The sun is shining, my taxes are due soon, and another season of figure skating is in the books. (We still have the World Team Trophy to go, but its format is so different from most skating events that it feels more like a year-end party than a real competition.) That means it’s time to look back on the best of the season, and as always, I have way too many favorites. Even restricting myself to one performance per skater or team, and leaving out exhibition numbers, my lists of favorite men’s, ladies’, and ice dance programs include 19 items each, and I even managed to come up with 11 pairs performances I want to write about.
Instead of dividing things up by discipline, this year I’ve created five broad categories of exciting and memorable skating. To create a little suspense and to motivate myself to finish this series of posts, I’ll introduce each category at the start of the post, and explain how it links the programs I included.
This post will focus on the breakthrough performances of 2018-19. In some cases, that means a performance that puts a formerly obscure skater into the spotlight. In other cases, it’s about established athletes raising their game to another level. Breakthroughs don’t usually come out of nowhere. Instead, they’re the moments of When did this team get so good? or Time to start taking her seriously! They’re the skaters and performances that shake up our predictions, mess with the hierarchy, and make it fun to cheer for Team Good Skating.
Ashley Cain & Timothy LeDuc, USA
US National Championships Free Skate
Cain and LeDuc were well into a successful season when they came to Nationals – two Challenger Series wins and a surprise Grand Prix medal – but they were also recovering from a scary setback. A few weeks earlier, Cain had fallen on her head during the dismount from a lift. Cain and LeDuc silenced all health concerns with this stunning skate, which earned them their first national title as a team. They also challenged the USA’s standard approach to pairs training and development, which has suffered from diminishing returns over the past couple of decades – they’re one of the few American pairs who train outside of established centers in Colorado and Florida. This performance also showed how Cain and LeDuc have progressed in making their unusual physicality work for them. A rare tall team in a discipline that generally favors a large height gap, they may never match other teams’ flight or explosiveness on their throws, but they compensate with high-difficulty jumps and long, graceful body lines. Throughout the season, and especially at Nationals, Cain and LeDuc showed that these unconventional ingredients combine into a world-class team.
Junhwan Cha, Republic of Korea
Four Continents Championships Short Program
Cha’s short program begins at 2:35:00 in the NBC Sports Gold event replay.
Cha has been a rising star for a couple of years, and is without a doubt the most talented and accomplished men’s skater to emerge in South Korea’s growing figure skating program. He earned a trio of Grand Prix bronze medals – at Skate Canada, Grand Prix of Helsinki, and the Grand Prix Final – but couldn’t shake a gangly boyishness that diminished his lovely fundamental skills and big jumps. But he turned a corner at Four Continents, finding a mature presence to go along with his effortless quad salchow. Cha has a developing sense of his own personality on the ice, one that will help him grow out of the meme-worthy silly moments in his choreography (JUNLIEEEEET!) and into a skater with a memorable signature style.
Alisa Efimova & Alexander Korovin, Russia
Golden Spin of Zagreb Free Skate
It’s hard to say which of Efimova and Korovin’s performances was their breakthrough moment, since their whole season has been a For Your Consideration campaign. They took advantage of a reduced Skate America field to earn their first Grand Prix medal, a silver, and won the Winter Universiade. But at Golden Spin, they found their feet on their side-by-side jumps, and showed they’re more than a team with a knack for skating in the right place at the right time for a medal. Efimova keyed into the quirky charm of their La Strada music and choreography, making her and Korovin’s endearing scrappiness look like an artistic choice. They saved their gracefulness for the most important moments: a high and perfectly timed triple twist, a fast but controlled death spiral. They’ve disappeared into the middle ranks of Russian pairs for a while, but this season should change that trajectory – they’ve consistently shown that they have both the grit and the skill to win.
Laurence Fournier Beaudry & Nikolaj Sorensen
Canadian National Championships Free Dance
At first, representing Denmark must have looked like the best possible choice for Fournier Beaudry and Sorensen. It’s not like Denmark is overflowing with top-tier ice dancers. But the Danish government has strict citizenship policies, and they made it clear that Fournier Beaudry, who is Canadian, would never be naturalized in time to compete at the Olympics. So the team did the only thing they could do: they switched affiliations to compete for Canada and hoped they could keep up with the deep field there. It paid off, not only in a national bronze medal that took them to Four Continents and Worlds, but in a challenge to the team’s technical limits that saw them perform higher-difficulty elements with more power and finesse than they ever had when competing for Denmark. This is the same free dance that Fournier Beaudry and Sorensen competed last year, but it looked like a wholly new creation: bolder, sharper, and fierier.
