Hold onto your hats, because I might have more to say about pairs than dance at Skate America. Even the avid ice dance fans in my loud and inappropriate clique of seat-mates acknowledged that it was an unusually boring dance competition. There were a number of reasons behind it: an obvious favorite with no serious challengers, little overlap between the most technically accomplished teams and the most entertaining, and lots of stodgy free dances. In fact, if the competition had been skated in reverse, with the free dance first and the short dance on Sunday afternoon when we were all about to die of skating fatigue, I might remember it as a more energetic event. 

Pairs, on the other hand, was unpredictable and full of creativity, with a big shuffle in the ranks between the short program and free skate. The World medalists assigned to Skate America, China's Wenjing Sui and Cong Han, are out of the Grand Prix while she recovers from surgery, which opened the field. It was also an unusually young field for pairs, especially at the top, and a diverse group in terms of style. Besides, pairs is much more dramatic in person than on a screen, because the camera usually pulls in too close to show how high the lifts and throws are. Sitting in the arena is the only way to really see them soar.

Pairs

I had high hopes for several teams that failed to impress at Skate America. We're all still waiting for Marissa Castelli and Mervin Tran to give the performance that proves they're more than the sum of their parts. For now, they're a mess, especially in the jump department. France's Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres - a team so aesthetically pleasing that everyone I spoke to this weekend, regardless of sexual orientation, rhapsodized about their beauty - followed through on their plans to attempt a throw quadruple salchow, with disastrous results. Watching them practice, it was clear this wasn't going to go well, and sure enough, James tumbled in the free skate. They got full rotation credit for the jump, but that's a cold comfort for a team that suffered two other falls and missed out on a medal. Cipres was so upset that he stormed out of the kiss and cry. It appeared that they'd patched things up in time for the gala, at least.

While James and Cipres aimed for the stars, Russia's Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov kept their content conservative, banking on the likelihood that simple, clean performances would keep them ahead of the inconsistent field. During the practice sessions, they looked like they had the gold medal sewn up, showing off a strong artistic connection as well as technical excellence. That continued into their short program, which earned the highest score of the night by an eight-point margin. Their upbeat, electro-swing short program would have been a crowd-pleaser even with an error or two, but they outdid themselves with a flawless skate. The biggest reward came for their enormous triple twist, which earned near-perfect grades of execution. Sadly, they couldn't capitalize on their big lead in the free skate. Instead of sticking with their trusty triple twist, they attempted a quad. Tarasova was still rotating as she reached Morozov's arms, and he couldn't catch her. The fall threw them off for the rest of the program, and they missed both of their side-by-side jumping passes. The damage was so severe that it dropped them to 3rd place overall. As exciting as it would be to see them shoot for that quad until they get it right, the risk might not be worth it this season.

US National Champions Tarah Kayne and Danny O'Shea had the opposite trajectory from the Russians, placing dead last in the short program after a bungled triple twist and a fall on their throw triple lutz that put tears in Kayne's eyes. In the free skate, however, they redeemed themselves. The third-place free skate was only enough to pull them up to sixth overall, but it was a moral victory, a demonstration that their performance at Nationals wasn't an isolated incident. They placed their throw triple lutz way too close to the edge of the rink, and Kayne's thud as she slid into the boards rattled the risers. But they were terrific otherwise, earning top levels for their lifts and step sequence, and landing a beautifully synchronized side-by-side triple salchow. Their choreography and styling is a bit odd - those costumes don't say "Marche Slave" to me - but it gives both of them opportunities to shine artistically, which is important for a team with such a charismatic male half. 

The only pairs team that achieved anything resembling consistency at Skate America was Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier, who placed second in both segments on the way to an overall silver medal. They're no strangers to the Skate America podium - they won silver in 2014 as well - but somehow, their success was as big of a surprise this time as it was two years ago. We all seem to forget that they're former World Junior champions, too, a rare achievement for an American pairs team. They did stumble a bit in their free skate, making errors on their side-by-side jumps, although they made up for it with giant, clean throw jumps and high grades of execution on their lifts. Their side-by-side triple salchow vexed them in the short program as well, but they were spectacular otherwise. More than any individual element, their speed and synchronization stood out from the rest of the field, with step sequences and connecting moves that often looked more like ice dance than pairs. 

In the end, the competition belonged to Julianne Seguin and Charlie Bilodeau of Canada. After missing their side-by-side jumps in the short program, they looked furious, and despite their sweet demeanor, it was clear they were out for blood as they warmed up for their free skate. Their thirst for redemption worked wonders. It's rare to see an error-free pairs free skate, and a delight to see one so early in the season. Bilodeau made Seguin look weightless in the air, and both timed their jumps perfectly. I don't love this program for them; it's too fussy and overwrought for a young team with a natural lightheartedness to their skating. But they finessed it, gazing seriously into each other's eyes - until their final spin, when Bilodeau couldn't help but grin. 

Ice Dance

There were lots of complaints about the dull inevitability of the dance field at Skate America, and indeed, Maia and Alex Shibutani would have had to screw up royally in order to do anything but win. Still, the rest of the podium wasn't quite what I expected, and the rankings lower down included further upsets and curiosities. But the free dances were all too much of a type, packed with over-serious lyricism. They suffered in comparison with the men's free skates that had come just before: Shoma Uno's smoldering tango owed more to the ballroom tradition than any of the free dances, while Jason Brown and Adam Rippon evoked contemporary dance styles with more flair and originality. When the boys are landing quads and out-dancing the ice dancers, there's a fundamental imbalance in the universe.

