart.

Speaking of warrior women, Ellie Black was solid on beam and terrific on floor, earning not only personal redemption but some justice for the Dominion of Canada. Her form was far from perfect, but all the important skills were right there, with both power and confidence.

The Russian beam implosion intensified with Seda Tukhtalian. At first, it looked like she'd recovered mentally from an awkward but admirable save at the end of her acrobatic series, but she overrotated her dismount and went flying back onto her butt. Afterward, she looked like she couldn't decide whether to punch Mustafina or cry. The beam gremlins attacked Rebeca Andrade, too: she had to make a couple of dramatic saves and had a weird balk on a leap. She stayed on the beam, though, and she found her groove at the end, finishing with a bunch of clean connections and a solid dismount.

Aly Raisman murdered the beam gremlins with the force of her steely gaze. Her standing front tuck covered most of the length of the beam. Other than a hop on the dismount, she was damn near perfect. Wow, and all the more wow because the three athletes before her had such trouble. I thought she would break 15 points, and so did the commentary team, but it was only a 14.866. What? Whatever.

Shang Chunsong only has a Yurchenko full on vault. Between that and her emerging sass on floor, I wish China would let its gymnasts go to the USA for college. 

Final rotation! Boy, is Wang Yan an engaging performer on floor. Nice triple full to punch front, and she stuck her double pike at the end. They chacked her hit balance beam routine, which is a shame, because she did a terrific job of making up for her bars disaster. Proving that China does have some chops on bars, Shang Chunsong was fantastic there. I don't think she put a hand wrong.

Mustafina was cool and graceful on floor, but not quite perfect enough. She took big steps backward out of her tumbling, and she kept hopping out of her turns. Far from a disappointment, though, because it was practically ballet. Tutkhalian, on the other hand, butt-planted out of bounds on her second tumbling pass, pitched forward on her final pass, and made me cry a little.

The commentators were trying to convince us that Giulia Steingruber and Ellie Black were in this, which was cute. Steingruber showed great extension and swing on bars, but lots of form issues, too. She cowboyed badly on her dismount, like she was so nervous at the prospect of medaling that she couldn't keep her legs under control.

I got really excited for Ellie Downie's balance beam, and then she landed her dismount on her hands and knees. The beam gremlins had struck again.

Rebeca Andrade's floor routine might have been the most joyful 90 seconds of the afternoon. Unlike her competitors, who mostly looked like they were about to snap from the pressure, Andrade seemed to forget about the standings entirely and take pleasure in the moment. That relaxation showed not only in her smile as she danced, but in the highest, cleanest tumbling that she's performed all week. She was magic, and she did her country proud.

Aly Raisman won her silver medal on floor, doing more than she needed to prove she was second only to Simone. Her double Arabian was so high, I needed the commentators to confirm it wasn't a triple. Her power is so controlled. Raisman's success seemed to fuel Biles, who poured way more into her floor routine than she needed to win. She was perfect because she wanted to be, and that made analysis pointless. The judges agreed, handing her a 15.933. Watching a Simone Biles floor routine is like watching a great performance of Shakespeare: you know how it's going to end, you know there's nothing better in the world, and it's emotional anyway, because it's always a surprise how good it is.

Mustafina hung onto bronze, and the rest of the top five were a happy surprise: Shang in fourth and Ellie Black in fifth. Three North Americans in the top five - is this ice dance? Maybe the beam gremlins had a plan all along, and the plan was to remind us that, even if the podium is exactly what we expected, there are a million ways to get there.

Image credit: Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

It's not clear whether Patrick Chan has purposely established himself as a polarizing figure in men's skating. There's no question that at his best, Chan is incredible: his first World gold medal, in 2011, was beyond reproach, one of the most brilliant figure skating performances of the past ten years. Even this past season, in a comeback far rockier and less decisive than Chan might have wanted, he kept reminding us that he's capable of extraordinary performances, whether in his domination of Canadian Nationals or in his come-from-behind wins at Skate Canada and the Four Continents Championships. But he's gotten himself in hot water for opinionated rabble-rousing since at least 2009, when he told the press that he thought Brian Joubert's program components scores were unfairly high, saying the components marks were "still a bit about reputation" and "really frustrating for me." Since then, Chan has made a habit of deviating from the media training script to speak his mind, a trait that I find endearing even when his specific opinions make me grit my teeth.

I find a lot of things endearing about Patrick Chan, as a matter of fact. Plenty of fans blame "Chanflation" whenever they see his components scores, but who else in men's skating has edges as deep and smooth as Chan's? He knows his speed and blade control are what set him apart, and he constructs his programs strategically to get as much mileage out of his unique strengths as possible, an approach that I always approve of. He got over his aversion to the quad at just the right time, and his quadruple toe loop is a beauty, smooth and centered even when he narrowly misses the boards on the way down. He has a quirky sense of humor and an admirable competitive drive. The more I think about it, the more likable Chan is.

It would be easier to acknowledge this if he didn't have a long, ignominious track record of driving coaches so bananas that they resign before he can fire them.

It's possible that no coach can live up to Chan's first. From childhood, Chan studied with the storied Osborne Colson, who died at age 90 in 2006. Despite Colson's age and increasing frailty, his death seemed untimely: he died of complications from injuries sustained in a car accident. Colson's obituary confirms that Chan and his family were with Colson when he died, and that just before Colson passed away, "Patrick said goodbye very close to his ears and vowed to skate his best for him." That's an overwhelming experience for a fifteen-year-old, and the timing of Colson's death - in July, just before Chan's senior-level debut - must have made for a jarring transition. During that time, Chan had his first experience with a temporary coaching arrangement, training with Shin Amano and Colson's other former assistant coaches. 

Chan met his next coach, Don Laws, at Colson's funeral, where both were pallbearers. I read rumors here and there that their relationship wasn't the smoothest, but things seemed fine until shortly before Canadian Nationals in 2010, when Laws abruptly announced that he would not be accompanying Chan there or to the Olympics. Chan's statement to the press about his coaching change was chilly toward Laws, to say the least. Laws had recently opened a new rink in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Chan had traveled there to continue working with him. Six months later, in an interview with IceNetwork, Chan hinted that the training conditions in Florida were less than optimal - he trained alone, without sufficient motivational support - and it sounds like Laws was more focused on building a skating program at his new rink than on maintaining Chan's status as Canada's best men's skater. As Chan put it, "my coach kind of resigned and didn't want to coach me [anymore]."

Most of the information on Chan's split with Laws is hard to dig up now - I had to spend some time with the Wayback Machine - and I can no longer find evidence for most of the drama and confusion that went on at the time. Chan pretty much bolted to Colorado Springs in the summer of 2009, and for a couple of weeks, fans and journalists weren't sure where he was. Later in 2009, Chan suffered a calf injury and sought treatment from celebrity sports physician Anthony Galea, who would be arrested that December for supplying athletes with illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Chan probably had needed to split with Laws, but he wasn't exactly a paragon of informed and thoughtful decision-making in the aftermath.

Instead of seeking out an established top-level coach, Chan built his own team. At first, it sounded like he hoped to just train with legendary choreographer Lori Nichol, but Nichol is no technical coach and had way too many other clients. He settled into working with Christy Krall, and that didn't sound like a terrible idea: Krall is a former Olympian who has worked as an assistant coach for Carlo Fassi, and she was moving back into full-time coaching after many years on the administrative side of skating. For a couple of years, Chan was happy with Krall, and it's clear that Krall was great for him as a coach, both in terms of technique and in terms of his competitive mindset. By 2011, he'd transitioned from Nichol to Kathy Johnson as his primary movement coach, and Johnson guided him to emulate Mikhail Baryshnikov while Krall used Dartfish software to teach Chan to emulate Evgeni Plushenko's jump technique. A Maclean's profile from 2011 reveals that Krall cracked the code on Chan's persistent jump issues, getting him to stop forcing rotation with his arms, and convinced him to seek Brian Boitano as a mentor even if she couldn't convince him to believe in sports psychology. She persuaded him that learning a quadruple jump was worthwhile, and her logical, detail-oriented approach calmed him down, as she explained to the Toronto Star in 2011: "There’s less frustration on his part. Once a day he has a Dartfish lesson to settle him down, get his timing right and see what he’s doing to get it perfect.” As Chan won competition after competition, it began to look like Krall had tamed him.

It didn't last, though. Days after Chan won his second World Championships in 2012, Krall announced that she had resigned as his coach. Fans initially speculated that Skate Canada was unhappy that its golden boy was training in the United States rather than Canada, but it turned out that Chan had been drifting away from Krall's influence for some time. In their first year together, Chan had put his diet and training schedule in Krall's hands - and, as she pointed out, won nine of his ten competitions. Chan had continued his winning streak in 2011-12, but he'd chosen to put more emphasis on artistry and to rely more on Johnson than on Krall for his training decisions. Fans speculated that Krall's decreased role in his training had meant a pay cut, but her comments made it sound like her frustrations were more with their working relationship than with financial matters: "I was stepping out of the coaching role I was in and becoming an instructor, and I personally wanted to do more than that." Meanwhile, Krall's success with Chan had raised her reputation as a coach, and her structured, scientific approach had worked wonders on two young American skaters in particular: Joshua Farris had just won the silver medal at the World Junior Championships, and Angela Wang had emerged from the crowded junior ladies' field to place a strong eighth at US Nationals. Both of those skaters have enjoyed long and drama-free careers with Krall, and in general, she's not a coach with a habit of firing her students. 

Despite Krall's efforts to reinforce that the split was amicable, everyone in the skating world sensed that something was amiss. It was just plain unusual for an athlete at the peak of his competitive success to part ways with his coach solely because he wanted to focus more on artistry and maybe spend a little more time with his family in Toronto. In the fall of 2012, The Toronto Star proposed a salacious theory: Chan's allegiance to Johnson, at the expense of Krall and Nichol, was because he was dating Johnson's daughter, Tess. It's tempting to blame this all on romance (or brain-eating bugs from outer space), but that's an insult to Chan, who throughout his career has preferred to focus on artistry rather than technical proficiency. For most of the 2012-13 season, this philosophy didn't work so well for him: he fell four times at the Japan Open, lost to Javier Fernandez at Skate Canada, and barely managed a bronze medal at the Grand Prix Final. He was still earning the highest program components scores in the sport, but the gap was closing; the judges had started awarding 9s to Daisuke Takahashi for Performance/Execution and Interpretation, and Takahashi won the 2012 Grand Prix Final largely on that basis. Chan had decided to bet all his chips on components, trusting that his artistry and skating skills could absorb his technical errors, but that advantage had receded. 

