2012 World Championships

I guess I should write about my impressions on this event, since thanks to Yuna I’m now into figure skating

Sadly, I couldn’t watch much of it, I only watched ladies free skate on Eurosport, so I’ll comment on that and the overall ladies result only.

First of all, the saddest thing for me was the Alissa Czisny’s performance. I kind of like her and I always hope that she’ll do nice. I didn’t watch this performance, but from what I’ve heard it was heartbreaking and that she even started crying while on it. I think it was just that she started with errors and couldn’t recover from them… In total, 5 falls and 22nd place, this is really hard for her.

We shouldn’t forget that she is actually a really good skater and she was totally capable of winning events like GPF 2010 ahead of current World Champion Carolina Kostner who finished second back then.

This is incredible, but as you can see, the nerves at times can do incredibly bad (or good) things.

I hope she will recover soon and that her fans will offer a lot of love and support. She is a very good skater in spite of everything.

Then, the one who called my attention a lot was Kexin Zhang. She’s a young and promising Chinese skater, I think she is debuting in seniors this season. She had a nice performance and it was really pleasant to watch her. I hope she will do good in the future, it would be really cool to have a Chinese lady as a contender to some serious title.

Ashley Wagner was the next who called my attention. I don’t like much her program, because it’s “Black swan” inspired by a rather average movie that got popular for no reason. I definitely would prefer skaters performing to the original Tchaikovsky music that this recent adaptation. However, even though this didn’t happen before in the season, this time her performance was really convincing to me and I definitely liked it.

Ashley, I guess, is another underrated skater like Alissa, if she does well many people don’t praise her much and if she does badly, some people even feast on that fact. But she is a good skater and her performance on FS Worlds 2012 is definitely one to watch. But, I hope, there will be no more “Black swan” in the next season

Kanako Murakami is another really interesting skater and she’s incredibly cute. She seems to be improving season through season and I hope we’ll see more from her, for now I just enjoyed her performance.

Mao Asada is always interesting to watch, because she has a great potential and she’s the only one of the current skaters that, aside Yuna, are really special in terms of technical ability and artistry. I don’t really need to explain all of this, because just the fact that she was considered the main Yuna’s rival says it all. Sadly, those recent seasons aren’t really good for Mao and she isn’t skating as she can skate.

This time she clearly overworked herself and overloaded her program, again trying to go for 3A which many people suggest her to drop at least temporarily. The result is that she couldn’t do it as she planned, but at least we have to give her some credit for trying. We also should remember that she didn’t recover yet from her personal tragedy (the loss of her mother), so it is clear that it all affected her skating and ultimately the result. I just wish her to rest and, maybe, learn a bit from Yuna’s approach to competitions and how not to overwork herself too much (this is one of those things, where Yuna clearly had the advantage most of time, while Yuna was the great worker she also knew how and when to stop and not overwork). And, of course, I hope no more personal tragedies for her.

I was really happy with the performance of Alena Leonova. When I just started following figure skating because of Yuna, I thought of Alena as if she was another “happy skater”, like Yuna. But, sadly, her mindset is clearly not the same as Yuna’s, and for the past seasons it was really hard for her, she had a lot of downs and she had a hard time coping with the disappointing results.

This time it seemed like the nerves, once again, were her major enemy. It was just noticeable even on my computer screen, how nervous she was and how hard she tried to concentrate before her performance. I was very nervous for her too, in fact she was the skater I was the most nervous on this competition. I’m really happy that she was able to win that battle with herself and to deliver a really solid performance.

It was a joy a watch, but I was even happier after this, because she was able to finish 2nd overall. She totally deserves this for all the hard, long way she had to go towards this competition. She clearly improved and her self-control is definitely better than it was, say, 2 and some years ago when she finished last on GPF. I know she really wanted to be somewhere on Worlds podium and I’m really happy she got there. I was surprised to know how good her SP performance was, but I was surprised in a good way, I just thought she’ll need more time to do something like this. A very pleasant surprise. I hope next season Alena will be that happy skater as she was before.

Akiko Suzuki… I can’t really say anything about her, for some reason she doesn’t impress me those past seasons. I can only note that her FS dress was really similar to Yuna’s Gershwin dress, as about the performance, I don’t have anything bad say.

Finally, our ladies champion for this year, Carolina Kostner. This was, probably, the biggest surprise for me. If you know a bit about my skating tastes, you would probably know that I actually don’t like her much, I never got her skating and even never got people who liked her.

However, the performance she delivered this time, wow… It was just mesmerizing. I never thought that a performance from her will leave such an impression on me. It was a really, really good performance, both technically and artistically. After a performance like this, I must say, I changed my opinion about her and I’ll be waiting for her performances from now on. Hope she’ll be around next season.

It was really just a joy to watch and I highly recommend it, if you are interested. I’m surprised myself, but yeah, it was great. Hope to see more of that from her. It was great.

So that was a Worlds championship for me this year.

I couldn’t watch most of it, but what I watched, I really liked. The ladies weren’t disappointing at all and I enjoyed it a lot.

I guess, I should dedicate some words to Min Jung Kwak, since we all like that skater and wish well to her. Sadly, I couldn’t watch her performance and even sadder she didn’t make it into FS.

I hope that she is not pressured too much in Korea because of it. It’s hard to compete with world class skaters, it’s hard to train in conditions still much worse than of most of those skaters and I’m pretty sure that she does all she can.

It’s also just incredibly hard to be the next skater right after Yuna Kim, who is the best ladies skater in the history of the sport (at least in my humble opinion).
I wish her the best and I’m sure she can improve a lot. Hope to see her next season.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Daniel.

Daniel said:

Me too Really, thanks to Yuna’s ice shows, even after the season is finished, I feel like really nothing is over. Her ice shows are as exciting as competitions for me.

Her new galas are actually highlight of this already ended season for me.

“I really hope that when I leave, my last trace will be beautiful.”-Yuna Kim