Blades of Glory
Patrick Chan won't be coming, even Kim Yuna. Don't expect to see Maxim Trankov and Tatiana Volosozhar. Charlie White and Meryl Davis opt to rest. They're the defending champions, on the men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing respectively, in the World Figure Skating Championships. They won't be defending their titles in Saitama, Japan, site of this year's event, on March 24-30.
This is an expected during the Olympic year, where most gold medalists want a break or take advantage of their post-Olympics fame by turning professional or accepting lucrative offers from TV producers. It's understandable on the part of the figure skaters, but the International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body for competitive ice skating disciplines, plan to lengthen the time between the Olympic Games and the World Championships. After all, it's the highest competitive achievement in figure skating. Apart from having an Olympic medal.
The first championship was held in Saint Petersburg in 1896, where four competitors participated. Known back then as the Championship of the Internationale Eislauf-Vereingung, it was won by Germany's Gilbert Fuchs. Figure skating was considered a male sports during that time, until Great Britain's Madge Syers joined the 1902 event and won the silver medal. It took four years for the ISU to hold a ladies competition, won by Syers no less. The first pairs competition was held two years later. Ice dancing, a discipline that draws from ballroom dancing, made its debut in 1952.
Sweden's Ulrich Salchow, Norway's Sonja Henie, and Russia's Irina Rodnina have the most world titles at ten. Henie have the most consecutive titles too, winning from 1927-1936. She could have won more, but after her tenth title, she pursued an acting career in Hollywood.
The World Championship don't have the drama that put the Olympics on the news headlines, but controversy didn't leave its side due to the scoring system. (Whether the judges were being objective would be another topic.) Nonetheless, this didn't diminish the prestige of this tournament, attracting the best skaters from around the world. This year won't be less interesting, despite the absence of three-time winner Chan. Yuzuru Hanyu, the men's singles winner at Sochi, will surely delight his hometown fans when he competes in Saitama, aiming for his first world title. His strongest competition will come from Javier Fernández, the bronze medal winner in last year's worlds. A two-time European champion, the Spaniard missed third place by a few points at the Olympics.
South Korea's Yun Na announced her retirement from amateur competition after finishing second at the Sochi Games. Adelina Sotnikova, the winner in the ladies' singles, would skip the event. These make Carolina Kostner, third place finisher and 2012 world champion, a slight favorite over a field that includes Mao Asada, silver medalist at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Trankov and Volosozhar won't defend their title in the pairs event, making Fedor Klimov and Ksenia Stolbova, runner-up behind their fellow Russians at Sochi, the strong contender for the gold. Another Russian pair, Nikita Katsalapov and Elena Ilinykh, will be favored to win the ice dancing title, as White and Davis and Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue, one-two at the Olympics, chose not to compete.
This year's World Championship will be interesting for many reasons, as fans of the sports will see which skaters will shine in 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
