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Every Olympic season, skaters up the ante and the best of the best come out to play, 2010 being no exception. This weekend, some of the top competitors competed at the Cancer.Net Skate America event in Lake Placid, NY, the fifth in the Grand Prix series, a carefully planned collection of international events across the globe that lead to one final event where only the top skaters compete having qualified by medaling at each of the individual Grand Prix events. These early season competitions help skaters prepare for the Olympics, and it introduces some new skaters to the international scene.
The 1980 Olympic arena in Lake Placid, where I had the opportunity to compete in 2000 at the Adult Nationals, is a special rink, well maintained so it still looks pristine. For skaters vying for spots at the Games, I can only imagine it must be inspiring to compete there. In the ladies' Short Program, Emily Hughes was first to skate, a last minute replacement for Sasha Cohen, also attempting to return to the Olympics, who withdrew due to injury. New York being Emily's home state, she was welcomed warmly by the crowd. She popped her triple lutz combination into a single, but her other two jumps were solid. It was nice to see her do a long spiral sequence in her signature style. Unfortunately, the loss in points put her in eleventh place going into the Free Skate, so her long program wasn't on NBC earlier today, but it will most likely be on cable later today at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern when Universal Sports shows the event.
The newest American on the scene, Alexe Gilles, tripped out of her first jump and popped her second, finishing tenth in the SP. Elena Glebova landed a beautiful triple-triple combination, pulling into fifth, Fumie Suguri nailed her jumps with a smooth short program, putting her in fourth, with Julia Sebestyen, another veteran, in third leading up to the Free Skate. Rachel Flatt skated a fun program and went for her triple-triple, but fell on the second jump, earning 58.80, only .3 ahead of Sebestyen and 2.8 ahead of Suguri. Glebova, Gedevanishvili and Helgesson of Estonia, Georgia and Sweden were only four points back at 52, very close together, meaning any of those six had a shot at the podium. Then Yu-Na Kim came out and her triple lutz-triple toe combination was gigantic and skated a flawless and entertaining program to the James Bond theme, earning a standing ovation and beating her previous world record for a short program with 76.28 points total.
As they announced the final group for the ladies' Free Skate, they named each skater's home country. The group included skaters from Georgia, Estonia, Japan, Hungary, the U.S., and Korea. Just thinking about the relationships between those countries over the past century and what it means for representatives from each to be in competition together, the rules of the ice being the same regardless of where you're from. These athletes just want to make it to the Olympic Games so they can be a part of that, even knowing the chances of winning are so incredibly slim.
Suguri was first to skate in the Free Skate, her light and elegant style augmented with huge jumps, but she faltered later in the program, doubling a triple, then unfortunately singling another, then stepping out of two more jumps. It was enough to earn her the lead at that point, but with three skaters remaining, there wasn't much hope for a medal. Sebestyen took the ice and started off strong, but also doubled one of her jumps and made some small mistakes, singling her final axel. She barely squeaked ahead of Suguri, earning a podium spot. Scott Hamilton kept mentioning the altitude issue possibly affecting some of the skaters in Lake Placid; that won't be a factor in Vancouver.
Rachel Flatt received a loud welcome to the ice from the American crowd. She took her time on her tough intro triple flip-triple toe combination, landing both solidly, followed by a great triple lutz and later a triple loop and a triple lutz combination. She looked a bit tired on her footwork and spins toward the end, but she skated a clean, energetic program with a bright smile and brought the house to their feet, moving ahead of Sebestyen by a over a dozen points. Flatt, in my opinion, is the best chance at an American medal in ladies' figure skating in Vancouver. I hope she makes
