Sombreuil

The possibility of the judges deciding to ‘notice’ the flaws in his skating was always there, exactly like Satoko, and once American contenders popped up lo and behold the scales fell from their eyes. If they’d picked on it when he was 15/16 (sounding like an old record here I know) he would perhaps have had the impetus to up sticks and find a new coach earlier. Very few 16 year olds have the self awareness to see their own flaws and resolve to sort them out which is why the lax state of judging is so harmful. On the other hand he seems like a bit of a home person to me, a very familiar thing as there are several in my peer group. People like that tend to make the big moves in their late 20s if at all and quite a few stick to their own familiar patch, their comfortable old friends, family, haunts. Which is all fine if you’re not an elite athlete - the heptathlete Katerina Johnson - Thompson stayed a bit too long with her long time coach and suffered for it.

I don’t see him with Arutunian- don’t think JSF or US fed would like it and he has that lovely new set up, multiple rinks etc in the US - don’t think he’d risk upsetting his backers. Having read @LadyLous post aspects of the Eteri set up are tailor made for him....

I don’t think it makes any difference- if he leaves Japan he’ll need interpreters so it doesn’t matter if they’re Russian, English , French, whatever. Shoma has always seemed to wander round in a bubble of his own from his own comments and those of people around him - not sure he would notice whether street signs were in western alphabet, Cyrillic, Norse runes...... Yuzuru did a short spell in Russia polishing the choreo for R&J 2, might have gone to Russia instead of Canada and I think there’s a lot of admiration in Japanese skating circles for the Russian style of skating. Here’s a thought out of me musing on 4Lz - Mikhail Kolyadas is a thing of beauty when he lands it - and he and Shoma have appeared friendly at ice shows etc. Why not his coach?

I see Vanessa as a flashy modern Odile - sensuous but edgy and totally heartless. And powerful - I went to the Matthew Bourne Swan lake earlier in the year and also to the Abbotsbury Swannery just before hatching time. I’d forgotten how large and aggressive mute swans are and Bourne really puts that across in his work. It really pointed up how colourless all the Olympic ladies versions were.

It will be a tough season for him wherever he goes, if part of the thinking is to fix his jumps. Maybe he’s been doing a Jason Brown style look around on the quiet - it’s going to be interesting to see which choreographers he ends up working with and what someone new can do for him.

@Muralla17 this is copied from another thread from @sallycinnamon and gives you the dates of the Challenger competitions. Posted May 13 ISU has published the official calendar for the next season: https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/isu-communications/communications/21148-isu-communication-2250/file There'll be 10 Challenger competitions (ACI, Lombardia Trophy, US Classic, Nepela Trophy, Nebelhorn Trophy, Finlandia Trophy, Ice Star, Asian Trophy, Warsaw Cup and Golden Spin is the last one). GP series as we know (SA, SC, IdF, CoC, CoR, NHK Trophy in this order & GPF in Torino). Junior GP Series (Courchevel/FRA, Lake Placid/USA, Riga/LAT, Chelyabinsk/RUS, Gdansk/POL, Zagreb/CRO, Egna/ITA & JGPF in Torino). Europeans will be in Graz/AUT between 20-26 January, 4CC will be in Seoul between 3-9 February, Junior Worlds in Tallinn/EST between 2-8 March and then Worlds as we know in Montreal (16-22 March). Some new or relatively new small competitions are in the calendar, like Tayside Trophy in GBR in August, Mexican Open in September, Denis Ten Memorial Challenge in Almaty in October, Budapest Trophy in October etc...

Black swan - she’s a bit young to tackle that. Can’t actually think of a ladies singles skater who has the maturity and attack to do it justice. I think Vanessa could slay it in pairs and Gabby in ice dance. I was underwhelmed by the Olympic year ladies swans.

H&L was a double whammy - Japanese composer and quiet thoughtful music. He still killed it even underscored. Japanese composer and in your face rock/dramatic music? Who knows? Yuzuru is perhaps the only person in a position to find out. Judges may still prefer US college kid rock - but for how long?

As I said idk how popular he is in Canada. Nor it seems do you. Does ISU know? Or will they spray their top rated skaters across the board and hope for a bumper income - because that’s what it’s about.

I don’t know - is Nathan popular in Canada? I’ve no idea. I do have an idea that ISU looks at the bottom line, which if they consider the WC a draw won’t want to confine that pulling power to NA - they might want to deploy him to Europe or Asia after America. Athletes pick even for WC is probably limited.

Yes judges are biased . But we have German and Italian opera, French chansons of various eras, American/Uk rock, folk music from lots of euro countries with the odd Israeli addition - why not Japanese or Korean or Chinese music? Where is the audience for this sport? Does the ISU really intend to impale itself on the non existent sword of US ‘popularity’?

I went for SC and Rostelecom - wishing it into being because we get good practice coverage from those events.

I may have made my first convert. Took my Japanese piano book to my lesson today. I led off with a clip of Olympic Fred on my phone and my teacher was captivated - asked me for a link. So I’ve sent her Olympic Fred, GPF 2015 Seimei, 2012WC R&J and a fanvid of practice in under armour. Awaiting a reaction!

As far as I understand it the difficulty lies in the way SafeSport was set up - it’s there to investigate individuals and once the person is dead they have no power to carry on ( this is from bits on the internet by US nationals who understand American legal entities a lot better than I do). It’s comparable to the uk situation with deceased individuals accused of abuse - can’t try them if they’re dead but there is provision for a legal review of the case, which seems to be absent from SafeSports remit.

Let’s hope engagement has the same stabilising effect on his skating that marriage did with Brezina.

Elvis . Now Chaplin.

I suppose she’s aiming for ‘edgy’ - I hope it doesn’t tip over into ‘tacky’ which it could so easily do.

I shall look forward to that - I love elegant Astaire style ice dance, and they can please themselves now.

2014 with the live music and the black t shirt with chrysanthemums- I loved that T-shirt and the shamisen intro.

I loved ‘Change’ too.

France and Italy are going to be interesting to watch for the European fans - Adam and Kevin will hopefully give Matteo and Daniel something to think about and Euros won’t be a one horse race any more.

What price US claims to ‘balletic’ movement if a real ballet choreographer comes into the mix

McGregor is enthusiastic about Kazuki’s choice. https://twitter.com/WayneMcGregor/status/1128988938125881345

I just hope he avoids Roxanne - don’t think I can bear another one. The Chroma choice will be interesting- read elsewhere he’s using Philip Mills for the choreo - taking a leaf out of Machida's book?

Button is still well known because he had a high profile career on American TV for many years during the time when skating was popular in the US. I’ve made the point before, but will make it again - post war if the Olympic champion hadn’t been a young man from North America it would have been miraculous given the loss of life in the male population and the loss of infrastructure in Europe. Only an American or a Canadian under enlistment age could have had the time and the facilities to do it. If he’d then gone on to be a lawyer or a dustman he might have been consigned to the history books like Grafström and Schäfer, but he was a loud and opinionated commentator who cemented his place in American minds.