Many of the most entertaining ice dance teams fell into the lower ranks. Kana Muramoto and Chris Reed of Japan don't have the technical chops to keep up with the top of the field, but they were the only team to brave a Latin rhythm, a fun and flirtatious tango. Elliana Pogrebinsky and Alex Benoit, the young American team who have made giant strides in their move up to seniors, received little love from the judges on their step sequence levels and got utterly tanked on program components - especially frustrating to me because their Elvis Presley short dance is one of my favorite things on the ice this season. Elena Ilinykh and Ruslan Zhiganshin tried to liven up the proceedings with a Bollywood free dance, but their rushed and imprecise steps took a toll on their scores. Isabella Tobias and Ilia Tkachenko, of Israel, got more attention for Tobias's backless white catsuit than for their actual skating, despite a daring hip hop/blues short dance and an elegant free dance that channeled classic ballet choreography. 

Tobias and Tkachenko's Nutcracker was far more satisfying than Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri's, which tried and failed to do something abstract with music that reminds everyone of Christmas. Solid technical content brought the Italians great free dance scores, but for me, their short dance was the winner. Grease is a clever choice for a blues/swing program, especially because they performed the blues section to one of the musical's best songs, "There Are Worse Things I Could Do." It's a side of their skating we don't get to see much, and they pull it off a lot better than the pretentious, high-concept free dances they've selected for the past few years. Some of their technical elements need work - their step sequences, in particular, don't achieve the intricacy they need to contend with the top teams - but their twizzles went around like, well, greased lightning. 

Russia's Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev also plodded in the free dance. Taken by itself, their abstract classical free dance is lovely, especially at the end, when it bursts into a familiar violin riff from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. But in a long afternoon of similar stuff, and with difficulty maintaining speed during their step sequences, the program didn't live up to its potential. Their bronze-medal finish was a letdown after the sexiest short dance of the event. Low levels on their steps are a serious problem - it's bad when I can identify your missed pattern dance checkpoints without the aid of slo-mo - but their twizzles gave even the Shibutanis a run for their money. Many of the other veteran dance teams have stagnated technically, so it's promising to see Bobrova and Soloviev pushing themselves forward. But they'll have to actually execute their upgrades if they want to do better than bronze.

Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue's silver medal was kind of a miracle, but it was a well-deserved one. Their programs are strange this year: a mishmash of Bar Mitzvah favorites for their short dance, and a medley of maudlin lost-love songs for their free. Game as they are, it's all a bit much. Fortunately, their technical content was right on point in the free dance, with maximum levels on almost everything; they tied the Shibutanis for highest technical base value and earned giant execution bonuses on every element. Their lifts were particularly stunning, with seamless transitions in and out. I just wish their program were less of a downer, not only because the sulky break-up songs seem to drag on forever, but because the slow music makes their speed and precision look less impressive than it really is.

Also slow-dancing their way to glory were Maia and Alex Shibutani, who confirmed their status as the top American ice dance team by not just winning, but defeating the silver medalists by a ten-point margin. Their programs this season are more conservative and less iconic than last year's, though. It's understandable that their strategy for this season is to defend rather than innovate, but it's still a bit of a bummer. In any other season, their short dance - which transitions from Frank Sinatra's "That's Life" to a sample by Jay Z - would be the height of creativity, but with so many teams taking clever approaches to the hip hop rhythm, it got lost in the shuffle for me. Their free dance, to a delicate, minimalist Arvo Pärt piece, is a more left-field choice, but the simple music leaves them nowhere to hide. It's a program that takes a few views to get your head around, which is why I was so underwhelmed when I watched it in practice but mesmerized when I saw them compete it. As always, their twizzles were the highlight, fast and controlled, gliding from one difficult body position to the next. They earned a perfect score for those twizzles, verifying that when it comes to ice dance's showiest element, the Shibutanis literally could not be better.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I have more to say about the men's event at Skate America than any of the others. Even when men's singles is dull and predictable, I have a ton of commentary. But this year at Skate America, it's like they knew I was coming. I got to see two of my three favorite current skaters, several guys who I find flawed but interesting, and a few third-stringers I'm sentimentally attached to. I watched clean quadruple flips and quadruple lutzes so close I could almost touch them. If that weren't enough, it was a high-flying and high-scoring event from top to bottom. The guy in last place landed a quad. The sixth-place score would have earned a medal at last year's Skate America, and the 2015 winner wouldn't have reached the podium this time. Plus, we got Spider-Man and pirates and a gay nightclub fantasy. Plenty of routines in the other three disciplines were skippable, but the men were so uniformly memorable that I want to embed everything. I'll show a little restraint - but not much.

Two last-minute withdrawals loomed over the men's event. Both Denis Ten and Daisuke Murakami bowed out so late that no substitutes could be named, and clips of their skating remained in the preview videos on the Jumbotron. If they'd been able to compete, the field would have been even deeper and harder to predict: neither is a reliable force, especially in October, but Ten is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist, while Murakami skated well enough last season to qualify for the Grand Prix Final. They left behind a diverse ten-man field, almost all of whom could have earned a medal on a good day.