Chan ended the 2012-13 season on a high note, with his third consecutive World title. However, he won that gold medal despite falling twice in his free skate, and many fans were surprised to see him come out ahead of Denis Ten, who performed two flawless programs with comparable technical content to Chan's. Since then, Chan's results have gone downhill. His highs are still tremendous, but his jumps are less and less reliable. Often, he'll execute his most difficult elements well, only to flub easier jumps or even spins. Johnson does seem to have helped Chan improve his range and intricacy of movement, and when he skated clean in 2015-16, his programs were mesmerizing. But his competitors have upgraded technically while he's stood still. Johnson didn't have the knowledge base to help Chan learn new jumps. At 2016 Worlds, all three men on the podium completed more than one type of quadruple jump, while Chan still has only a quad toe loop. Chan earned the second-highest program components score but the eleventh-highest technical score in Boston. His fifth-place overall finish was his worst at a World Championships since 2008, and even that result seemed high in light of his error-ridden performances.

A skater in Chan's shoes would be justified in firing his coach, but that's not exactly what went down. Like Krall before her, Johnson claims to have "resigned" as Chan's coach. This is unusual rhetoric in figure skating. Usually, when a coaching change is announced, it's described either as the skater's choice or as a mutual decision between athlete and coach. This is true even when a split is suspected to be acrimonious: see, for instance, Jeremy Abbott's heartfelt description of his reasons for moving from Tom Zakrajsek to Yuka Sato in 2009. Even Frank Carroll, who doesn't shy away from discussing skaters' faults after he stops coaching them, has never talked about resigning. Either Carroll kicks you out, or you make the change of your own accord. The language of resignation might not be completely unique to Chan and his coaching woes, but it feels that way, like everyone is trying to save face.

Chan is relocating to Vancouver, and some have speculated that he'll train with Joanne McLeod there. But when Chan announced his change of venue in May, he talked about starting a skating school of his own - and he spoke like he thought Johnson would be coming with him. This time, it sounds like Johnson's resignation might have genuinely caught him off guard. It's possible that Chan has no idea why his coaching relationships keep going wrong. The funny thing is, after all the research and analysis I've done for this post, I can't draw any conclusions, either. The only thing that's clear to me is, Chan has succeeded in figure skating despite one of the rockiest and weirdest training histories in the sport. Regardless of how much of that tumultuous history is Chan's fault, I have to admire how much he's been able to achieve in spite of it.

Somehow, we have made it to August, and the figure skating season has begun. Sure, it's only juniors, but the Junior Grand Prix Series are official ISU international events, and a skater's performance on the JGP circuit can make or break his or her future in the sport. Besides, skating fans have been impatiently enduring the off-season, and at this point, we'll live stream just about anything.

Overall, you could really tell it was August. Many skaters performed below their best, not quite confident in their technical upgrades or their choreography. In addition, a shuttle bus accident injured two ladies' skaters, their coaches, and the driver, casting a pall of anxiety and heartbreak over the whole weekend. Both Anna Tarusina and Anzelika Klujeva had to withdraw from the event.

If, unlike me, you didn't hole up in your room to watch the event live, and you don't want to sift through the 150 or so individual YouTube videos, here's your viewer's guide to the event, with an explanation of what to watch and why. 

Men's Short Program

I'll admit, I'm kind of glad I couldn't watch this live, because it was an epic disaster for the most part. Several of the youngest hopefuls - Italy's Daniel Grassl, Russia's Ilia Skirda, and Japan's Koshiro Shimada - seemed to take themselves out of the running with painful falls, as did reigning World Junior bronze medalist Tomoki Hiwatashi, who seems to have undergone a major growth spurt as well as a late-summer coaching change. Kevin Aymoz, who is shaping up to be one of the most lyrical men's skaters at any level, managed to place third in the short program despite doubling his loop and barely hanging onto his jump combination, because he's already so far ahead of everyone else in components. If you have a little extra time or love men's skating, hit up the ISU YouTube channel and watch those as well, but have your tissues and/or a stiff drink at the ready.

Conrad Orzel, on the other hand, justified the New Favorite status that he earned this summer at Skate Detroit by performing one of the best short programs in the field, making up for a slightly wonky triple Axel with a gorgeous triple lutz-triple toe loop. I was surprised to see only neutral grades of execution for that jump combination, and although he has great form in his spins, he's leaving points on the table by missing level criteria. Nonetheless, Orzel has proven that he's a strong enough skater both technically and artistically to contend with athletes who have far more international experience. Hopefully, that will put him on Skate Canada's radar, and we'll see plenty more of him.

Yaroslav Paniot was one of the first to skate, and he stayed first in the short program all the way to the end, simply because nobody else managed to put three clean jumping passes together. Paniot isn't a particularly dynamic skater, but he's great at getting those technical elements out reliably - at least in the short. More importantly for him, he's clearly been working on his spins, efforts that the judges rewarded with high levels and positive grades of execution. The judges were conservative about spin and step sequence levels throughout the weekend, so Paniot's attention to his non-jump elements made a real difference for him.

Roman Savosin metamorphosized over the summer. Last season, he was a sweet little kid who earned a surprise ticket to the World Junior Championships; now, he's a young man who's using the same strengths more strategically. He had a little jump trouble in the short program, with messy step outs on his two harder jumping passes, although his triple loop was gorgeous. The best part, however, is his step sequence, extraordinarily fast for juniors and extraordinarily light on his feet for anywhere. 

Ladies 

Even if Tarusina and Klujeva hadn't been in the hospital rather than on the ice, the ladies' field would have been thin at St. Gervais. Beyond the top few skaters, most struggled. Some, like Finland's Emmi Peltonen, gave solid performances but didn't have enough technical difficulty to contend for a medal. Others, like Alexia Paganini, the sole representative of the United States, arrived with an outside shot but couldn't stand up to the pressure or the altitude. One of the great young hopes of the burgeoning South Korean team, Ye Lim Kim, attempted an amazingly hard triple lutz-triple loop-double loop combination, but two of the three jumps were so underrotated that the judges took most of it away from her. Kim also has a lot of growing to do in terms of artistry and skating skills. At thirteen, Kim has plenty of time to develop program components that will keep pace with her difficulty, and I hope she and her coaches will devote some time to ballet classes and stroking drills.

Of the lower-ranked ladies, the standout for me was Julie Froetscher of France. Judging from her reaction in the kiss and cry, Froetscher exceeded her own wildest expectations. She beat her previous career-best free skate score by thirteen points with a monster of a triple lutz-double toe loop-double loop and an elegant, poised performance quality. She breezed past a fall on a triple flip to pull out the stops technically and artistically in the second half, seeming to gain energy from the big crescendos of her music late in the program.  I hope she continues to progress in the sport, both for the sake of the French ladies' program and so I get to see more of her lovely skating.

Japan's Rin Nitaya won a bronze medal, but even so, I thought she got lost in the shuffle. There were some definite highlights in her free skate - I could watch her spin all day - but she doesn't quite have the difficulty to move up from juniors, and for a nineteen-year-old from Japan, that's a tough reality to face. 

The gold medalist, by an amazing margin of almost sixteen points, was Russia's Alina Zagitova. She might face more daunting competition domestically, from the small army of talented Russian girls her age, than she did internationally this weekend. She's not as dynamic or individualistic of a skater as some of her peers, but she has one outstanding advantage: her stamina level is so high that she can perform every jump in her free skate in the second half, thereby earning a bonus for all of her jumps. She's also the rare skater who can fully rotate a triple lutz-triple loop, getting great height while keeping control of the jump. Her one big deficiency is as a performer: she doesn't connect much with her music, and the jump-free first half of her free skate makes for dull viewing as a result. With so many other young Russians who can complement their technical ability with expression and style, I wonder if Zagitova's strategy will be enough to propel her to the top of the Russian ranks.

Silver medalist Kaori Sakamoto stole the show from Zagitova, at least in terms of performance. Her coach made the smart decision to turn over choreography duties to former ice dancer Massimo Scali, who paired her with a fresh-sounding, melodic selection from The Color Purple soundtrack and gave her tons of opportunities to show off her beautiful edges. Sakamoto is a quiet skater - her movement quality reminds me of Takahiko Kozuka's - which is probably why she's stayed off my radar in the past despite some great results, including a silver medal at JGP Riga last season. This could be her year, though, if she keeps fighting for those landings and translating her great fundamentals into field-leveling components scores. It looks like her choreography leaves space for a triple-triple combination, and I hope she's confident enough later in the season to put the great triple flip-triple toe loop from her short program into her free skate as well.

Ice Dance

It was a rough outing for most of the ice dancers, and as in the ladies' event, the results quickly became predictable. Team Russia had a particularly bad day, with both of its young teams failing to match their best scores from last season. Sofia Polishchuk and Alexander Vakhnov had one of the most entertaining short dances of the day, but timing errors in their pattern dances set them back. They rallied in the free dance to earn bronze, but not by the margin they might have expected. Sofia Shevchenko and Igor Eremenko fared even worse, accepting a dismal fifth place. In the free dance, their biggest problem was an out-of-control diagonal step sequence, but they seemed slow and unfocused throughout the weekend. Many teams lower in the ranks were far more memorable: Canada's Ashlynne Stairs and Lee Royer have a fun, psychedelic Beatles free dance, and Belarusians Emilia Kalehanava and Uladislau Palkhouski made me wonder why ice dance isn't lousy with Dirty Dancing tributes. For me, the biggest disappointment was Eliana Gropman and Ian Somerville's ninth-place finish; they'd looked like a team on the rise, but they missed every checkpoint in their short dance pattern dances and struggled to keep up with the challenging footwork in their charming free dance.

The most pleasant surprise in ice dance was Czech team Nicole Kuzmich and Alexander Sinicyn. They're one of those ice dance odd couples who find unexpected magic together: she's Canadian and used to compete for Slovenia, while he was born in Prague, the son of two prominent former Soviet ice dancers. Their free dance is the most bizarre take on Charlie Chaplin I've seen in figure skating, veering into Tim Burton territory, but it's a clever way to channel their overacting. The video of their performance was taken down for some reason, which is a shame, because it was lively and off-kilter. I'll settle for embedding their short dance, which features some great fight through a difficult twizzle sequence and a very loud polka-dot jacket.

Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko performed a little below their best in St. Gervais. Coming into the event, they looked like clear front-runners, but their skating proved that they're still just on the verge of joining more seasoned American teams in the top tier of junior-level ice dance. I do think that their choreography is part of the problem: they're too sweet and fresh-faced to connect with their "Exogenesis" free dance, and Carreira seems to be dialing back her natural sultriness in their flirtatious short dance. Ponomarenko is a terrific performer with great partnering skills, too. It's important for teams to challenge themselves artistically and show interpretive range, but I'm worried that this team are playing so far against type this season that it's hurting their components scores.

