litlover12

This poor girl cannot catch a break. Just when she's on the upswing, she gets knocked down again.

You think baseball is a heartrbreaking sport? Try being a skating fan.

Thanks for the kind comments about my dental woes! And now I owe you all a nice post to make up for the grumpy posts. So here, have a lovely (and gold-medal-winning!) skate from Alex and Maia Shibutani. I was just bowled over by this.



And bonus silver-medal-winning skate from Jason Brown! I've never been a Jason uberfan, but he did an AMAZING job here.

Silver medal at Worlds for Ashley Wagner!!!! I'm SO PROUD of this girl. The 10-year U.S. women's medal drought is over, and she got to be the one to end it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gouttBMz-UM

Maybe you remember Julia Liptnitskaya, the "little girl in the red coat" from the Olympics; since then she's had a rough time of it on the ice. Between the puberty struggles that all young female skaters have to go through, and a coach who seemed to run out of ideas and interest, she hasn't been living up to her potential at all. Every time she went out on the ice, she looked lost and sad.

A few weeks ago she got a new coach, who is obviously just what the doctor ordered, because yesterday she pulled off this outstanding short program at Russian nationals.

Moments like this remind me why I watch skating. It fills me with joy to see Julia skating with fire and expression, and nailing her jumps, and being so happy with her performance. I keep watching this program, and every time she starts to cry at the end, I start to cry too! It's been a long, tough road for this kid, and she's still not all the way back yet (her long program wasn't as good, and she didn't medal), but I think she's finally back on the right track. Can't wait to see how she does next season!

As I always say, never underestimate the power of a good teacher.

So both my favorite eligible skaters got medals this weekend (first Grand Prix medal ever for Ricky, yay!), and ordinarily I would be over the moon about that. But as things turned out, with a horrific accident in the men's warmup, I was almost too distracted to enjoy it or even realize it at first. Such is life.

(Both skaters who collided are doing okay, they say. Praying that lasts.)

I really do love those two kids, though. No bull.

Some friends and I have tickets to see Carmen at the Virginia Opera tonight! This will be my first time seeing it, although, watching as much figure skating as I do, I sort of feel like I've already seen it a dozen times. As Dick Button said, "Every skater goes through a thousand CDs until they find a piece that they like, and then all too often they end up with Carmen."

At long, long last we've got an Olympic gold medal in ice dance! And it couldn't have happened to a greater team. Congratulations, Meryl and Charlie!! You did us proud!

Here's my first Atlantic piece on Olympic skating!

Skating's coming up on NBC . . . so everyone please help me root for Richard Dornbush! :-) He needs to finish in the top two to make it to Worlds!

ETA: Well, maybe next year . . . Thanks for rooting with me, msantimacassar! 

Now we're going to have at least two months -- probably longer -- of griping and moaning on figure skating boards because Davis and White chose a Sinatra medley for their short dance. Sinatra, the king of music, singing some of the greatest songs ever written -- they're calling it kitschy! Why does no one have any taste any more? I ask you!