Top American Men Have Sights on U.S. Championships in Detroit

by Liz Leamy

America�s premiere men�s skaters, including Nathan Chen, the 2018 World Champion and two-time U.S. titlist (2017 and 2018), Jason Brown, the 2015 U.S. champion and Vincent Zhao, the 2017 World Junior gold medalist, among others, are on the home stretch preparing for the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, beginning January 19^th and running through January 27^th.

This main event, which will be held at the new state-of-the-art Little Caesar�s Arena in downtown Detroit, should be full of drama, as Chen, who is the 2017 and 2018 International Skating Union Grand Prix Final champion, and the other top athletes face each other the closing weekend, January 26 and 27.

For Chen, 19, a full-time freshman at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, competing at Nationals represents an opportunity to achieve cement his reputation as the premier man in American figure skating, and shut down naysayers who question the effectiveness of training across the country from his primary coach.

�It�s cool that I had an opportunity to compete at Worlds and had the opportunity to win [last year],� said Chen, who is the youngest of five children. �[However,] I don�t really want to carry too much of my past into the future. I have to basically skate as well as I can [and] just want to focus on all the things I do in training so I do my best in competition.�

Chen, who is coached by Rafael Arutyuyan, who is based at the East West Ice Palace in Artesia, California, spent two weeks of his college holiday break recently training his short and long programs and technical and artistic skills with his coach.

At Yale, Chen trains at the Ingalls Arena, the famous whale-shaped architectural structure based in the center of the historic Ivy League campus, where he skates approximately one and a half hours daily, four to five days a week.

Chen seems to have adapted effectively to this new way of life and has managed to make his academic responsibilities work in concert with his training schedule.

�I�m glad [with] the way things have been going,� said Chen. �There is still a lot of work to be done.�

Chen said his primary goal at Nationals is to skate clean and plans to perform the same technical elements as he did at the Grand Prix Final last December.

For Chen, everything comes down to simply getting the job done.

�Motivation is based upon whatever you have to have done at the end of the day,� said Chen.

Jason Brown, the effervescent 24 year-old Chicago-area native, meanwhile, is looking to make his mark in Detroit and reclaim a U.S. Nationals podium position.

Brown, whose reputation among many in the skating community is one of being �a skater�s skater,� finished second at the 2014 and third at the 2017 U.S. Championships, respectively, but missed making the 2018 Olympic team after placing sixth at last year�s Nationals.

Brown, a five-time International Skating Union Championship Grand Prix medalist, in turn, decided to change up his world as a means to further evolve both as an individual and athlete.

Brown, who had been training in Monument, Colorado for several years prior to making this change, announced last spring that he was going to relocate to Toronto to work with Brian Orser, Tracey Wilson and their coaching team.

Brown, who was renowned for his exceptional skating fundamentals due to the guidance of his previous longtime coach, Kori Ade, said he has been working, over the past year, on approaching his skating from a different perspective.

�I�ve been working toward the U.S. Championships. I�m excited about (being there) and am focused on day-to-day training,� said Brown. �I think I came (to Toronto) with a strong base and built upon that.�

Brown said he feels he and his current coaching team have hit an optimal stride in terms of their communication, which he believes is key in regard to his stature, growth and development.

�The biggest thing I�ve learned (from being in Toronto) is our communication has gotten stronger and better (over the past year)�, said Brown. �It�s a lot more confidence I have in knowing what to expect and knowing what our relationship is as a coach and athlete.�

According to Brown, Orser oversees all aspects of his skating, while Wilson, the 1988 Canadian Olympic bronze dance medalist, serves as his primary coach and focuses on his daily training plan.

He also works closely with Karen Preston, the two-time Canadian champion, and Lee Barkell on all of his technical elements.

Brown said in regard to his skating, he feels he has much more to give.

�I�m so proud of my career and everything I�ve done, but I knew I had more to give and that physically I wasn�t done,� said Brown.

Ultimately, it seems like Brown is planning to show everyone in Detroit he is anything but done with his skating, which certainly should be exciting.

Vincent Zhou, 18, the 2017 U.S. silver medalist and 2018 U.S. bronze medalist, is another contender to watch.

