General Skating News

Plushenko won his ninth Russian title: http://www.examiner.com/figure-skating-in-national/plushenko-announces-return-emphatically-with-ninth-russian-title

His videos from Russian National:
SP

LP

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Russian National Men final standings:
1. Evgeni Plushenko – 259.67
2. Artur Gachinski – 249.58
3. Sergei Voronov – 240.79
4. Zhan Bush – 223.30
5. Artur Dmitriev – 220.29

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  little_seungnyang.

Sotnikova SP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtHBlkREbew&feature=related
More videos of Russian Nat’l Ladies SP at the owner’s site.

Thanks for all the national competition updates, Lil Dhole. Congrats to all the medalists!

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

Loveleeyuna said:
Thanks for all the national competition updates, Lil Dhole. Congrats to all the medalists!

You’re welcome, Lovelee. This is the least that I can do.
I am still wondering though if I put all these news on the right thread.. Don’t mind to move my posts if I didn’t.

Congratulations to all the medalists. They have done a great job. Yes, especially by competing on Christmas.. I don’t think I will want to do anything but being sluggish on that day, but the athletes still give their best.

little_seungnyang said:
Sotnikova SP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtHBlkREbew&feature=related
More videos of Russian Nat’l Ladies SP at the owner’s site.

There have been Pairs SP and Short Dance videos on the site, too!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  little_seungnyang.

Michelle Kwan has found there is life after figure skating
After Michelle Kwan realized being a figure skater was only one part of the person she wanted to become, the sport that once filled her waking hours has encroached on her sleep.

By Helene Elliott

Half a dozen years after her last competition, long after Michelle Kwan realized being a figure skater was only one part of the person she wanted to become, the sport that once filled her waking hours has encroached on her sleep.

“I’m starting now to have skating dreams,” said Kwan, 31 and deep into a career in public diplomacy and promoting educational and cultural causes. “When I was skating, I never dreamt of skating. When I was awake I did it. And I find it very, very funny.”

In those recurring dreams the Torrance native isn’t performing the graceful spiral that was the signature move of her five world championships, nine U.S. titles and Olympic medals in 1998 (silver) and 2002 (bronze). Nor is she combining artistry and athleticism in the unique blend that illuminated her 43 championships and two weeks ago won her a place in the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

“It’s always the pressure of trying. I’m always late, tying my skates and rushing to the ice,” she said. “It’s funny.”

It’s especially odd because Kwan rarely skates now. She received her master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Diplomacy in May and two months later moved to Washington to delve into the interests she never had time to explore while she competed, when her world was limited to the length and width of a skating rink.

She is on the board of the Special Olympics, a member of the President’s Council on Fitness and Nutrition, co-chair of an International Olympic Committee seminar on women in sports to be held in Los Angeles in February. She lunches with current and former presidents and recently stood on the South lawn of the White House counting jumping jacks to publicize First Lady Michelle Obama’s fitness-promoting “Let’s Move” initiative.

But she’s still humble enough to marvel that the president and first lady greeted her by name in the receiving line of the White House holiday party and that she, the youngest daughter of immigrants who once operated a Chinese restaurant and now own rinks in Artesia and Ontario, can mix so naturally with heads of state and cultural leaders.

“I reflect back and think I’m living quite a surreal life,” she said this week while visiting friends and family in Southern California.

“It is so varied, and I love that. It’s like finding my place. I’m still constantly finding where I belong and how I can make an impact and what do I want to do in the long term. It’s finding that passion.”

Skating was her passion from the time she was a precocious, pre-teen jumping bean and through her 20s. Not until her body betrayed her–a hip injury and subsequent groin injury forced her to withdraw from the 2006 Winter Olympics–did she have time to reflect on what she would do next.

“I think a lot of athletes, me included, have a hard time finding that sort of identity, wondering is being a skater my identity,” she said. “That was the one thing that I was able to figure out through going back to school, that there’s more out there that I’m interested in doing and pursuing.

“I’m 31 and there is a time when you have to walk out of the ice rink. To me it’s the idea of wanting to learn and keep on learning.”