The few who were out of the running for the podium were terrific fun. Brendan Kerry of Australia couldn't replicate his lights-out free skate from the U.S. Classic last month, and falls in both of his programs consigned him to the bottom of the rankings. Still, he wowed the arena with a powerful quad toe loop, and his Pirates of the Caribbean free skate is a crowd-pleasing hoot. Similarly, Belgium's Jorik Hendrickx wasn't as stellar as he'd been in his silver-medal performance at the Nebelhorn Trophy earlier in the autumn, and as the only man in the field without a quad, he wouldn't have had a prayer even with two perfect skates. A number of messy landings sealed his fate, although it was easy to overlook the errors during his elegant and emotional performances. 

One of the few wishes that didn't come true for me at Skate America was for Timothy Dolensky to land his quad salchow. When he doubled the crucial jump in his free skate, I knew he'd settle near the bottom of the rankings. He made a courageous play for it in the short program, though, earning a career-best score and placing himself in shooting range of a medal. A two-footed jump combination held him below 80 points, but his other two jumps were exceptional; the judges ruled his triple Axel the second best of the day, after Jason Brown's. His beautiful performance and fast, difficult spins were even more impressive than the jumps, though. Overall, Dolensky justified his berth as the USA host pick and Skating magazine cover boy. With a couple of quiet months to train before Nationals, he could crush some dreams when January rolls around.

A program that ends in tears is the kind of drama that skating fans live for. Kovtun had imploded in the short program, popping two of his jumping passes after a stunning quad salchow-triple toe loop combination. Sitting dead last, Kovtun had no hope of rallying for a medal, but he came painfully close to redeeming himself in the free skate. He made it the kind of competition where the first guy on the ice opens with a pair of textbook quads, a toe loop and a salchow. Everything looked clean and effortless until the final minute of the program, when a fatigued Kovtun fell on a relatively simple triple lutz. Clearly, it was an emotional performance for him, but his music doesn't give him a lot of opportunity for expression. It's the kind of droning pop song that made the free dance such rough going, and it emphasized how badly Kovtun needs rhythm and energy to showcase his abilities. 

Around this point in the post, you're going to notice a pattern: one spectacular program, one massive fail. For Nam Nguyen, the brilliance came in his short program. It included the best quad of the night, a salchow-toe loop combination so perfect that it made me want to rewind real life. He would have placed higher than 4th in the short if he hadn't received zero credit for a bungled sit spin; I'm not sure what invalidated it, although he clearly struggled through it. Unfortunately, Nguyen couldn't carry the momentum through his free skate. None of his elements were outright bad, but they were uniformly so-so. The little cuts to his grades of execution - and a harsh assessment of his program components, especially in the Transitions column - pulled him down to 8th in the free skate and 6th overall. Nguyen's decision to skate to a pair of jazzy programs suits his personality, but they leave him nowhere to hide when his stamina starts to flag. 

The biggest surprise at Skate America was Boyang Jin, in both positive and negative ways. The prevailing assumption was that Jin, as reigning World bronze medalist, was the safest bet for gold, and that one of the main stories of the event would be his rivalry with Shoma Uno. But Jin did something smart over the summer - something that backfired last weekend but is likely to extend his future in the sport. He worked extensively with Lori Nichol, not just on his choreography, but on honing his performance style. One of the things that drove me crazy about Jin last season was that he showed so little personality on the ice, a giant contrast with his gregariousness around fans and competitors. He's never going to be a subtle, sensitive performer, so Nichol took him down the Javier Fernandez path, giving him characters to play and stories to tell. When I attended the Thursday morning practice, I became one of the first fans to see Jin's new Spider-Man short program, and I probably saw a better version of it than in competition. He skated through his quads and just did the choreography, and he lit up the rink. I was waiting for him to quip like Peter Parker in the middle of the routine. Unfortunately, his jumps failed him in competition; he fell on both his quad lutz and his quad toe loop, and he barely saved his triple Axel. On a day with lots of strong short programs, the errors sank him down to 8th place.

Even with Jin's low score, it was reasonable to think he might fight his way back to a medal. With four planned quads, his base value was high enough to blow through even a 13-point deficit. The clean quad lutz in his free skate was superhuman, launching him several feet above a nearby TV camera and reminding me why I always finagle to sit at the foot of the rink. But he was very good on a day when he needed to be excellent, falling on one of his quad toe loops and struggling with several other landings. He kept placing his triple Axels very close to the boards - he crashed a couple of times in practice, in fact - which he and his coaches might need to rethink, since it's robbing him of a clear check-out. Jin had the highest technical base value, but his grades of execution added up lower than the base value would predict. And despite a pair of engaging performances and much improved edges and transitions, the judges evaluated his program components distantly below those of the top finishers. Jin definitely has room for growth in his PCS, but his "La Strada" free skate was still a joy, drawing on Daisuke Takahashi's iconic rendition of the music but also making it his own. Jin brings a rare, natural sense of humor to his performances, and in the long run, that might be the way he gets the judges to take him seriously as a performer.

Boyang has skated away with Sergei Voronov's column inches, and that's fine with me. Voronov pulled off a fourth-place finish out of sheer consistency. He skated clean in the free skate, save for an edge call on a triple flip, and he opened with a beauty of a quad toe loop. But I can't remember much about either of his performances beyond the solid jump technique. Apparently, I'd blocked out the fact that he skated to the same music that Ashley Wagner had won with the night before, and with many repeat judges on the panel, I suspect he suffered in comparison, if only on a subconscious level. He got passed over for the gala in favor of Jin and Nguyen, which says it all: he earned enough points for fourth, but he made less of a statement than most of the guys he beat.