Angelique Abachkina and Louis Thauron have improved by leaps and bounds since last season, and it was exciting to see a decisive win from them on home soil. We don't see many folk dance programs in ice dance these days, and while the concept feels a little old-fashioned, the style and energy are a breath of fresh air. It's hard to move like you're whirling at a wild party but maintain the precision in your steps, but Abachkina and Thauron kept that balance throughout. With the same base difficulty as Carreira and Ponomarenko, who are their training mates at the powerhouse ice dance school in Novi, Michigan, Abachkina and Thauron won almost entirely on the basis of program components, a judging decision that recognized their greater artistic maturity and versatility. They came into this Junior Grand Prix series as dark horses, but in St. Gervais, they redefined themselves as one of the world's top junior teams.

Men's Free Skate

Objectively, the men's free skate was a giant mess, with no skater breaking the 200-point barrier and only one top competitor skating clean. Still, men's was the only discipline with a field deep and predictable enough to generate suspense, and the only one with lots of movement in the ranks. It made for a stressful but exciting afternoon with a satisfying conclusion.

Thirteen-year-old Ilia Skirda, who had been generating buzz among Russian fans, seemed to suffer from a case of nerves in the short program, but he lived up to the hype in his free skate. He performed early in the second-to-last group, and no one would beat his free skate score. He earned a lot of those points on jump bonuses - he performed only one jumping pass in the first half of his program, getting extra credit for the rest - but the judges also rewarded him for interpretation and expression beyond his years. Skirda's program is an example of back-loading done right, since he's a captivating skater who can use non-jump elements to build story and character, and he's also proof that a junior-level skater can get awfully far without even attempting a triple Axel.

Tomoki Hiwatashi's rough ride continued in the free skate, although his La Strada program is such a delight that it needs to be watched, even with the errors. Hiwatashi's triple Axel has gone from theoretical to reliable in less than a year, and the popped toe loop at the beginning of this program looks like a placeholder for a developing quad. Kori Ade and Rohene Ward, recently confirmed as Hiwatashi's new coaches, are a great fit for him, but it's clear he's not used to the demanding transitions and choreographic features that they've challenged him with. Sixth place for a World Junior medalist isn't great news, but last year, Hiwatashi succeeded by peaking at the right time. By US Nationals, he might be a whole different skater.

One of the greatest pleasures of the men's free skate at St. Gervais was Daniel Grassl, another pint-sized Junior Grand Prix rookie with a ton of potential. Grassl is the most promising men's skater to come out of Italy in ages, and his charismatic smile made the skating side of Twitter melt into a puddle of goo. Grassl's seventh-place finish reinforces that he has a lot to work on: the jumps looked good in real time, but three of his jumping passes got deductions for unclear edges. And while his choreography is a showcase for his acting skills, it also gives him too many opportunities to catch his breath and not enough chances to demonstrate strong basic skating or transitions. I hope he and his coaches address those issues early, because I'd love for him to be a real contender, and not just a fan favorite.

The second-to-last warm-up group raised our hopes high, but the final group was mostly a disaster. Three of the five performances in that group were so painful that I can't bear to embed them. Yaroslav Paniot and Conrad Orzel, so terrific in the short program, couldn't hold it together in the second round, and both dropped like anvils out of medal contention. Paniot landed both of his quadruple toe loops, then couldn't find his feet for anything else, landing only one solo triple jump, falling twice, and popping everything else. Orzel stayed on his feet but fell prey to technique issues, suffering edge deductions or underrotation calls on almost every jump. In both cases, it looked like they were pushing so hard for their difficult jumps that their stamina and focus suffered. Kevin Aymoz, France's brilliant on-ice artist, gave in to similar stamina problems, although he looked more like he was so caught up in the moment that he couldn't hold onto his rotations. He broke down in the kiss and cry, overcome with emotion.

Koshiro Shimada was one of my favorite JGP discoveries of last season, and he's built beautifully on the strong foundation he displayed last fall. Still only fourteen and without a triple Axel, he has plenty of room to grow technically, but he proved in St. Gervais that he has the mental toughness to complete a stacked free skate with only minor technical mistakes. In contrast with most of the other artistically successful skaters here, Shimada's choreography and style in the free skate focus on capturing the emotions of his music, and he does so admirably for such a young athlete. I'm also impressed by how many of his jumps exit into footwork: a vote of confidence from his coaches, who trust him to land with enough speed that he can step directly into a difficult move. Shimada climbed from fifth in the short program to a well-deserved bronze medal.

But the runaway hero of the weekend was Roman Savosin. I've seldom seen a national federation change tactics as fast as Russia has with its men, but after Mikhail Kolyada's scene-stealing at Worlds and stylish performances by mini iconoclasts like Savosin and Skirda, it seems like the Russians have finally embraced well-balanced content instead of over-trained quads and underdeveloped stamina. The old, technically focused approach let Savosin down here - after a solid quad toe loop, he struggled with one triple Axel and fell on the other - but he excelled at everything else. The easier jumps in the second half of his program were the strongest, showing no sign of fatigue, and incorporating difficult arm variations and transitions as well as Yagudin-esque edges and musicality. Savosin's gold medal is an exciting sign that men's scoring favors well-roundedness, giving credit to the kid with the clean quad but only because he's also a fast, elegant skater and a lovely spinner.

We're not even two weeks into the figure skating season, and I'm already behind on blogging. Part of the problem is that the entire Junior Grand Prix series is on the other side of the world, at least from my perspective, which means a lot of early mornings yawning in front of the live stream. The other part is that the first weekend in September might be business as usual in the Czech Republic, but it's a national holiday here, the kind on which your friends expect you to pry yourself away from the computer and have a social life. Because nobody wants to celebrate Labor Day at 6 AM, I did manage to watch most of JGP Ostrava live, but I've had to wait until the festivities ended to write up what I saw.

Before I get to the juniors, though, I want to spare a few sentences for Nathan Chen, who has not only recovered from hip surgery but unveiled an arsenal of blisteringly difficult quadruple jumps. In his short program at the Golden West Championships, a club meet in California, he attempted both a quad flip and a quad lutz, and the jumps were impressive despite the falls. I still wish he'd bring more personality to his performances; he moves a bit like a clockwork ballerina in this program, and what the top men in the world have proven over and over is, the quads don't mean a thing if you can't bring components to match. Chen will be a massive wild card this season, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he measures up.

But the juniors were the main event last weekend. Ostrava's field was illustrious, as much as a competition can be at the junior level: it featured two teams of reigning World Junior Champions and a number of up-and-coming ladies who'd been getting buzz on the message boards all summer. Overall, the top of the field delivered, although there was less depth in Ostrava than in St. Gervais a week earlier. There were plenty of great performances, but not a lot of New Faves this time around.

Pairs

Only half of the Junior Grand Prix events include pairs, so Ostrava was our first opportunity to see the best juniors in the discipline. Unfortunately, most were a mess: it was the kind of competition where talented but inconsistent Americans Chelsea Liu and Brian Johnson could eke out a bronze medal despite three falls and an illegal element. Czech team Anna Duskova and Martin Bidar had the pleasure of skating for a hometown crowd but the pressure of proving that they really are the pre-eminent junior pair after their surprise victory at Junior Worlds last winter. They made a strong case for themselves, building up an enormous lead with a technically flawless short program that featured a huge throw triple lutz. Duskova and Bidar struggled a bit more in the free skate, but their short program advantage held up, and they started their season with gold. My concern about Duskova and Bidar is their so-so artistry; they're clean and poised, but even their graceful lifts don't show a lot of emotion or chemistry. 

Russia's Amina Atakhanova and Ilia Spiridonov might not have kept up with Duskova and Bidar's massive technical scores, but they stole the show for me. They're the kind of team that has chemistry even when they're not looking at each other, and their "Singing in the Rain" free skate is a great match for their light, fleet-footed style. And they're no slouches in the technical department, either: their opening triple toe loop-double toe loop-double toe loop combination was one of the weekend's biggest wow moments. They more or less tied with Duskova and Bidar in program components in both the short and the free, and they won the free skate outright. Atakhanova is only fourteen years old, so these two have plenty of time to grow together.

Ladies

As in pairs, the ladies had trouble staying on their feet. Of the top six finishers, only one managed to keep herself upright through both programs. That was South Korea's Hanul Kim, and she had other problems, receiving deductions for underrotations on the two hardest jumping passes in her free skate and every triple jump in her short program. Underrotations plagued other skaters, too, especially Russia's Alisa Lozko, who took deductions on five of the seven jumping passes in her free skate but still did enough for a bronze medal. Lozko had some terrific moments - she is, among other things, an extraordinary spinner - but she looked unsteady throughout. Yuna Aoki of Japan had an even rougher ride, testing out extremely tough jumps that included a triple lutz-triple loop combination in the second half of her free skate. But the lutz was her enemy; out of three attempts, Aoki fell on two and barely hung onto the third. With so many teenagers presenting incredible jumps, I understand Aoki's desire to stand out, but the hard technical content seemed to overwhelm her. All three of the girls in this paragraph are fourteen years old, and so many difficult jumps are a lot to ask of such young skaters.

Megan Wessenberg, of the United States, was the oldest skater at the top of the field, but she still seemed to let her nerves get to her. She looked like she had it all together in her short program after a high, controlled triple toe loop-triple toe loop combination, but she ran out of gas toward the end and fell on an easy double Axel. Even so, her energy and musicality made her short program one of the artistic highlights of the event. It's rare to see a junior lady who can reel the audience in with a hip shimmy.

The other notable underdog at Ostrava was Michaela-Lucie Hanzlikova, a Czech skater who climbed up from 17th in the short program to 9th overall on the strength of the afternoon's cleanest free skate. Hanzlikova doesn't have the triple-triple jump combinations that bring giant scores to the ladies at the very top of the sport, but she had enough stamina and focus in Ostrava to maintain great height and controlled landings throughout her program. She's also one of the few skaters I've seen with enough intensity to pull off Carmina Burana, not to mention a fierce blue ponytail. It was the kind of performance that justified waking up extra early to catch the skaters in the middle groups.