Charlene Guignard & Marco Fabbri, Italy
European Championships Rhythm Dance
Guignard and Fabbri have been competing together for almost a decade, rising through the ranks at a pace so slow that it seemed like they’d retire before they ever reached the podium at an ISU championship. But this season, with a fun free dance and one of the few rhythm dances to consistently capture the feel of the tango, Guignard and Fabbri enjoyed an overdue breakthrough year. They’re not the most explosive or innovative team in ice dance, but their cool-headed consistency brought them high-profile bronze medals twice this season: first in an upset at the Grand Prix Final, and then at a less surprising but more career-defining Euros. If the goal of ice dance is to make the intricate look effortless, then Guignard and Fabbri quietly destroyed everyone in their path this year.
Anastasiia Guliakova, Russia
Warsaw Cup Short Program
The Russian ladies’ field is so packed with talent that many athletes are washed up before they even begin. Guliakova battled the threat of obscurity in the best way possible: by winning her senior debut. And she did it with style, infusing a playful and feisty energy into her “Malagueña.” Guliakova is a fine jumper and a surprisingly musical performer, but her spins are in a class by themselves. She holds each position like she’d be comfortable staying there for another minute or two, then flows to the next as if it’s a natural progression from what came before, all while gaining speed and holding a perfect center. They’re dizzying and thrilling, among the best in the sport right now, and deserve a bigger stage.
Tomoki Hiwatashi, USA
World Junior Championships Free Skate
Tomoki Hiwatashi was born at the wrong time – within a year of Nathan Chen, Vincent Zhou, Camden Pulkinen, and Alexei Krasnozhon. All of the above seem to get more international recognition and a brighter national spotlight than Hiwatashi, despite Hiwatashi’s amazing resume: he’s won national titles at every level except senior and is a two-time World Junior medalist. He also has the most natural and versatile artistry of the bunch. Up until now, the focus among American men’s skaters of his generation has been jumps, not style. Hiwatashi’s 2019 postseason might turn that around, as he brought stellar performances to Nationals, Four Continents, and Junior Worlds, showing at all three that he has a legitimate quad toe loop, a rare post-puberty Biellmann spin, and the kind of charisma that ignites a sleepy arena. And he has his head in the game like no one else.
Vanessa James & Morgan Cipres, France
European Championships Free Skate
Longtime competitors James and Cipres had settled into the role of lovable underdogs for several seasons. Their dramatic, edgy programs and athletic risk-taking brought them considerable love from fans and the occasional odds-defying bronze medal, but also a reputation for inconsistency. Until this season, James and Cipres had never won a Grand Prix event or an ISU championship. In 2018-19, they went undefeated all the way through Euros, where their gold medal put them in an unfamiliar position: one of the most formidable pairs teams in the world. Their free skate has all the hallmarks of their signature style – atmospheric pop cover, slinky catsuit – and is a choreographic triumph, especially in the final seconds. It helps that at Euros, they could scarcely have performed their final three elements better: a feather-light landing on their throw triple salchow, an impeccably timed difficult entrance into their death spiral, and a soaring Axel lasso lift that raised the audience to its collective feet. If anyone had previously doubted that James and Cipres had grown into champions, that sequence provided definitive proof.
Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha, Canada
World Junior Championships Free Dance
Lajoie and Lagha’s free dance begins at the 36:00 mark of the Ice Dance- Free Dance 4/4 video in the 2019 Junior Worlds video stream archive.
Lajoie and Lagha came to Junior Worlds as this season’s pre-anointed heroes of North American ice dance, and with the pressure of revitalizing Canada’s aging ice dance program. They weren’t guaranteed to even reach the podium, though – a few months earlier, they’d been shut out at the Grand Prix final in a Russian sweep. They came back blazing at Junior Worlds, with one of this year’s finest ice dance performances at any level. It was technically flawless, save for a few dropped levels on step sequences, but the individual elements weren’t the point. What launched Lajoie and Lagha ahead of their Russian rivals was an artistic sophistication that carved an emotional narrative out of a relatively abstract piece of music. Beauty matters in ice dance, even in juniors. With this performance, Lajoie and Lagha poised themselves to shake up the top ranks of Canadian ice dance, with an expressive style that already defies comparison with any other top team.