When I saw Adam Rippon's new free skate during the Friday morning practice, it reminded me of getting excited about new downloadable content for a favorite video game, only to discover that it's the same old monsters in a different color. It's adorned with a clearer story than the free skate he competed at the US Classic, but the layout is the same. He's traded one slow, static piece of music for another, and there are too many long stretches without transitional content. Rippon has made one smart change, swapping his ill-fated quad lutz for a more promising quad toe loop. He fell on the attempt, but he got full credit for rotation. I'm more optimistic about that jump than I am about his non-jump elements and program components. A skater like Rippon, who relies on well-roundedness to bolster less difficult jumps, can't afford level 3 step sequences or a 5-point PCS deficit behind Jason Brown. 

On the other hand, his short program is damned entertaining, and you've got to respect a guy who can get 87 points in autumn without a quad. The mesh tank top is even more see-through in person. All the baby skaters are doing fancy arm variations these days, but it's still something special when Rippon lutzes with both (bare) arms over his head.

Throughout the weekend, Jason Brown was very excited about the Chicago Cubs. Of course, Brown seems excited about everything, all the time, so it's hard to say whether his enthusiasm about baseball was a PR move. He gave his fans a reason to catch his good vibes this weekend, though, despite two of the most emotionally restrained programs I've seen him skate. Together, they should put an end to the criticism that Brown's performance style lacks maturity. Even his gala program, in which he cut loose to Jamiroquai's "Canned Heat," went for reduced mugging and increased musicality. His short program, to the already overused "Writing's on the Wall," even brings a little sex appeal. Brown doesn't have much James Bond in him, but it's not Austin Powers, either. Instead, there's a vulnerability to his performance, like he's trying to seduce you but hasn't convinced himself that he's worth your time. Technically, it was typical Jason, with a gorgeous triple Axel and a fall on the quad toe loop. What really got him in trouble, though, was missing the catch foot position on his camel spin, an uncharacteristic mistake that invalidated the whole element. Without that error, he would have been hot on Shoma's heels.

I loved Brown's free skate when he premiered it last year, and I love it more now that he's grown into the concept. The music itself is minimalist, but the choreography is as dense with flourishes as a Rococo painting. That contradiction gets under some people's skin, but I think it's brilliant. Brown seems to pull the simple music along with him, twisting hidden nuances out of it. He matched his artistic accomplishments with a huge technical breakthrough: for the first time in competition, he landed a quadruple jump. The judges slapped it with an underrotation call, and I suppose they weren't wrong, although it looked close enough in the slow motion replays that they could have given him the benefit of the doubt. The rest of his jumping passes were either flawless or nearly so, and he pulled in big bonuses by executing six of the eight after the program's halfway mark, including a triple lutz-half loop-triple salchow with a gorgeous exit edge in the program's final seconds. And the spin he botched in the short? Perfect grade of execution in the free skate.

Shoma Uno still has a falling problem. In the short program, he bravely hung onto a quadruple flip so high that he could have slam dunked a basketball on the way down, only to crumble on his quad toe-triple toe combination. In the free skate, he was three minutes down the road to perfection before his tired legs failed him on a triple Axel. Even so, he recorded a career best overall score on his way to Skate America gold. Uno got revenge for his narrow loss to Max Aaron last year and reclaimed the Skate America crown for Team Japan (Japanese men have won the event seven times in the last ten years). He's also joined a small, elite club of men's skaters who can amass giant point totals even with major errors. In the past, when Uno fell, he'd often tumble right off the podium, resulting in disappointing finishes at both Four Continents and Worlds last season. Now, the grades of execution he earns for his successful jumps are enough to absorb a goof or two, and then some - he broke 100 points in his free skate technical score and eclipsed even Brown in components.

That components score deserves a paragraph of its own, because it's what sets Uno apart from the multitude of teenagers with through-the-roof jumps. Compared to rivals like Jin, Nathan Chen, and Daniel Samohin, Uno's jump content is restrained: three quads, two of them toe loops. But while the men he's most often compared to live and die by their jumps, Uno is an artistic prodigy as well. Hampered by conservative choreography and themes in the past, not to mention a natural shyness, he didn't always have the opportunity to put on a show. When he announced that his free skate this season would be a tango, I expected something sexless and awkward. Instead, he gelled his hair into bed head curls, donned a mesh midriff that gave Rippon a run for his money, and whipped himself into the rawest teen-gone-wild number imaginable. Throughout the frenzy, he maintained control of his blades, showing off intricate turns and deep edges as the music built. It was aggressive, sensual, and sweet at the same time, and it all felt organic, like he was born on a dance floor in Buenos Aires. I have to believe his performance quality will only get better from here.

It's Election Day in America, and I'm dealing with the stress the best way I know how - by watching figure skating. Yes, I'm aware that I skipped all of Skate Canada, although I didn't really: you can read my thoughts at The Judges' Table. I sparked controversy, and not just in the categories I expected! I also made a guest appearance in Maia and Alex Shibutani's Skate America vlog and would like to let the record state that I have since gotten the haircut and color that I desperately needed. (I'm just after the two-minute mark; I say words and everything.)