Rika Kihira got loads of pre-season attention from fans because, at barely fourteen years old, she competes a triple Axel. She landed a terrific one in the warm-up to her free skate, but nerves and timing seemed to get to her in the program itself, and she not only fell but received a downgrade for underrotation. The stricter rules of the short program forced her to focus on the big picture, and she fared much better there, establishing an early lead. The judges rewarded her mightily for one of the best triple lutz-triple toe loop combinations I've ever seen, with the kind of height and power I'm used to seeing in men's skating. I'm a tough critic when it comes to Ravel's "Tzigane," since it's a piece of music I love, and I wish Kihira had captured its frenetic joy a bit more. But she has a natural sense of rhythm, clearly using the music to help her time those beautiful jumps, and she got great mileage out of choreographic touches like the twizzles in her step sequence. It was like she'd taken a brief, brilliant detour into ice dance.

At the very top, the ladies' event was exactly the type of nail-biter that keeps fans watching, and a terrific contrast to the blowout in St. Gervais. Anastasiia Gubanova is one of the most promising of this year's crop of tiny Russians; it will be interesting as the season progresses to see how she stacks up against last week's winner, Alina Zagitova, not to mention last season's breakout stars, Polina Tsurskaya and Alisa Fedichkina, both of whom will compete later in the JGP series after a summer recovering from injuries. Gubanova's free skate doesn't game the system nearly as much as Zagitova's, but she makes up for it with extraordinary skating skills, especially for her age. Gubanova is whip-fast, with secure edges and clean jump technique that contrasted admirably with the rotation and edge errors that most of her competitors committed. Like many young skaters, Gubanova is still developing her personality on the ice, although she's already learned to project a quiet elegance and maturity. Her Interpretation and Performance components accounted for far more than her slim 0.08 advantage over Kihira, and I agree with the judges that it was Gubanova's performance quality that ultimately pushed her ahead.

Ice Dance

Everyone knew that dance was going to be the Lorraine McNamara & Quinn Carpenter show, and indeed it was. The reigning World Junior Champions won by almost 17 points, which is a margin we seldom see in any discipline, but almost never in dance. I had to set McNamara and Carpenter aside to watch the rest of the field on their own terms, and when I did, I still saw a lot of disappointment. Chloe Lewis and Logan Bye arrived with hopes of erasing a rocky 2015-16 but instead more firmly established themselves as a team with problems, especially in the twizzle department. In both their short dance and free dance, Lewis and Bye stepped out of their difficult twizzle sequences, dropping down to a low-scoring level 1 and receiving negative grades of execution. I was also disappointed to see Canadians Danielle Wu and Nik Mirzakhani get savaged on their components scores, falling to 7th overall despite impressive technical content. And one of the event's two young, newly formed Russian teams, Evgeniia Lopareva and Alexey Karpushov, proved the importance of the required pattern dances in the short dance, knocking themselves out of medal contention with timing errors and missed checkpoints.

The other Russian team, Arina Ushakova and Maxim Nekrasov, looked like a pair of tiny peanuts compared to competitors with several seasons of Junior Grand Prix experience, and I can't wait to see what they look like in a couple of years. Now, they're already strong enough for a bronze medal in their international debut. In both programs, their rotational lifts were the biggest highlights, transitioning smoothly through difficult changes of position and showing off Nekrasov's steady, confident partnering skills. Artistically, Nekrasov can't quite stand up to Ushakova's charismatic face-pulling, but he's the stronger technical skater. If they can each learn from the other as they grow as a team, they'll be a full-package threat.

Nicole Kuzmich and Alexander Sinicyn were back for the second week in a row with their delightfully weird Charlie Chaplin free dance, and skating in the Czech Republic seemed to inject them with an extra dose of energy. This week, they upgraded their score by eight points in the free dance alone and boasted the highest technical base value in the field (a tie with Wu and Mirzakhani, actually, although Kuzmich and Sinicyn earned much higher grades of execution). In addition to performing the heck out of everything, they synchronized their moves perfectly, making a tough twizzle pass look smooth and easy. They're so stylistically different from the other junior teams, building difficulty from upper body and arm positions in ways that other teams apparently don't think to do. It's also refreshing to see such a whimsical free dance, when ice dance so easily descends into glurgey seriousness. A JGP silver medal should be a great boost to their confidence, and it might even be enough for them to snag a spot at the Junior Grand Prix Final.

Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter were the undisputed headliners of the ice dance event, and they delivered as advertised, setting a new personal best in the short dance and blowing the rest of the field out of the water. They've stuck with their signature style, quirky and a little menacing, but they've applied it in a new way with this free dance, blending conventional ice dance lyricism with very rock-and-roll moves that remind you they're skating to Metallica and AC/DC. The judges nailed them on levels in their step sequences and dance spin, some of which can be chalked up to conservative judging overall in Ostrava, and the rest of which is probably the result of technical upgrades they're not quite comfortable with at this early point in the season. Their new lifts are spectacular, though: a rotational lift that looks like an assisted, airborne sit spin and a straight line lift in which McNamara swings back and forth across Carpenter's body like the needle of a metronome. We already knew they were awesome, and it's fun to see them getting even more awesome.

Men

After a low-scoring men's event in St. Gervais, quads were busting out all over Ostrava. All three medalists scored over 200 points this week, and the winner's score might have placed him on the podium in the senior Grand Prix. On the other hand, the men's field in Ostrava lacked the pleasant surprises of St. Gervais, with the podium shaking out more or less as expected and few bright spots beyond the top three. The ISU commentator, whom I think of affectionately as Father Ted, was very excited about Canada's Joseph Phan, who is trying so hard to set himself up as the next Patrick Chan that their names rhyme. But Phan's jump technique worries me, as does his failure to complete a triple-triple combination in his free skate. Lovelier to watch but equally prone to underrotation was Kevin Shum of the USA. On the national level, Shum has gotten far with clean performances and elegant execution, but he can't afford the kinds of mistakes he made in Ostrava.

Last week's gold medalist, Russian up-and-comer Roman Savosin, took a few steps forward and a few steps back. He beat his overall score from St. Gervais by about nine points and achieved a full set of new personal bests, but it was only good enough for a bronze medal in this more challenging field. It looked like he'd spent the week restoring consistency to his triple Axel, the jump he fell on in St. Gervais, but that success came at the expense of his quadruple toe loop, which he couldn't hang onto in Ostrava. He did give the most engaging and artistically mature free skate performance of the three medalists, although that's mostly because he has a natural dancerly quality, while the other two have to work hard to avoid looking like a sack of bricks. In any case, I'm pleased to see Savosin perform consistently well, and his results should be more than enough to take him to the JGP Final. Since that's not until December, he'll have plenty of time to figure out how to land all his tricky jumps before his next big meet.

Alexei Krasnozhon ensured that the United States took home a medal of every color this weekend. Evoking Adam Rippon, he took a wild stab at a quadruple loop. While it was exciting to see a junior-level skater attempt such a difficult jump, it was downgraded for underrotation, and Krasnozhon got scant credit for it. Elsewhere, however, his jumps were terrific, especially the triple-triple combinations that earned him the two highest single-element point totals of the weekend. But what really impressed me was how much Krasnozhon has progressed artistically, even though he still has a long way to go. Reportedly, he studied Brian Boitano's iconic free skate to Copland's Rodeo while developing his own, and he's picked up a keener sense of how to hold his upper body and express emotional range. It's hard for me to resist a skater who identifies a problem and says, "Let me spend hours researching that on YouTube." If that's his path to finding an original artistic voice, that's wonderful; if not, I look forward to years of entertaining cover versions of classic performances.

When Dmitri Aliev is on his game, it's easy to forget that he's ever off of it. His quad toe loops and triple Axels looked stunning, and although the judges found fault with his rotation of a few of them, it's hard to deny their impact when he launches them. Aliev's knee slide to triple flip remains the kind of transition gimmick I can't get enough of, but his free skate is a bit choreographically empty otherwise, especially in comparison to Savosin's and Krasnozhon's. There are an awful lot of back crossovers in there, and an awful lot of breathing room in between major elements. I suspect that Aliev is capable of more, because when his choreography gives him a chance to perform - as in the mock sword fight that makes his step sequence a delight - he really sells it. But this is a concern more for his future career than for the present, since he established himself last weekend as a tough act to beat.

Coming Soon

This weekend brings a double bill: the third event in the Junior Grand Prix series, and the first in the Challenger Series of "senior B" events. Since this week's JGP is in Japan, and I enjoy sleeping, I'm going to opt for watching the Lombardia Trophy live and saving JGP Yokohama for the YouTube replay. People message me on social media a lot about where and when to catch events like these online, and the best resource for viewing info is So You Want to Watch Figure Skating. I am certain that you will be much less of an idiot about verifying time zone differences than I am. 

We're not even halfway into September, and we have reached peak figure skating. In Italy, the Lombardia Trophy marked the beginning of the Challenger Series, a set of ten senior-level open-entry competitions that runs through the fall and early winter. Meanwhile, we're nearly halfway through the Junior Grand Prix series, with young skaters competing in front of a boisterous sold-out crowd in Yokohama, Japan. As if that weren't enough, Russia held its annual test skates this weekend; unlike many other powerhouse skating countries, Russia opens its test event to the public, and someone always manages to sneak in a video camera. 

As a result of this bounty of figure skating excitement - most of which took place at ridiculous hours of early morning, Chicago time - I'm changing up the blog format this week and dividing my posts by discipline. This one is all about the ice dance, and I'll follow up with the men and the ladies later in the week. (If I find anything to say about pairs, I'll tack it onto one of the other posts.) 

Lombardia Trophy

The Lombardia Trophy attracted some huge names in the other three disciplines, but its ice dance field was more modest. The headliners, Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, withdrew shortly beforehand, leaving a roster of interesting mid-listers to duke it out. That actually made things more exciting. Less exciting was the incredibly glitchy live stream, which means that many of the available videos skip and freeze. Far be it from me to complain: free live streams are literally a gift to the fans, as are the screen captures of individual programs.

The biggest disappointment of the Lombardia Trophy, at least in dance, were Julia Biechler and Damian Dodge of the United States, who seemed like sure bets for a medal but instead struggled in their senior international debut. They're expressive skaters with great edge control, strengths reflected in their high components scores, but they couldn't quite execute the difficulty in their step sequences. As a result, they lost levels in what should have been their highest-scoring elements and settled for fourth place. Their performance was a reminder that missing turns in a dance step sequence can be as catastrophic, score-wise, as doubling jumps in the other disciplines. 

On the brighter side of things, brand new British team Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson overachieved mightily, showing rare confidence for this early point in the season and particularly nailing their lifts. I'm not embedding their free dance because one more rendition of "You Raise Me Up" will cause me brain damage, and frankly, their performance quality hasn't caught up to their technical ability yet. They have a nice natural chemistry, but they're still learning how to use it. Nonetheless, an international silver medal right out of the gate is a stamp of approval and a sign we'll be seeing a lot more of this team.