Yi Christy Leung, Hong Kong
Junior Grand Prix Bratislava Free Skate
Leung wasn’t expected to get anywhere near the Junior Grand Prix podium. With a little more name recognition, she might have snuck in for a medal. Her technical content, including a giant opening triple lutz-triple toe loop and a bonus-earning double Axel-half loop-triple salchow, contended with that of the rising stars from Russia, South Korea, and Japan. But it was Leung’s feisty, witchy performance of her Florence and the Machine free skate that made her the sentimental winner of this event, although only 4th in the official rankings. Usually, when skating fans throw around phrases like “age appropriate,” it’s with derision, but Leung turned that around. This program distills the emotional essence of a fifteen-year-old, wallowing in her own uniqueness, into four minutes of black eyeliner and heavy feelings. Leung’s jumps were less secure in her later outings, but she nonetheless rode her wave of teen angst to gold at Chinese Nationals and a strong 14th-place finish at the World Championships.
Alexia Paganini, Switzerland
Rostelecom Cup Short Program
Paganini’s short program begins at the 0:29:00 mark of the NBC Sports Gold full event replay.
When Paganini – born in the United States to Swiss and Dutch parents – switched affiliations to skate for Switzerland shortly before the Olympics, she was derided for cynical carpetbagging. But Paganini’s move didn’t just transplant her from an overcrowded national field to one that guarantees her a spot at Euros every year until she retires. An athlete who has fought to get noticed for most of her career, she’s now fighting to be seen as one of the top ladies in Europe – and the approach is paying off. Paganini shook things up at her Grand Prix debut with a third-place short program, pulling in big Grade of Execution bonuses for her high and powerful jumps. Her triple loop hangs in the air for a split second after she completes her rotation, while she laughs at gravity.
Camden Pulkinen, USA
Junior Grand Prix Final Short Program
We are not here to discuss Pulkinen’s free skates. If he could have just gone home after the short program, he would have been swimming in gold this season, especially at the junior level. Without the burden of a quad or the need to pace himself, Pulkinen could throw all his power into three easy jumping passes, then fill the rest with perfectly placed edges and sensitive musicality. It’s rare to see a junior program with so little choreographic breathing room; Pulkinen had few opportunities to gain speed or correct his course. Pulkinen’s unruffled grace hid the difficulty lurking in this intricate program, but the judges weren’t fooled. He consistently earned huge, well-deserved scores for making this look effortless.
Matteo Rizzo, Italy
Winter Universiade Free Skate
May the skating gods have mercy on any athlete who gains a reputation for consistency. A skater who doesn’t live up to the reputation is a disappointment, but worse, a skater who does live up to it risks becoming boring. Don’t let Rizzo’s steadiness fool you – he’s pacing himself for a massive finish. Watching Rizzo’s perfectly trained and timed jumps, all of which land exactly where he expected them to, might not be high drama. But when he launches into the joyful “Don’t Stop Me Now” step sequence that closes this program, you believe he could keep going for another few minutes, and still get every element right. Rizzo’s triumphs this season – bronze at the NHK Trophy and European Championships and a strong 7th at Worlds, in addition to his win at the Universiade – might look like a pattern, but don’t call him consistent. Unstoppable is the word we’re looking for.
Shiyue Wang & Xinyu Liu, China
World Championships Rhythm Dance
Wang and Liu’s rhythm dance begins at 2:22:00 in the NBC Sports Gold full event replay.
When did Wang and Liu get so good? The answer, of course, is that they’ve been progressing steadily through the sport for years, improving their precision and timing, adding difficulty to their twizzles and lifts. Liu’s height, which used to lend him an endearing gangliness, has become an asset: their body lines seem to go on forever. Meanwhile, Wang has emerged as one of ice dance’s more versatile actresses, sending tango vibes and pirate vibes at the same time. That pirate theme made Wang and Liu’s program a respite from the sameyness of the season’s rhythm dances. But a clever theme will only get a team so far, and what brought this team into the spotlight was a combination of sharp execution and committed, dramatic performance quality.
Next on The Finer Sports: more of my favorites from 2018-19!
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