She took a few classes at UCLA while she competed but couldn’t find the right academic and athletic balance. Later, she attended Denver University full-time and from there went to the Fletcher School, where her professors were formulating American political and diplomatic policy.

All of those lessons serve her well when she speaks to teachers and principals about childhood obesity, to youngsters all over the world about bridging language gaps to find common goals and desires. She’s still not sure how she will tie all her interests together but she’s soaking up every life lesson.

“As a skater I was always a student, whether it was learning from Frank Carroll, learning from Lori Nicholls, how to be an artist, how to understand the art of figure skating,” she said of her longtime coach and choreographer. “You evolve and keep evolving….If I were 19 again or 20 again I would still skate because I love it. But there’s a point where your body goes, ‘Maybe you should do some yoga.”

She has some ideas about what she will say when she’s inducted into the Hall of Fame Jan. 27 in San Jose, but she hasn’t put anything on paper. “Where do I begin?” she said. “I think that’s where I’m going to begin: where do I begin?”

It feels right, she said, that the ceremony will take place in San Jose, site of her first national title in 1996.

“I feel like it’s really come full circle,” she said. “It’s so emotional. There’s so much love I have for the sport. So many amazing experiences, so many incredible people I’ve met along the way. And now reflecting on it, it’s something I miss, of course. But I’ve moved on.”

Not completely. Two weeks ago, when her sister Karen and nieces Olivia and Sophia visited her in Washington, they went skating outdoors at the National Mall. Kwan slipped and slid like a novice on battered skates with blunted toe picks but enjoyed every second.

“A lot of people were watching me,” she said, “and they were probably going, ‘Wow, she really forgot how to skate.”’

No, she hasn’t forgotten the sport. And it will never forget her.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-1224-michelle-kwan,0,3268751.column

！！！this is BingWa Geng‘s national competition program！！
I thought it's Yuna at the first time

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzM5NjYyMDky.html

It was a long article, and I copy paste only few parts of it. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/figureskating/opinion/2012/01/virtue-moir-victims-of-scoring-error.html?cmp=rss

Virtue, Moir victims of scoring error

For a full explanation, I turned to ISU vice president David Dore. Here’s a lightly edited version of our conversation:

Pj: How did the error happen?

David Dore: It was a programming error and a personnel error that was found. An element should have been changed in the computer system that was missed. It was an honest mistake that was found and we thought it would be best to be transparent about it.

There is ongoing discussion during the season about how best to evaluate skating today. For instance, there can be discussion about an element and seeing that it needs to have a higher value because it’s hard to do. When that determination is made by the technical committee, they send the info to the computer company responsible for the input of the scoring information for the upcoming season. Someone who was in the area forgot to change things. It’s as simple as that.

Pj: What measures were taken to fix the problem?

David Dore: The error was re-programmed to reflect the correct value for the element. We also did random checks of other events throughout the season to make sure that none of the final results were affected. To be honest, Virtue and Moir perform an unusual lift that isn’t seen very often. None of the juniors do it and we didn’t find it elsewhere.

Pj: How do you arrive at changes to the scoring system?

David Dore: “Tweaks are based upon determinations of the ISU technical committee. The GOEs [Grade of Execution] are reviewed every year to re-balance elements. It’s not a major change to the scoring system. In this case it was partial.

Pj: Some people still say that the new scoring system is flawed.

David Dore: Listen, there was nothing wrong with the other system, it was good for hundreds of years. The problem in my opinion is that there was no value of things and it was all subjective. Now it is more precise. The scoring system is like the high-tech industry: it doesn’t stand still. Every turn that you take you can tweak things and make them better.

I do know that every year the technical committees get lots of feedback from coaches in particular about skating. Take the quad, for example, or what defines a fall or rotations, et cetera. Things are progressing so fast in this sport and we have to be able to react. What used to be above average three years ago is now the norm. [Men's singles skater] Javier Fernandez is an example of a skater who is raising the bar now and who wasn’t three years ago. As the bar is being raised you have to be able to reflect that.

I believe that if we didn’t change the values and continue to re-evaluate, people would come after us.