Posted in Figure Skating

This past week was the annual Figure Skating Championship. I was able, for the first time in a long while, to actually watch some of the live coverage. I so enjoyed that. However, it was a different experience for me to watch the women's competition and not know a single candidate!  Nearly all the skaters were new to me and it was exciting to see some really good ones (at least IMHO) out there. There are a lot of new names out there to remember and I look forward to seeing them. It was, however, a little strange not to see Michelle Kwan or Sasha Cohen.  I miss watching them compete.

One of the interesting things about this year's women's competition is that of the top four winners only one is old enough to go on to the World Championship. The other three are too young and do not meet the age requirements.

Last night was the men's competition. It was one of the best competitions I've seen! Seems like the past few Nationals for Men have been splat fests or just poor performances. Not this year! The top two contenders, Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir were both really good in both the short and long programs. The bizarre thing about their competition was that after the long program the scores were tied! That is amazing in this day of digital scoring to the hundredths of a point.  At the beginning of the long program (also called the free skate) Evan Lysacek was behind by 1.35 points. After both had skated, Evan won the free skate by 1.35 points making them tied exactly. How weird is that! In the case of a tie, the gold medal (first place) goes to the winner of the free skate. So Evan Lysacek won the gold.  On a personal level I like Evan more than Johnny, but I have to admit that I liked Johnny's two programs better than Evan's. It's too bad that they can't award two gold medals because, to be fair, I think Johnny deserved it as much as Evan.  It will make for an exciting World's competition. I hope they both make the podium.