The winners, far and away, were Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri of Italy; their difficulty and polish were clearly a few orders of magnitude ahead of everyone else's. Still, I couldn't stop myself from nitpicking, mostly because their new free skate is odd, using familiar music from The Nutcracker but not reflecting the story or characters of one of the world's most recognizable ballets. Even the costumes are strange: why a dress covered in musical notes for music that would work better with ugly Christmas sweaters? That's all a matter of taste, obviously, but they also skate too far apart for a team at their level, with lots of open holds. On the other hand, their twizzles are phenomenal, with a particularly unique and difficult first set, and they form some beautiful body positions in their dance spin. During the rest of the season, if judges focus on technical triumphs like those, Guignard and Fabbri will be in the conversation more than ever, and deservedly so.

For my money, the most entertaining team at the event were Cecilia Törn and Jussiville Partanen, a Finnish duo who caught my eye at Worlds last year and continue to impress me with their performances, even if their technical ability isn't top tier yet. They've improved technically since last season, achieving maximum levels on their twizzles and lifts, although they strain visibly for those difficult positions. It's easy to ignore those wobbles, however, because they're such an engaging team. Their free dance, to offbeat chamber pop by Bjork and Woodkid, has been blocked due to copyright, which is tragic, because it's ethereal and strange in the best way. I'll settle for sharing their Rolling Stones short dance, which is full of energy and genuinely bluesy.

Russian Test Skate

Several of Russia's top dance teams had to sit out the test event. Elena Ilinykh and Ruslan Zhiganshin are recovering from an injury, and Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin were ill last weekend. It's too bad, because both are exciting teams to watch, and they benefit from the lower pressure of the test skate environment. Health problems for two top teams aren't a great sign for Russian ice dance as a whole: things have been unraveling for the past few years, and so far, their juniors have been overshadowed on the Junior Grand Prix circuit. (More on that in a minute.) Sure enough, there was plenty to enjoy about the new programs, but also some causes for concern.

Tiffany Zahorski and Jonathan Guerreiro looked like they were having a great time with their short dance. The blues section was so sultry it was borderline NSFW, with the flexible and expressive Zahorski slinking suggestively around Guerreiro. They also looked technically secure throughout the program, with great synchronization and knee bend in their pattern dances and a firecracker of a lift at the end. I'm not as big of a fan of their free dance, which gives them too little to work with emotionally. They looked slow and uncertain throughout. Lovely, light classical music is ideal for some teams, but it's a poor match for a duo that gets so much mileage out of high-energy sex appeal. Is it too late to give them a samba or something?

Viktoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov have half of a plausible tango. That half is Sinitsina, who lunged and smoldered, more artistically committed to a routine than I've ever seen her. Katsalapov, on the other hand, looked like one of those hapless classically trained boys on So You Think You Can Dance who gets eviscerated by Mary Murphy when he draws Latin ballroom for the week. They also have not fixed the problem in which they look like they are going to die during their twizzles. But their strength is in their step sequences, as fast and intricate as any in the sport, with stunning edges and smooth changes of upper body position. 

Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev are back, with deep suntans and a strong case that they're still the best ice dance team in Russia. Their short dance is a lot of fun, with terrific commitment to the style of the music and smooth, fast movement throughout. I've watched a lot of labored ice dance over the past few days, and it's a pleasure to see a team that's so comfortable with their technical ability as well as their artistic personas. They performed beautifully in their free dance as well, although it's a bit incoherent, a mashup of Chopin and Vivaldi that doesn't quite meld and doesn't give them a clear enough narrative. Bobrova and Soloviev do best when they have characters to portray, and this program is so abstract, they don't shine as much as they need to.

Junior Grand Prix Yokohama

The ice dance results in Yokohama were far from a surprise, but with several of the most energetic and entertaining junior-level dance teams in this field, the predictability didn't get in the way. I'd hoped that two young North American teams, Emma Gunter and Caleb Wein of the United States and Seungyun Han and Grayson Lochhead of Canada, might climb the ranks unexpectedly. Both teams struggled with their twizzles in the free dance, but their biggest deficits came in program components. It looks like the judges just aren't seeing enough maturity or skating skills from either team yet. I disagree, but maybe I'm grading on potential rather than their execution at this particular meet. Either way, if these teams can stick together, they're likely to be something special in a couple of years. It was much the same story for Polina Ivanenko and Daniil Karpov, except that the young Russians were far more secure technically, executing fast, steady twizzles and finishing their free dance with a showstopper of a rotational lift.

Angelique Abachkina and Louis Thauron didn't have the same spark in Yokohama as they had two weeks earlier in St. Gervais. Maybe they got bogged down under the pressure of repeating their gold medal performances, or maybe it was just jet lag. At any rate, they're still speedy and stylish skaters with terrific twizzles, and in a less stacked field, they would have done better than bronze. Combined, the two medals are more than enough for a trip to the Junior Grand Prix Final, and hopefully they'll use the next three months to develop both their confidence and their technical difficulty. It might not be quite enough to rain on the parades of the dominant American teams, but they certainly have a shot at continuing their medal streak.

Anastasia Shpilevaya and Grigory Smirnov continued their ascent as rising stars of Russian ice dance with a strong silver-medal performance. They're technically adept across the board, but their twizzles are particularly amazing: they change from one difficult leg position to another in the first set, then adorn the other two sets with a beautiful arm variation. Between this team and Abachkina/Thauron, it looks like high-energy folk dance is making a comeback, and it's refreshing. Shpilevaya and Smirnov use the fast pace of their music to their advantage, proving they can keep up with the relentless speed and respond to the changes in mood. Sure, it's a little cheesy, but it's an ideal showcase for their abilities.

To no one's surprise, Americans Rachel and Michael Parsons dominated in Yokohama, winning by a tidy nine-point margin. If there was a surprise at all, it was that they beat the overall score that their training mates and friendly rivals, Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter, posted last week, if only by a few tenths of a point. It's easy to see why: aside from a small wobble on the twizzles in their free dance, their skating is more fluid and self-assured than McNamara and Carpenter's at this point in the season. Their free dance is a little strange, but it's similar to the lyrical pop programs that have been earning the judges' favor on the senior level. Choreographically, it highlights all their strengths as a team. They use their upper bodies more than any other dance team I can think of, and they stay so close together as they skate that their blades seem to almost touch. As they mature, they keep refining their sibling chemistry so it's warm but not uncomfortable. If they keep skating like this, they might pull ahead to become the top junior team in America, and therefore the world. That would be a plot twist worth watching out for.

Figure skating season is in full swing now, and you can tell by the griping about the poor quality of the live streams. The complaints are well-justified. During the second half of the ladies' short program at the Junior Grand Prix event in Saransk, Russia, the sound was a good 90 seconds ahead of the video, which not only irritated the viewers but made it impossible to assess the skaters' artistic performances. Fans had to pay to watch this weekend's Challenger Series competition, the US International Classic, which streamed on IceNetwork, and the live feed skipped so badly through most of the events that it was impossible to tell what was going on. I had to speak with customer service for an unrelated issue during the event, and it became clear from those conversations that the feed problems were beyond IceNetwork's direct control; there were issues with the internet speed and bandwidth in the arena in Salt Lake City. That's why the replay videos are high quality and don't skip. If the Salt Lake City Sports Complex continues to host the event, as it has for the past several years, it needs to ensure that it's equipped to provide a functioning stream for IceNetwork's paying customers. This isn't to let IceNetwork off the hook by any means, since they have a long history of wonky live streams, just to acknowledge that there are a lot of things that can go wrong when you're streaming live sports events and don't have the budget of the National Football League. And even if you do have that kind of budget - remember a few years ago when the Super Bowl got held up for an hour because of a power outage? Basically, my take-away is, keep complaining and demanding better quality, so the live stream providers know we care and are watching. But also recognize that IceNetwork isn't a horrible conspiracy to steal your money, and that you probably pay more for Netflix. 

Now that I've stepped down from my soapbox, it's time to talk skating. This season's Challenger Series continues to boast a level of competition almost as high as at the Grand Prix. Indeed, of the 13 men who competed this weekend, eight have at least one Grand Prix assignment. The US Classic field was also more evenly balanced than at many Grand Prix events, with a number of guys who could have won on their best day. This week's Junior Grand Prix, on the other hand, was a low-key affair compared to last week's quad-off in Yokohama, but it gave several young, lower-profile skaters a chance to shine. The plucky fifteen-year-olds in Saransk contrasted with the striving veterans in Salt Lake City in a lot of ways, but both groups proved that style and presentation are what make this sport worthwhile.

Junior Grand Prix - Cup of Mordovia 

The fourth week of the Junior Grand Prix series presented hard-fought battles and giant scores in some of the other disciplines, but the men's field was more modest than in other weeks and featured an all but preordained winner in Alexander Samarin. Nonetheless, there were plenty of fun and eye-opening performances in Saransk. It was a pleasure to see Eric Sjoberg, an American who has just moved up from the novice level, starting to develop a personal style on the ice, focusing on movement quality and stamina as much as on his jumps. He reminds me of Adam Rippon's early days, not only in his on-ice finesse but in his wild jump technique. I also enjoyed watching Tangxu Li of China, who regrouped mentally after a disaster two weeks ago in Ostrava to not only land every jump in his free skate but express the nuances of his music. Performing to the Enchanted soundtrack, he looked like a fairy tale prince. Georgia's Irakli Maysuradze led off his free skate with a spectacular triple Axel, but it was his infectious energy that made him one of the stars of the event. Like many of the competitors in Saransk, he blew away his previous personal best scores and seemed to surprise himself with what he was capable of.

The Russian Federation has shown great confidence in Petr Gumennik over the past couple of seasons, and this weekend, I finally saw why. He was Saransk's comeback kid, rising from 7th in the short program after some jump trouble to come just short of a bronze medal overall. He's one of the few skaters I know of with a bona fide triple loop-triple loop combination, secure on the exit edge of the first jump so the second is cleanly rotated. Gumennik also has beautiful control over his spin positions, tying himself in knots but never looking pained or contorted. He's a charming performer, too, although as he grows up, he's going to have to learn to be less adorable and more genuinely expressive. Russia has been rewarding well-rounded men's skaters more and more, and Gumennik is a great example of that shift in approach.