We're now halfway through the Grand Prix series, which seems unreal. The Russian Federation started my weekend mornings with ice dance and hit me with men's singles just when I'd started to go loopy from sleep deprivation. While the results were predictable at the top, the rest of the field was the kind of strange trip that made me wonder if I'd dozed in front of the TV and started dreaming about a home-field Russian podium shut-out and Alexei Bychenko earning a medal at another major international. I guess that in a world where the Cubs won the World Series, anything really is possible in sports.

Most of the disappointments in the lower ranks were expected. Alexander Majorov has been struggling with his jumps all season - and, really, for a few years now - and last weekend was no different. In his free skate, he suffered a bloody nose that sent rivulets of blood running down his face and arms for almost half of his program. It was disgusting and admirable at the same time. Deniss Vasiljevs, who put Latvia on the figure skating map last season, is having trouble keeping up with those high hopes now. His new coach, Stéphane Lambiel, looked like he was a second away from jumping onto the ice and finishing Vasiljevs' programs for him. While Vasiljevs has extraordinary potential, his jump consistency is still a work in progress. Two of the three Russians at the event, perennial third-stringers Gordei Gorshkov and Artur Dmitriev Jr., also settled close to the bottom. Both had a few bright moments but were mostly forgettable.

One of the pleasantest surprises of the short program was Chafik Besseghier. He opened with a high and graceful quad toe loop-triple toe loop, on his way to a clean skate. His spins were faster and more centered than in the past, and I've never seen him connect this naturally to his program music before. I'm always happy to see technically focused skaters pay attention to their program components and non-jump elements, and Besseghier is one of several skaters this season who has made a real transformation. Unfortunately, he threw it all away in the free skate, doubling several planned triple jumps and fighting a number of awkward landings. 

Keiji Tanaka was the perfect opposite of Besseghier, weathering a nightmarish short program and coming back strong in the free skate. In general, Tanaka and Besseghier are mirrors of one another, as Tanaka has always been an engaging and well-rounded skater with jumps that can't quite keep up. He struggled with the quad salchow that opened his free skate, but he kept his feet on the ice, a big improvement from the zero-credit double that destroyed him in the short program. Amazingly, the messy quad was the only significant technical error in a demanding program that required him to execute a number of difficult jumps long after fatigue had set in. Tanaka was the highest-finishing competitor to earn maximum levels for all of his spins in the free skate, showing off smooth transitions from one difficult position to another. He was also just plain fun to watch, making the most of his playful choreography and generally looking like he was having a blast. He might have risen even higher than 7th overall if not for one stingy judge who gave him straight 5's for PCS, and who must have mistaken him for some other skater entirely.

Instead, Elladj Balde edged Tanaka out for 6th place, mostly on the strength of an error-free short program that was also quad-free and artistic nuance-free. He put down a few lovely jumps in his free skate, most notably a huge but controlled triple lutz-half loop-triple salchow, but he struggled with his hardest elements, a quad toe loop and a triple Axel. In a different field, his performances would have stood out more, but in this high-energy group, he faded.

The top five finishers were where things got wild. After a dismal short program, in which he fell on his quad salchow and failed to earn anything higher than a level 2 for his non-jump elements, Max Aaron came roaring back with a stellar performance of this season's most absurd senior-level competitive program. Aaron must have taken a couple of beginner Afro Jazz classes over the summer, and really felt them, because all of a sudden he's using his upper body dynamically and highlighting the rise and fall of his music. He's still uncomfortably slow in his step sequences, but the judges have taken note of his improved edge depth and control, both in his grades of execution and his components scores. He's risking some challenging transitions this season, too, like the enormous second-half triple Axel that flows into a flying sit spin with only a quick hop in between. When his jumps are on point - as they consistently were in this free skate - it's easier to see how much work he puts into the other facets of his skating. 

Mikhail Kolyada's short program is so much fun that he brought it back for a second season. The mugging is what draws the crowd in, but his sharp and well-timed dance moves are the real backbone of his signature off-the-rails tango. His quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination, for which he has some of the most secure technique in the sport, earned the highest number of points for a single element in the entire event. If not for a stumble on his triple Axel - he gave it a little too much power and couldn't check out - he might have gone into the free skate ahead of the World Champion. Even so, he would have blown it in the free skate. He started off strong, with a lovely quad toe loop, but fatigue and emotion seemed to take over in the second half. He popped jumps, blew levels on his spins, and shrugged right off the podium. Kolyada is my favorite Russian men's skater since Yagudin, but he'll need more than an infectious smile to maintain his ascending reputation.

I've seen some fans bellyaching that this was a bad event because Alexei Bychenko came in third. Those fans have no appreciation of serendipity. This also seems like a good time to remind everyone that Bychenko is the reigning European silver medalist, and that's not just because 2016 Euros looked like a bunch of guys competing for best impersonation of a Zamboni. Bychenko is an inconsistent jumper and an embarrassing spinner, but he has somehow managed to peak in his late 20's and pose a more serious threat than anyone expects him to. At Rostelecom, he went 3 for 3 on his quad toe loop, not only landing his hardest jumps but earning high positive grades of execution for them. In fact, aside from a minor step out on a triple Axel in his free skate, Bychenko didn't put a foot wrong all weekend. He also breezed through his programs with wicked speed and - surprise! - earned some well-deserved love from the judges for his interpretation. Both programs play up his inherent dorkiness rather than trying to turn him into a romantic hero. It's not the most polished path to a medal, but it certainly worked for him this time.