Zhou, whose hometown is Palo Alto, California, and who trains with Tammy Gambill, Tom Zakrajsek and Christy Krall in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been working steadfastly on further strengthening his triples and quads this season.

He plans to skate to �Exogenesis Symphony Part 3� by Muse for his short (choreographed Lori Nichol) and the �Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon� and �Rising Sun� film soundtracks (created by Jeffrey Buttle) for his long program.

2018 Grand Prix Final

Junior Grand Prix Final Reports

Reports from Vancouver.

2018 Skate France International

by Klaus-Reinhold Kany

The sixth and last Grand Prix of this season before the Vancouver Final is called "Internationaux de France de Patinage.� It takes place in southeastern France, in the university city of Grenoble where the Olympic Winter Games were held in 1968. The U.S. team won two medals in figure skating then: Peggy Fleming became Olympic Champion and Tim Wood took silver behind Austrian Wolfgang Schwarz. The best U.S. pair were Cynthia and Ronald Kauffman on sixth position. The legendary Ludmilla Belousova & Oleg Protopopov won the pairs gold medal. Ice dance was not yet an Olympic sport.

The Grand Prix of 2018, like the one in 2017, does not take place in the old Olympic rink, but in a newer and smaller ice rink called "Pole Sud� (South Pole) about two miles south of downtown. In each of the four categories there are several skaters who can hope to reach the Grand Prix Final in case of a top placement.

Big favorite in the men�s event is the 2018 World Champion Nathan Chen after winning Skate America in October. Also hoping for a medal are Boyang Jin from China, Dmitri Aliev and Alexander Samarin from Russia, the second U.S. skater Jason Brown, Deniss Vasilievs from Latvia and Keji Tanaka from Japan.

In the ladies event there might be a hard fight for gold between the 2016 and 2017 world champion Evgenia Medvedeva from Russia and the new Japanese star Rika Kihira. U.S. skater Bradie Tennell is a candidate for the bronze medal as well as Mai Mihara from Japan, Stanislava Konstantinova and Maria Sotskova from Russia.

Vanessa James & James Cipr�s from France are highly favored in the pairs competition. The two other medals might be won be the North Koreans Tae Ok Ryom & Ju Sik Kim, the Russians Alexandra Boikova & Dmitrii Kozlovskii or the Americans Tarah Kayne & Danny O�Shea.

In ice dancing the reigning world champions Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron from France announced his back pain is gone which made them withdraw from the NHK Trophy. If they compete, they are big gold favorites. The two other medal might be won by Victoria Sinitsina & Nikita Katsalapov from Russia and by Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier from Canada. Outsiders for a medal are the U.S. team of Kaitlin Hawayek & Jean-Luc Baker, the Spanish dancers Olivia Smart & Adrian Diaz as well as the second French team of Marie-Jade Lauriault & Romain Le Gac.

2018 Skate France International Gold Medalists

2018 Rostelecom Cup

by Klaus-Reinhold Kany

In 2018, the Rostelecom Cup is the fifth of the six Grand Prix competitions. In the Western countries this event is often called the Cup of Russia which had been the real name before Russia found a sponsor. Like in many years before, it takes place in Moscow�s Megasport Arena, which is situated some miles northwest of the Kremlin and from downtown. This rink is well-known all over the world and also easy to recognize by TV-viewers because of its bright colorful seats for the spectators. It had also served for the World Championships 2011, which had been removed from Tokyo to Russia after the earthquake, tsunami and disaster of a nuclear power station in Japan in March 2011, just one week before the planned schedule.

The biggest star and men�s gold favorite is Yuzuru Hanyu who plans his second Grand Prix after winning in Finland. Everything but gold again would be a big surprise and only possible if he is in bad shape. Hoping for the other medals are Mikhail Kolyada from Russia, Keegan Messing from Canada, Artur Dmitriev junior and Andrei Lazukin from Russia as well as Kazuki Tomono from Japan.