This weekend's showstopper, without a doubt, was Matyas Belohradsky of the Czech Republic. He's coached by Tomas Verner, and his upbeat flair and floppy blond hair have Tumblr fans calling him Verner's "mini-me." Belohradsky is definitely a performer, and this weekend, he had the jumps as well, opening his short program with an enormous triple lutz-triple toe loop and sailing through the rest. He was only 9th at his other Junior Grand Prix competition, in Ostrava, and he beat his overall score there by more than 20 points. He also earned the Czech Republic's third JGP medal of the season - only Russia, Japan, and the USA have gathered more. If he can keep up the consistency and composure he showed here, and upgrade those jumps, he could become a true successor to Verner.

Andrew Torgashev might be my favorite American junior man. I've been a fan since I watched him win Nationals at the intermediate level in 2013, and I spent last season fretting about how he'd look when he recovered from an ankle fracture that sidelined him for a full year. I'm thrilled to report that the kid is not just alright, but terrific. Torgashev continued the USA's silver medal streak, becoming the third American man in a row to finish in second place. He did it despite some unsteadiness on his jumps - his triple Axel dogged him throughout the competition, and he lost credit for unclear or wrong edges on all three of his triple lutzes - and a bizarre cut of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that intersperses Freddie Mercury's voice with Muzak. He made up for those issues by fighting for the landing on his quadruple toe loop, executing the fastest and most polished non-jump elements of the competition, and rocking out like a tribute to Wayne's World in the final minute of his free program.

It was no surprise that Russia's Alexander Samarin ran away with this one, taking gold by an impressive 24-point margin. He was the only man in Saransk to show confidence in his quad, and the triple Axel in his short program was the best I saw all weekend at any level. He had some jump troubles elsewhere, falling in his short program and missing a combination in his free skate, and it looks like he's still working on the transitions and choreographic moves that will keep his components marks competitive when he moves up to seniors. But his performances were refreshing in another respect. Samarin is this season's poster child for just letting skaters compete to music they like. Last season, skating to a jazz standard and a movie soundtrack, he looked awkward and stiff. This year, he's all rock 'n' roll - a recent shout-rock hit for his short program, a classic hair metal ballad in his free skate - and you can see in his eyes that he never gets tired of hearing these songs. Although they belong to the same musical genre, the two programs have contrasting moods and rhythms, showcasing an artistic range that nobody realized he had. He posted the best overall score of his career in Saransk, but he made a more important statement in his fiery step sequences than in any of his jumps.

US International Classic

The unreliable skaters were out in force in Salt Lake City. Nam Nguyen's quadruple salchow seems to be degenerating: he just barely hung onto one in his free skate, but a fall in his short program and a costly pop on his first free skate attempt reflect a loss of confidence in the jump. His choreography and performance style also challenge him less than his programs from the past couple of years, a strategy that has not improved his technical consistency and has lowered his components scores. The US Classic also brought us the most facepalm-inducing versions of Ross Miner and Keiji Tanaka. Neither fell, but both popped a ton of jumps, looking more and more frantic as they realized how many points they'd left behind. Miner did have a few brilliant moments, including a high, effortless quad salchow in his free skate, but both gave the kind of performance that dooms an athlete from a high-talent country to sit on the bench for the rest of the season.

Elladj Balde filled us all with false hope in the short program, only to melt down thoroughly in the free skate. His SP showed off the Elladj that gets him invitations to galas, though, and the promise that we all keep seeing in him. Wisely forgoing his unreliable quad in favor of triples on which he could earn high grades of execution, Balde skated clean and smooth, opening with a huge triple flip and seeming to time his spin rotations to the music. Unfortunately, Balde is one of those skaters whose performance style doesn't necessarily translate to high components scores; his programs lack the intricate connecting moves that let his American and Japanese competitors absorb a few technical mistakes. His music choice is brilliant, though. More short programs to metal covers of Simon & Garfunkel, I say.

After this weekend, we all have to stop doubting that Brendan Kerry is the real deal. His short program was just all right, but his free skate was the cleanest of a long and messy night. Kerry landed two very plausible quad toe loops in his free skate - the first, in combination, was downright terrific - and found his feet on everything else, even if he had to fight for a landing or two. He also embraced his pirate theme with delightful gusto, swashbuckling through his step sequences and bringing some Jack Sparrow eye twinkle to his breath pauses. His fourth-place finish was a well-deserved surprise, but one that also revealed his limitations. He's an entertaining skater with remarkable power, but he gets slow toward the end, and his choreography gives him a lot of room to recover after each element. That's why he was less than a point behind Rippon in technical elements but 11 points back in program components. He has the charisma and instincts to close the gap. If he gets his transitions and skating skills up to par, we'll stop being surprised every time he posts a success like this one.

How can a skater be dirty and clean at the same time? Adam Rippon showed us the answer in his short program, executing jumps so pristine that he soared into the high 80s without attempting a quad. Rippon's choreography, on the other hand, made us all need a cold shower. Most male skaters are cautious about displaying raw sexiness on the ice, but when Rippon gets to shake his hips and wag his fingers, it's like he's been let out of the chaste choreographic cage that his coaches had stuck him in for a decade before he won a National title and stopped having to care. 

After Rippon's short program, I wondered what he has left to prove in this sport, but his free skate provided an answer. He's still chasing that quad lutz, as well as consistency in his triple Axel and an overall smoothness in and out of his jumps. He's also chasing the kind of focus and sharpness that pull down his components scores when he makes mistakes. He's filled in his free skate choreography quite a bit since he premiered the program over the summer, but you can see him trying to hold himself together when those Axels aren't going his way. The same genuineness that lets Rippon treat the ice like a red-hot dance floor also makes Rippon an open book when he's unhappy with himself.

Many fans thought that Takahito Mura should have won both the short program and free skate and were perplexed that he finished behind Jason Brown in both segments. If figure skating were judged purely on technical difficulty, Mura would have had it in the bag. He made a handful of errors - a popped Axel in his free skate, a slightly wonky landing on the quad toe loop in his short program - but he was easily the best jumper in Salt Lake City this weekend. He's also improved artistically over the past couple of years, working with Charlie White to find his inner ice dancer, but like many technically proficient skaters, he trades away a lot of precision and intricacy so he has enough energy to land those big jumps. 

At a different competition, up against a different kind of field, the judges might have let his less impressive skating skills slide, but this is America, where even the men have to be pretty in order to succeed. Watching his free skate next to Brown's and Rippon's, Mura looked unsophisticated and, toward the end, winded. His jumps give the top American men something to aspire to, but he's got something to learn from them, as well. Like Rippon, Mura skates like he has something to prove, and I suspect it's that desire for originality and memorability.

Unlike the army of meltdown kings he was up against, Jason Brown is nothing if not consistent. Every time he falls on his quad toe loop attempt, he bounces onto his butt and picks himself up exactly the same way. He's landing the jump more and more often in practice, and he got full rotation credit for the one in his free skate, so it's coming along at the slow pace that Brown's technical upgrades always do. It took a couple of seasons for his triple Axel to show up, and now he executes it with such power and control that he gets huge GOE bonuses for it. That's why it was such a surprise to see him pop his first triple Axel attempt in his free skate. Everything else was glorious, though, from the catch-foot camel spin in his short program that seemed to go around a thousand times to the triple lutz-half loop-triple salchow in the final minute of his free skate that earned more points than anyone's quad. I wish his programs this season were a little less restrained - Brown's personality is more Susan Cooper from Spy than James Bond, and that's part of his charm - but they demonstrate artistic sophistication. 

Brown is also one of a very small number of current skaters who can win on the basis of program components, and deserve to. I was actually surprised that his free skate components score didn't break 90, because even with the jump errors, his edges, turns, and speed put most of this weekend's ice dancers to shame. Watching live, I was surprised that Brown won, but on replay, it made sense. If we're truly going to consider PCS to be half of a skater's score, then Brown excelled so much at that half of his job, he left everyone else in the dust.

The thing about ice dance disasters is that, in any other discipline, they'd be tiny mistakes. If a singles skater puts her foot down too early, she might lose a point or two in her grade of execution, but if an ice dancer does the same during a twizzle, the whole element goes down several levels, tanking the team's score. A minuscule timing error in a pattern dance can make a team miss all their checkpoints, knocking them down to a Level 1, while slow and out-of-sync footwork is almost the norm in pairs. Unless you watch an unhealthy amount of ice dance, you're probably mystified by why teams look like they want to drown themselves after what looked like a terrific performance. 

Let's call the summary of this weekend's notable ice dance performances An Introduction to Screwing Up Your Dance. 

This weekend's ice dance competition covered all of the major categories except for costume violations, which is to say, at least nobody's dress started shedding feathers and sequins. But just about anything else that could go wrong, did go wrong somewhere in Europe: at the Challenger Series Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany, the Junior Grand Prix Ljubljana in Slovenia, or a small Russian domestic competition in Samara. Most of these programs were enjoyable overall and had great moments, and I have plenty of positive things to say about them as well. Still, they provide a pretty thorough aggregate picture of where and why the deductions come in.

1. Don't Fall Down.

You'd think that "don't fall" would be rule #1 in figure skating, but in the other three disciplines, skaters frequently win despite a fall. In ice dance, however, falling will send a team tumbling down the ranks. Kavita Lorenz and Joti Polizoakis got a late start to the season after briefly splitting up over the summer, and it showed throughout their performance in Oberstdorf. For the first couple of minutes, it looked like Polizoakis was the weaker link, as he missed steps and turns that shaved levels off their serpentine step sequence. They managed to keep up the difficulty in their lifts and twizzles, but so-so grades of execution reveal that the judges saw uncertainty in those elements as well. The real killer, though, came in their diagonal step sequence, the last difficult element of their free dance. Step sequences in dance are deceptively hard, and the rewards for a great one can be huge; a level 4 diagonal step has a base value comparable to that of a quadruple jump. Lorenz's fall had the same effect on their score as when a men's skater doubles an intended quad, misses a planned combination, and falls. It's especially a shame because this free dance will be terrific when Lorenz and Polizoakis get a better handle on it. Many current teams look awkward in the realm of Latin dance, but Lorenz and Polizoakis have the ideal posture and chemistry for flamenco. They're on the roster for next weekend's Ondrej Nepela Memorial, another Challenger Series event, so they'll soon have another chance to prove they can get this right.