For the first time this season, Shoma Uno landed all the jumps in his short program. His performance was far from trouble-free - he stumbled out of both quadruple jumps - but he did more than enough to secure the highest short program score of the Grand Prix so far. As his comfort with his choreography increases, he's getting more of a handle on its balance of delicacy and intensity. With his small stature and his baby face, Uno has to work harder than most to convey artistic maturity, and this program has been a learning curve for him. By the end of the season, I think he'll really have it. What he does have now, in addition to some of the most difficult jump content in the sport, is a rare ability to connect difficult moves smoothly and naturally. He doesn't just enter his triple Axel from a spread eagle, but exits it directly into a cantilever, then launches into his step sequence with no chance to pick up speed. He got big GOEs on both elements, but not perfect ones, and I'm left wondering what else the judges could have expected from him. 

I'd hoped Uno would keep up the momentum in his free skate, but he lacked the fire that won him Skate America. He started strong, with perhaps his best quad flip yet, but he lost momentum and focus in the middle of the program. For the first time this season, Uno looked young and nervous, missing jump combinations and dropping levels. Even before he fell on his second quad toe loop attempt, it looked like he'd sink behind Fernandez overall. He got his groove back with a spectacular triple Axel-half loop-triple flip at the end, but Uno's free skate was a reminder that he still has a lot of room to grow.

Javier Fernandez, on the other hand, skated like a two-time World Champion who knew he had this in the bag. In the short program, that attitude didn't work so well: he tap danced out of his quad toe loop-triple toe loop, did a triple salchow instead of his planned quad, and earned across-the-board level 3's for spins that he looked like he hadn't practiced since April. Deservedly high components scores kept him in second place for the segment, although both Kolyada and Bychenko bested him technically, and he couldn't come close to Uno. 

In the free skate, however, he easily made up the difference, capitalizing on Uno's fall and general unsteadiness. He wasn't perfect - he dropped levels on spins and steps again, and he probably wanted a triple toe loop instead of a double on at least one of his combinations - but he showed that he's already in top form, free of the autumn glitches that usually show up for him during the Grand Prix. It was great to see him follow a phenomenal quad salchow with a smooth triple Axel in the second half of the program, and the judges rewarded him handsomely, not only for the jumps themselves but for performing them with complicated steps and ample theatricality in between. Artistically, he was Javi as usual, recycling his short program from last season and barely even changing his shirt in the transition from Guys and Dolls to Elvis in the free skate. I can't blame him for sticking with what works, but he missed some opportunities for musical expression by breezing through "Fever" and "Jailhouse Rock" with his usual Iberian smirk. He's lucky that, even if it's a little tired, that smirk is irresistible.

Like a lot of Americans, I'm upset and scared right now. That's to be expected: no matter who is elected in this country, approximately half of us feel like we've lost. I can't imagine that any regular reader of this blog is surprised that I'm to the left of the political spectrum, at least by US standards. It also shouldn't be a surprise that my mind went to sports metaphors fast, as a way of getting my head around what had happened and thinking about how to proceed with my life. As a matter of fact, the sports metaphors started long before Tuesday night and were a constant for me, and not just because I never entirely stop writing blog posts in my head. So here's a list - in no particularly meaningful order - of what's been running through my head since Election Day.

1. No matter the outcome, there's a lot of good in the world.

I feel it's important to put this one first, since a lot of people in my social circles are treating Trump's victory like it's the end of the world. I think that a lot of what he plans to do is terrible, not just for me personally but for the nation and world as a whole, but despair is the worst emotional state to settle into when the future looks bleak. Despair makes you feel like there's nothing to be done and nothing to fight for. I've been lucky to find a lot of protection from that way of thinking in the wake of Tuesday's results. I watched the returns come in with a person I care about a lot, offsetting the dread with martinis and Mexican food. When the writing was on the wall, my friends started texting, and it brightened my mood to see how many people wanted to reach out for mutual support. There were even some bright spots on the political front, as Tammy Duckworth unseated Mark Kirk as U.S. Senator and Susana Mendoza became the first Hispanic person and first woman of color to hold the office of Illinois Comptroller. (If that sounds like cold comfort, know that the Comptroller actually has a lot of power around here.)

In the morning, one of my friends messaged me to note that the sun had still risen. She was still feeling down, though, so I started sending her links to my favorite figure skating programs, the ones that I watch when I'm sad. The list got long enough that she compiled them into a YouTube playlist that is now my happy place. The conversation reminded me that few things have the power to restore my mood like a great figure skating performance. I've put the playlist on shuffle and have been dipping into it all week. It's utterly biased, putting my irrational preferences ahead of point totals and outcomes (and occasionally ahead of all common sense). You can watch it here.

2. Once you're a fan, there's a lot you're willing to excuse.

I'm not hugely into hockey, but I have a number of friends who love it enough to suck me in once in awhile. Many of them are (or used to be) fans of the Chicago Blackhawks, and most would complain every so often about how racist the team logo is. Some were bothered enough to refuse to buy merchandise with the stereotyped Native American chief on it, but none were bothered enough to quit following the team. When news broke about the rape allegations against Patrick Kane, and the team's dubious handling of the situation followed, it became the tipping point for a number of my friends. Most hockey fans in Chicago stood by the team, though. Their enjoyment of hockey triumphed over their philosophical opposition to racially insensitive mascots and even over their deep horror and outrage about rape. In my neighborhood, more than 80% of the votes for President went to Hillary Clinton, but the ugly mug of a cartoon Indian flies high over the bar at the end of my street. Most Chicagoans' principles end where the prospect of another Stanley Cup begins.