In the ladies competition, the 2018 Olympic Champion Alina Zagitova from Russia hopes to win her second Grand Prix after Helsinki. The other top skaters are Mako Yamashita and Yuna Shiraiwa from Japan, Sofia Samodurova and Polina Tsursakaia from Russia and Elizabet Tursynbaeva from Kazakhstan. A bis question mark is Gracie Gold who had been invited in May for a comeback. She arrived in Moscow on Wednesday, but she has not done any smaller competition which U.S. Figure Skating normally requires some weeks before a Grand Prix. Karen Chen has had injury problems for a long time, but she withdrew so late that no alternate could be invited. This is an unfair and not sportsmanlike behavior.

In pairs, the 2018 world silver medalists Evgenia Tarasova & Vladimir Morozov from Russia are the favorites. The other medal candidates are U.S. skaters Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc, the two Russian pairs Daria Pavliuchenko & Denis Khodykin as well as Alisa Efimova & Alexander Korovin. The Italians Nicole Della Monica & Matteo Guarise also have a chance for a spot on the podium.

In Ice Dance, Alexandra Stepanova & Ivan Bukin from Russia should normally be the best. Other candidates for a medal are Sara Hurtado & Kirill Khaliavin from Spain, Natalia Kalisek & Maskym Spodyriev from Poland plus U.S. dancers Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko. The other U.S. team of Madison Chock & Evan Bates withdrew too late to invite somebody else, which is, like in the case of Karen Chen, not a fair and sportsmanlike behavior because all of them had already withdrawn from their first Grand Prix and knew probably much earlier that they cannot compete in Russia either.

2018 NHK Trophy

by Klaus-Reinhold Kany

The NHK Trophy is a traditional annual international skating competition which has been taking place for 40 years (starting in 1979) and moves around Japan. Since the beginning of the series in the 1995, it has been part of the ISU Grand Prix Series.

This year, it is the fourth Grand Prix and takes place in Hiroshima, a harbor city on the Seto Inland Sea in the southwest of Japan, on Honshu, the largest island of Japan, with 1.2 million people. The city is worldwide known as the site of the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the history of mankind, on August 6, 1945. Nearly the whole city was destroyed. After the war the city was rebuilt quickly, and is a modern industrial city today.

The competition takes place in the Hiroshima Prefectural Sports Center on Friday November 9, Saturday, November 10 and the ice dance free program and the exhibition on Sunday, November 11. Also known as the "Green Arena," due to the color of its dome, it is located near the Peace Park and the city art museum, and holds about 6,000 people for the competition. At the center of the Peace Park is the Peace Bell which reminds of the catastrophe. Nearby is also the Atomic Dome (one of the few building near ground zero to survive the atomic blast) which can be seen from the arena, and the rebuilt Hiroshima Castle. The Castle, built in the 1590s was destroyed in the bomb blast when its foundation collapsed. The rebuilt castle is now a museum for the history of Hiroshima prior to WWII.

In the men�s competition, the favorite is Olympic silver medalist Shoma Uno. Japan�s even bigger star Yuzuru Hanyu decided not to compete in his home country because he is always more nervous there than anywhere else. Other podium candidates are the two Russian skaters Sergei Voronov and Dmitri Aliev, the second Japanese skater Sota Yamamoto and Vincent Zhou from the USA.

In the ladies competition, Skate America winner Satoko Miyahara from Japan is one of two favorites and tries to win a second time. The same is true for Elizaveta Tuktamysheva from Russia after her victory at Skate Canada. Maria Bell from USA, Maria Sotskova from Russia and Eunsoo Lim from South Korea also hope for a spot on the podium.

The pairs medal might go to the Helsinki Grand Prix gold medalists Natalia Zabiiako & Alexander Enbert, the Canadians Kirsten-Moore-Towers & Michael Marinaro, the Chinese team of Cheng Peng & Yang Jin. Outsiders are the two U.S. teams of Alexa Scimeca Knierim & Chris Knierim as well as Tarah Kayne & Danny O�Shea.

In ice dancing, the big favorites Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron from France withdrew three days before the competition because Cizeron suffers from heavy back pain. The Gold medal favorite now seems to be Tiffani Zagorski & Jonathan Guerreiro from Russia, followed by four candidates for the other two medals: Kaitlin Hawayek & Jean-Luc Baker from the USA, Lilah Fear & Lewis Gibson from Britain, Shiyue Wang & Xinyi Liu from China, all three from the Montreal ice dance school, plus U.S. dancers Rachel & Michael Parsons.