2. Don't Miss an Entire Element.

When I used to teach, I would frequently tell my students it was better to turn in a failing paper than to not turn one in at all. After all, you still get some points for an F, whereas a missed assignment is an automatic 0. It's the same with required elements in short programs: if you don't check one of the boxes, you get no points, even if what you did kind of resembled one of the requirements. In their short dance at JGP Ljubljana, Sofia Polishchuk and Alexander Vakhnov made the kind of freak error that keeps figure skating unpredictable. Their curve lift requires Polishchuk to stand on Vakhnov's boots, but as she went into it, she missed one of his feet. The tragedy of it is, they were great otherwise, better even than in their free dance, which contained no significant mistakes. The choreographic moves between their twizzles are unique and cool, and make their short program twizzles more difficult than the ones in their free dance. They skate close together and stay deep in the knee. It's also clear that they've spent the past month correcting the timing errors that got them in trouble with their pattern dance in St. Gervais. And they have two of the most adorable smiles in ice dance. With a bronze medal in St. Gervais and silver here, Polishchuk and Vakhnov will probably just miss the qualification threshold for the Junior Grand Prix Final this season, but watch out for them next fall - or sooner, if they bring their A game to Nationals.

3. Don't Do Lifts You Can't Get Out Of.

Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev have one of my favorite free dances of the season so far. I should be less surprised: they've always been a versatile and musical team, with edge control that makes me swoon. Maybe it's peer pressure getting me down, trying to convince me they shouldn't be my favorite Russian team, but there aren't many current ice dancers that can turn drab Chopin and overused Vivaldi into a unique, vibrant, and coherent free dance. They're especially adept at skating fast to slow music, maintaining the character and mood of the piece while subdividing the tempo to keep up their momentum. They're also one of the few top teams with seamless transitions and no Look At Us, About To Do A Lift moments. The two lifts in the second half of the program should be the biggest highlights, and while Bobrova is aloft, they are. Soloviev's speed during their rotational lift looks impossible, especially since Bobrova is upside-down, like a passenger on the world's most nausea-inducing amusement park ride, and yet both look graceful. The only problem is, she can't get down, and those stunning lifts devolve into awkward messes as Bobrova fights to keep her butt off the ice. At a low-stakes meet like the Russian Cup of Samara, which they were going to win by 60 points no matter what, it's no big deal. Internationally, however, they'll get destroyed for those lift exits, no matter how beautiful everything else is.

4. Don't Lose Track of Your Timing.

It's great to see Madison Chock and Evan Bates having fun. They've been in a stylistic rut since the 2014 Olympics - if not longer - and pop music has provided them with an avenue out. They haven't settled into their free dance yet, although the concept is one of the cooler things they've done as a team, set to a remix of David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure" that sends them through a range of emotional twists and turns. But it's the short dance where this team really cuts loose, and Chock in particular looks like she's thrilled to be let out of her cage. It's probably just good training, but I want to believe that her positive energy is what makes their lifts look so much smoother and more polished now than in the past. The one problem they haven't fixed yet is their tendency to get off rhythm in their steps. For the first time this season, the score sheets make the distinction between incorrect moves and timing errors in pattern dances, which is the kind of picayune distinction that only skaters, coaches, and extremely nerdy bloggers care about. Most of the top teams lost a level due to missed timing at the second checkpoint, but for me, it was easier to see that Chock and Bates were off. Their score suffered more from dropped levels in their partial step sequence, and on rewatch, it looks like the lost credit was a timing issue there as well, at least in part. Chock and Bates are capable of some of the world's most difficult ice dance moves, but they struggle with one of the discipline's requirements, which is to keep those movements synchronized with both the music and each other. 

5. Don't Biff Your Twizzles.

Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter entered the season as the bulletproof heroes of juniors, but so far, they've fallen behind last season's accomplishments. In Ljubljana, they had a number of technical problems, all related to upgrades that they don't seem to have mastered yet. But the twizzles were their greatest nemesis. In their free dance, McNamara lost control completely, stepping out of her middle set and looking, for a moment, like she was too rattled to continue. They held it together much better in the short dance, but the judges rightly docked them for unsteady edges in their first set and a loss of synchronization in the second. I wonder if the lack of a third twizzle set hurt them as well. In any case, McNamara and Carpenter have looked nervous and overwhelmed every time they've attempted this short dance, even though it features the kind of angular, menacing choreography that should be in their wheelhouse. At their best moments, they're still clearly a cut above other juniors, skating with incredible speed and moving smoothly from one element to the next. Despite their technical struggles, their components scores stayed high in reflection of those top-notch fundamental skills. But pretty will only get you so far if your elements are out of whack. It was a rough weekend to be a fan of this team, but no one took it harder than McNamara; in the kiss & cry after the free skate, she looked like she was about to boil over with rage at herself.

6. Don't Weird Out the Judges.

I knew from the moment they announced it that Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier would have one of my favorite blues/swing short dances, in a season crowded with short dances that are up my alley. For reasons that I'm sure make sense in a conference room in Switzerland, disco counts as a form of swing dance according to the ISU, giving the most offbeat team in elite ice dance carte blanche to paste on a tacky mustache and "Burn, baby, burn." Technically, the judges had to hand them this one, because it's hard to argue with the difficult, distinctive leg positions in their twizzles or the speed in their rotational lift. But some judges can't get aboard the Gilles/Poirier irony train, and a few assigned them components marks below an 8, surprisingly low for a team with such a strong resume. They narrowly beat Chock and Bates in their technical marks, but their components score held them under. In contrast, their tango free dance doesn't play to their artistic strengths nearly as much, and they seem to be reaching for a type of chemistry that doesn't come naturally to them. But it's a more conventional ice dance program, and accordingly, there was much less dissent among the judges. The overall tide of ice dance is shifting toward innovation, but Gilles and Poirier consistently pay the price for dancing on the edge.

7. Don't Let It Get Messy.

I am including this program because I enjoy it so much that I refuse to skip it, but at the same time, I understand why it was only good enough for 5th place. Ashlynne Stairs and Lee Royer get a ton of artistic mileage out of the breezy psychedelia in their Beatles medley, and they're the rare junior-level team with enough personality to pull off turquoise and magenta tie-dye. Their happy energy goes a long way toward disguising the fundamentals that still need a lot of work. They're substantially slower than the teams at the very top, and they rely more on open holds that make it easier to control their edges and see where they're going. Technically, their content is as challenging as any - like the Russians ahead of them, they got level 4s for their lifts, twizzles, and spin - but their execution isn't as clean. For instance, the rotational lift near the end of the program is almost a showstopper, except that Stairs doesn't extend her legs far enough into a split position, and Royer visibly struggles to manage his turns while keeping her aloft. There's no cure for these disadvantages but practice. The good news is, Stairs and Royer have shown how immense their potential is, and they'll have at least one more junior season to cash in on it.

8. Don't Forget Your Chemistry.

In theory, Anastasia Skoptcova and Kirill Aleshin gave the best overall performances at JGP Ljubljana. In practice, two teams with significant technical errors outscored them. The difference was all in the execution, but their limitations differ from the ones that Stairs and Royer are facing. Skoptcova and Aleshin have all their underlying skills in place: the speed, the deep and coordinated edges, the close and difficult positions. But in their most challenging technical elements, they're the slightest bit off, and that slight lack of synchronization can be fatal in ice dance. Their rotational lift, for example, is spectacular once it gets going, but Aleshin seems to struggle to find Skoptcova's center of gravity as he raises her into position. Their twizzles are crisp, with secure turns, but their leg positions frequently don't match. It's like they're skating on two separate rinks sometimes. You don't need smoldering romantic chemistry to succeed in ice dance, but you do need some kind of emotional connection, and it's not just about performance. The judges pick up on a team that's not communicating effectively, and that hurts components like Transitions as well as Interpretation. Both Skoptcova and Aleshin are fantastic ice dancers, but one of the toughest thing about dance is that you're in it together.

9. Don't Take Any Choreographic Risks.

This season, most of the senior teams are using the hip hop/swing short dance rhythms as a license to experiment, and many seem to be responding to criticisms that last year's free dances were stultifyingly same-y. Not Italy's Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, though. These two have a shtick that works for them, and although their music challenges it here and there, they've chosen to stay comfortable. So far, that's working out, as evidenced by their gold medal at the Nebelhorn Trophy. Unlike the other top-level skaters in Oberstdorf, Cappellini and Lanotte were free of visible missteps, although they got Level 3s on every step sequence in both programs, so the judges caught a few things out of place. Their twizzles, however, are fast and centered, and their lifts are dramatic, although Lanotte struggles to keep his free leg aloft during their curve lift. It does seem like choreographic consistency has allowed this team to focus on the technical side, but the drawback is, it doesn't win you a ton of love from the fans. Cappellini and Lanotte gave the most impressive performances of the weekend, but they also provided fewer memorable artistic moments than almost anyone else.

10. Don't Be New.

This time last year, I was mostly expressing doubt about Elliana Pogrebinsky and Alex Benoit. They seemed like minor lights an unusually talented crop of American ice dancers, unable to match the dominant results achieved by the Parsons siblings or McNamara and Carpenter, and less innovative as well. This season, it's clear that they took those deficits as challenges, and over the summer, they've narrowed the gap technically and all but erased it artistically. Plus, they took a leap that the other Americans their age were unwilling to risk, making the jump to seniors even though they're still junior-eligible. From their results this weekend, it's clear that they've made a smart strategic choice. They placed fourth, with their scores on an island by themselves: 20 points out of 3rd place, but 15th points ahead of 5th. From a technical standpoint, however, they were closer to the head of the pack, especially in the short dance, where their technical score was only 3 points behind the leaders'. Pogrebinsky and Benoit also achieved something that none of the medalists could: they earned a perfect level 4 on their pattern dance. And they did it with an Elvis swagger and an infectious sense of fun. 

Despite putting down some of the most dynamic performances of the weekend, they lagged far behind on program components, with a few judges assigning them brutally low marks - one of the judges assigned them a 5.50 for Transitions in their free dance, compared to an 8.75 from the same judge for Cappellini and Lanotte. The Italians are smoother and more intricate skaters, to be sure, but the difference isn't that huge. Rather, the judges' stinginess toward Pogrebinsky and Benoit starts to look like an old-fashioned "Who the heck are you?" tax. It will probably take a full season of strong performances to rectify that, not to mention some serious training of the fundamental skills that force even the most cynical judges to pay attention to young teams. Pogrebinsky and Benoit have some natural advantages in that respect: not only charisma and musicality, but beautiful knee bend and, in Pogrebinsky's case, exceptional flexibility. If they'd competed at the Lombardia Trophy or U. S. International Classic instead of at Nebelhorn, they'd already have a Challenger Series medal. It'll be interesting to see where they stand at the end of this season.