The same went for political allegiances in this election. Both major Presidential candidates had giant skeletons in their closets, past behaviors that their opposition perceived as unforgivable. Journalists worked painstakingly to exonerate Hillary Clinton when the Trump campaign painted her as a pathological liar with a history of criminal financial dealings and deleted emails. They worked equally hard to chronicle Trump's record of bad real estate deals and unethical business practices, not to mention continual reminders of his racist and sexist comments. Then, to ensure the most direct possible parallel with hockey, woman after woman came forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault and harassment. For all of the mud slung and the research hours logged, none of this seemed to sway many American voters. Most of the anti-Clinton crowd had hated her for years as a symbol of liberal establishment politics, corrupt cronyism, and empty rhetoric. The Americans opposed to Trump would have despised him for his regressive economic policies, semi-coherent bluster, and The Celebrity Apprentice even without the bigotry and bankruptcies. After Trump won, think pieces proliferated about the sad confirmation that racism and sexism aren't deal-breakers for most American voters. But any sports fan could have told you that.

3. We know we live in a bubble, but we don't realize how small it is.

If you spend a lot of time on figure skating social media, you know that everyone loves Ashley Wagner and is lukewarm at best toward Gracie Gold. You'd be forgiven for wondering why USFSA even manufactures the rivalry, when it's so clear that Ashley is America's sweetheart. But when you attend a live event where both are competing, the bubble bursts. You're surrounded by tween skaters and fans without Twitter accounts who idolize Gracie and barely register Ashley. Each skater resonates with a specific population of fans, with so little overlap that the two only notice each other when they're all in the same arena. (There's another metaphor here, one that speaks to this Mirai Nagasu true believer, but we'll set that aside, because my love for sports underdogs could not translate more poorly to dark horse primary challengers or third party candidates.)

My Facebook and Twitter feeds were (and, in the aftermath, still are) as uniformly liberal as they are uniformly pro-Ashley. There are a handful of libertarians, but by and large, even they were imploring people to hold their noses and vote for Hillary. I come from a family of old-school, big-city Democrats, so I don't even have that One Racist Uncle everyone else talks about. Throughout the election cycle, I made jokes about how lucky I was to be this sheltered, but it bothered me, because I haven’t always been. One of my ex-girlfriends had staunchly Republican parents, and her dad and I used to get into it about politics. The funny thing about it was, her dad and I were both conflict-avoidant by nature and nerdy about fact-checking, so our conversations were both abnormally civil and frequently interrupted while we looked up histograms of the Federal deficit. When my relationship ended, I obviously lost touch with my ex's family, and now, I miss having an intelligent person whose politics I totally disagree with in my life. We made each other reassess some of our beliefs - he softened on LGBTQ rights, I got more pragmatic about gun policy - and we made sure that neither of us got so stuck in our partisan bubbles that we internalized harmful nonsense.

The bubble had particularly thick walls in this election, and I think that's why most of blue-state America was so shocked when Trump won. The polls and the think pieces were on our side! Even Glenn Beck was voting for Hillary! The voices cautioning us otherwise were beyond our reach, or we declined to hear them. It's all too easy to retreat into elitist fairyland when literally no one you know lives anywhere else.

Or when you live in a city whose beloved baseball team has just won its first World Series in over a century. I'm no baseball fan; when the Cubs make the playoffs, I mostly count the days until I can ride the Red Line without getting beer spilled on me. But it was impossible, in those last couple of weeks, to keep from loving the Cubs a little - or to keep from assuming that everyone else in the world loved them as much as my fellow Chicagoans. My cousin, who lives in Cleveland, burst my Cubs bubble with a mournful response to the World Series results. Who knew there were so many Indians fans? And that they were as distraught about the pitching meltdown in game 7 as I was about Yuzuru Hanyu's short program at Skate Canada? The local Cubs mania had made all other baseball opinions invisible, just as the urban, liberal culture in the Chicago area had made the pro-Trump movement look faraway and small.

4. Don't let them shush you.

One of the few blemishes on my fabulous Skate America 2016 staycation weekend was a tweet from some fellow fans in the stands. My Twitter friends had been screaming and cheering all weekend, and some of their neighbors in the stands threatened to "report them to an usher" if they didn't shut up. I'm pretty sure the threat was empty - not least because the ushers seemed well aware that this was a sporting event and not an actual performance of The Nutcracker - but it reminded me that there's still an annoying divide in philosophies about how live skating should be enjoyed. I'm very much of the opinion that skating is an experience to be enjoyed loudly, with warm support for all the competitors, screams and standing ovations for the best performances, and an ear-splitting GANBARE!! for my favorite Japanese skaters. The athletes back me up on this, pumping up the crowd when we're not yelling and clapping enough for their liking. Fans' positive energy gives the skaters confidence, and making some noise helps the fans feel like we're part of something special.