Gentle readers, I am behind on my blogging. It was the Skateapalooza that did me in: I spent so much time watching the Ondrej Nepela Memorial, Autumn Classic, Japan Open, and JGP Tallinn that I ran out of time to write. Fortunately, last weekend marked the end of what has become the first phase of figure skating's regular season: the last Junior Grand Prix event wrapped up in Dresden, Germany, and the Challenger Series will go on hiatus until after the senior-level Grand Prix. Longtime fans will point out that the figure skating season never used to start this early, and we have a point. When the ISU started streaming the JGP for free on YouTube, then archiving video of every skater, following the international junior circuit became worthwhile. The Challenger Series didn't even exist until two years ago - a development I'll get into in the intro to my first Challenger Series best-of post. The near-universal availability and high quality of the JGP streams means we all get to see promising skaters at the start of their careers, and it also gives national federations incentive to let young skaters develop psychologically as well as technically rather than hurling them into the fire pit of senior-level competition before they're ready. As a result, the best junior skaters routinely performed jumps on par with the Challenger Series seniors, and many showed off beautiful skating skills and mature interpretation as well. If you skipped the Junior Grand Prix because you didn't know it was going on, or you assumed the juniors wouldn't be worth watching, or 30 free skates at 5 AM is not your idea of a good time, here are 12 reasons to pay attention now that the series has ended.

I don't usually make lists in chronological order, but it made sense this time. Of the seven competitions in the JGP series, one didn't make the cut for my men's top 12, because JGP St. Gervais was a sloppy mess in the men's event. The skaters who performed well there did better in later events; the winner, Roman Savosin, earned a much higher score at his second event, and it was only good enough for 3rd there. I'm pretty sure most of the JGP St. Gervais men's competitors want to wipe it out of the record books, and I am going to graciously move on to week two.

Dmitri Aliev (Russia), JGP Ostrava Free Skate

Last season, Aliev established himself as the kind of skater who sets up a lead in the short program and then blows it in the free skate - which is exactly what he would do a couple of weeks later in Ljubljana. But in Ostrava, he looked like he'd broken the curse. Seeking redemption for a short program in which he'd landed all his jumps but lost control of a spin, Aliev nailed it in the free skate. He proved he could open with a pair of quadruple toe loops and maintain his stamina, a feat he celebrated with a fist pump after his final jumping pass. Aliev also showed that he's terrific at interpreting his music, using the rhythm to time his jumps and telling a story in his step sequence. It was the first men's performance of the JGP season that looked like it could hold its own on the senior level.

Vincent Zhou (USA), JGP Yokohama Short Program

Zhou showed up this season looking taller and more mature, and instantly making me wonder how that would translate on the ice. Where his hardest jumps are concerned, it might be an issue - a painful chest landing in his free skate in Tallinn took him out of the Junior Grand Prix Final - but as a performer, he's grown into a young man. Relieved from the pressure of the quad, Zhou performed exquisitely, earning high grades of execution for his jumps and straight level 4s for his spins and step sequence, on the way to the JGP season's first short program score above 80. The real revelation, however, was the other half of Zhou's score. He's clearly spent his summer honing his basic skating skills; he looked proud of his speed and edge quality in his spread eagle sequence. And he's figured out how to express himself artistically, channeling his introverted presence into a quiet intensity that reminds me of Jeremy Abbott.

Kazuki Tomono (Japan), JGP Yokohama Free Skate

The Japanese men's team is in rebuilding mode, great at the top but without much of a bench. Tomono looks like one of the best bets to fill out their roster in seasons to come. Last spring at Junior Worlds, he stood out as one of the most entertaining performers, and now, he has the jumps to match. He's clearly still working on controlling the landings of his quad salchow and triple Axel, but both were lovely in the air, earning him a terrific technical score that almost snagged him a medal after a disappointing short program. But the real reasons to watch Tomono are his style and showmanship. He has a gift for making music his own. I've seen a lot of athletes skate right through An American in Paris over the years, but Tomono picks up on its peaks and valleys, showing a range of emotion that's especially admirable for a young skater. Even if he never develops the power to enter the quad arms race at the top of the Japanese field, he has Future Fan Favorite written all over him.

Matyas Belohradsky (Czech Republic), JGP Saransk Short Program

The season of crowd-pleasers continued in Saransk with a breakout bronze-medal performance from Belohradsky. A couple of weeks earlier, he'd withered under the pressure of a home-country skate in Ostrava, but the enthusiastic and knowledgeable audience in Russia seemed to spur him forward. Belohradsky only competes a double Axel, but he proved that excellent execution can triumph over sloppy difficulty, scoring ahead of several ugly triple Axel attempts. He resembles coach Tomas Verner physically as well as stylistically, and he's inherited many of his mentor's best qualities, from his edge control to his crackling energy. But Belohradsky jumps with tighter rotation and cleaner form than Verner ever did. If Belohradsky keeps this up - and works out his consistency bugs - he'll be the next great Czech skater.

Andrew Torgashev (USA), JGP Saransk Free Skate

Torgashev arrived at his first Junior Grand Prix event with a big question mark over his head. After winning a National Junior title in 2015, he'd lost an entire season to injury while many other American teenagers had developed massive technical and artistic upgrades. Torgashev's silver medal in Saransk proved that he is still very much a factor. His quad toe loop was a little messy, but he stood up and got full rotation credit. The judges gave him plenty of points for his fast and difficult spins, too, with level 4s and high grades of execution on all of them. Torgashev hasn't yet shown that he's capable of a clean free skate - he fell in Saransk, and things got even hairier in Dresden a few weeks later - but even with errors, he's an expressive and captivating skater. 

Ilia Skirda (Russia), JGP Ljubljana Free Skate

Skirda came into his first JGP season with some buzz surrounding him. A clean and sprightly free skate at Nationals, along with a 4th-place finish, had earned him some attention. I don't think anyone expected him to do this well this fast, though. He was a mess at JGP St. Gervais, but everyone else was a bigger mess, bringing him a silver medal at his international debut. In Ljubljana, however, he faced stiffer competition, and a pair of near-flawless performances showed that Skirda means serious business. His jump technique is terrific, but his greatest assets are his extraordinary fundamentals. He's fast and tireless, with gorgeous knee bend and core flexibility, all of which add up to some of the loveliest skating of the JGP series. Imagine what he'll achieve when he starts competing his triple Axel.

Alexei Krasnozhon (USA), JGP Ljubljana Free Skate

Yuzuru Hanyu will get his name in the history books for landing the first ratified quadruple loop, but Krasnozhon actually beat him to the punch by about a week. His landing was unsteady, his grade of execution low, but he completed four revolutions and stood up. Then, as if to make sure we all knew that his landings are normally much better than that, Krasnozhon performed two triple Axels with enormous speed, amplitude, and confidence, as if he hadn't gotten the memo that he's only skating juniors. What makes Krasnozhon endearing, though, is his quest to develop an artistic identity for himself. In Ljubljana, Krasnozhon made Rodeo his own, expressing a youthful sweetness that can't be manufactured. The best part of the video comes after he'd finished skating, in his reaction to his scores - too excited to contain himself, but also doing the math, reassuring himself that he was headed to the Final.

Graham Newberry (Great Britain), JGP Tallinn Short Program

You know what's more fun than a bunch of quads? Watching a young skater give the performance of his life. In his opening pose, Newberry looked like he knew he had this in the bag, and even before his perfect triple Axel, I believed him. Newberry might not have the speed or edge control of the top competitors, but his smile and style put most of them to shame. Newberry beat his prior personal best score by almost 10 points, earned the second-highest short program technical score of the meet, and generally recalibrated everyone's expectations. Plus, he put on a show. If there's a reason to wake up before dawn and watch a live stream, it's catching unexpected delights like this one.

Koshiro Shimada (Japan), JGP Tallinn Free Skate

In an era when most young Japanese men are trying to be the next Yuzuru, Shimada has achieved remarkable results by cultivating his own style instead. Still, Shimada shares one of Hanyu's greatest artistic strengths. It's rare to see such a young skater use his whole body to highlight the rise and fall of his music, and to give shape to its nuances. My favorite moment in this free skate came near the end, when Shimada punctuated a little boom of percussion with a fast, controlled dip into a spread eagle. Shimada's quad salchow attempt was a risk that didn't quite pay off, and he didn't even try a triple Axel at all in Tallinn, so he'll most likely spend another year in juniors while he refines those difficult jumps. But he has one of the most beautiful and reliable lutzes in men's skating, with a deep entry edge and tons of height. The two excellent lutzes here were a big factor in the career-best score he earned.

Alexander Samarin (Russia), JGP Tallinn Free Skate

Last season, Samarin looked like a bland, inconsistent jump machine who would never make it past juniors. Despite some brilliant moments - a gold medal at JGP Croatia, the second-best short program at Junior Worlds - he seemed to lack both stamina and charisma. Samarin and his coaches must have come to the same conclusion, because he completely reinvented himself over the summer and became one of the stars of the 2016 Junior Grand Prix. He won both of his JGP events, in Saransk and Tallinn, and it wasn't just the smooth, reliable technique of his triple Axel and quad toe loop that brought him gold. He's capable of unusual jumping passes as well as difficult ones; he shows off rare edge control in his triple lutz-half loop-triple flip combination. Samarin's most striking transformation, however, has been in his artistry. Rock music brings out his personality, and in his free skate in Tallinn, he found the grace and lyricism in the squealing guitars of a Scorpions ballad. 

Conrad Orzel (Canada), JGP Dresden Free Skate

After I saw Orzel compete at Skate Detroit this summer, I sang his praises, and you all thought I was off my rocker. A few months later, he won silver at JGP Dresden with a free skate that made people other than me take notice. Sure, there were wobbles here and there, but Orzel also showed resourcefulness, saving several rocky landings that a less focused skater might have bailed on. Orzel also landed the only clean quadruple jump of the meet. As the program progressed, he shed his nerves and embodied his music, a blond samurai who'd just won a major battle. If he can keep up this momentum and confidence, Canada might have found its next men's skating star.

Jun Hwan Cha (South Korea), JGP Dresden Short Program

From a technical standpoint, Cha was better at his first JGP event, in Yokohama, where he earned the highest overall score of the series and landed a gorgeous quad salchow in his free skate. With that performance, Cha removed all doubt that he's the next big thing in men's skating. In Dresden, he missed that jump, and his technical elements were less neat and controlled in general. Nonetheless, Cha was by far more fun to watch in Dresden than in Yokohama. Between the two events, he apparently backed off on his jump training to focus on artistry and basic skills, and in the course of a month, he transformed from a cute but unpolished jumping bean into a young man with keen edges and a sharp sense of humor. His short program - to a song from A Chorus Line that should be the anthem for men's skaters everywhere - leaves him no time to breathe and minimal margin for error. Earlier in the season, Cha looked like he was just getting through it. In Dresden, he looked like he owned that choreography. And the arena. And possibly the world.