Nonetheless, in response to behavior that would have seemed downright restrained at a Blackhawks or Cubs game, two women in my row spent the entire ladies' free skate shooting dirty looks at me and the friends I was sitting with, then moved to a different section during ice dance and pairs. When I started attending live skating events, almost a decade ago, I think there were more fans who expected silence during programs. Now, the few who remain are much more aggressive about shushing the rowdy majority. It's almost always older women who disapprove of skating fans who behave like they're watching sports, and they always seem to think that the young don't know how we're "supposed" to act. The cool thing is, the noisy younger fans seem to be winning over the older ones. I've befriended, and egged on, a fair number of loud and bawdy grannies who happened to be sitting nearby. And really, who are the current generation of grannies? Folks who followed the Grateful Dead around and protested the Vietnam War. The defiant younger fans are giving them permission to feel cool and part of something.

One of the most resonant moments of this election cycle, for me, was a mass shushing, and I can't help but connect my Skate America frustrations with it. At the Democratic National Convention, frustrated Bernie Sanders supporters persisted in drowning out the speakers with pro-Bernie slogans. By that point, it had been made clear to them that Sanders would not receive the nomination, and Sanders himself had counseled his supporters to conduct themselves with restraint. But the Sanders loyalists felt like their party was neglecting and sidelining them, and they fought back with their voices. Finally, well into the first night, Al Franken and Sarah Silverman had had enough, and they implored the Bernie shouters to tone it down, saying they were being ridiculous. At the time, I agreed with Franken and Silverman, because I thought the disruptions reflected badly on the Sanders contingent.

I've reconsidered since then, and not out of any illusion that Sanders could have succeeded where Clinton so narrowly failed. What I'm disturbed by is the arrogance of the Democratic establishment. After the primaries anointed Clinton, the Democratic leadership seemed to think they had a mandate to push a large portion of the party - a portion that is relatively young and radical - to quietly get in line and support Clinton. Many outright refused, putting in protest votes or simply staying home. Others complied, but without enthusiasm. Many of the most energized and most potentially influential Democrats felt marginalized by their own party, to the point where they didn't feel motivated to donate money or time. Shushing people is as bad in politics as it is in a figure skating arena and has much broader consequences. I don't think the Democrats' impulse to keep the rebels in line was the deciding factor in this election, and it might not even have been a major one. But it was a big contrast with the Trump campaign, which goaded its supporters into frenzied chants of "Lock her up." Maybe if the Democrats had let their left wing make some noise, they could have drowned out the hateful rhetoric. Or, better, learned something.

5. Write like you're running out of time.

Okay, so maybe I cribbed this one from Lin-Manuel Miranda. It's also something I learned from writing about sports, rather than from watching them. When I started this blog, I was afraid. I worried that my criticism would be perceived as too harsh, my affection for certain skaters would be perceived as too fawning, and worst of all, that my jokes would be perceived as less funny than I thought they were. The first few times I received negative responses to my writing, I almost crumbled. But for every negative note, I got a lot more words of encouragement. Over time, I learned how to write this blog in a way that's true to my perspective on the sport. When I contributed to The Judges' Table last week, I said some ballsy things in front of an audience that was new to my writing, and I got backlash - and not just for the opinions that I knew were hot takes. The weird thing was, the dissent felt good. The point of writing about anything you feel passionate about shouldn't be to garner universal agreement. It should be to get the idea out there, to get people to think and talk and question. When I see people respond to what I'm saying, even if their response is that I am horribly wrong about their fave and need to get some better taste, I know that I'm getting somewhere.

I didn’t put the same kind of courage and confidence into action during this election cycle. It’s easy for me, at this point, to say that I think Satoko Miyahara’s score at Skate Canada was right on target, even though I know that opinion will upset some people. But throughout the election, it was much more difficult for me to voice my objections to Hillary Clinton as a candidate, especially after she received the nomination. Just as I admire a lot about Miyahara’s skating, I admire a lot about Clinton’s career and political approach. But I have serious problems with her, problems that preceded her candidacy and intensified as her campaign went on.

I said nothing. I was trying to be a good Democrat and to promote the best possible option. Lots of Americans censored themselves for similar reasons, but my self-censorship was particularly shameful because I’m a writer. I have a platform here, and I have connections elsewhere that could have brought me a wider audience. I gave into my old fear of negative attention, the impostor syndrome that tells me I’m not informed enough or interesting enough. I alone was not enough to sway this election, but I know I’m not the only person to toe the line when they shouldn’t have. Collectively, we would up reinforcing the illusion of a unified left and center in the United States, and that illusion bred a complacency that probably did play a strong role in Trump’s victory over Clinton.

When I created this blog, it was supposed to be about sports. I’ve used it before to touch on politics, though, and pretending that I’m just writing about ice skating has made it easier to draw in bigger issues that I wouldn’t be sure how to approach otherwise. It's that old Teddy Roosevelt line, proving itself true again: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. If this is how I teach myself to become a more vocal and engaged citizen, that’s good for me, my community, my country, and the world. It’s a shot that I’m not going to throw away.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing about figure skating. I have plenty to say about this weekend’s Trophée de France that has little to do with politics. (Nathan Chen! Gabrielle Daleman! Pretending Gilles/Poirier’s twizzles didn’t happen!) My favorite sport is still the focus here, and always will be. My goal, instead, is to use what I’ve learned from writing this blog to have an impact elsewhere. It’s what I have, and it’s where I am.