Rika Kihira jumped into the record books in a big way at the Junior Grand Prix in Slovenia on Saturday night. The 14-year-old from Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, opened her free skate to “Rhapsody in Blue” in Ljubljana with a triple axel and went on ...
ISU announcer Ted Barton has seen it all during his long career in the sport. From his days as the Canadian junior champion, to skating against legends like John Curry and Robin Cousins in the 1976 world championships, to helping craft a new judging ...
This past weekend’s sweep of the women’s singles at the Yokohama Junior Grand Prix illustrated just how deep Japan’s talent pool is now. World junior champion Marin Honda, who came into the event as the favorite, had to settle for second place behind Kaori ...
Rika Kihira continued Japan’s fine start to the Junior Grand Prix season on Saturday when she finished a close second at the event in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Close second is almost too ambiguous to describe how narrowly she missed topping the platform in her ...
Japanese skaters began the Junior Grand Prix season with encouraging results at the opening event last weekend in St. Gervais, France. Japan took home half of the six singles medals on offer, with Russia claiming the other three. Kaori Sakamoto, who has really blossomed ...
Could Yuna Kim be awarded the Olympic gold medal from the Sochi Games after all? Given the shocking evidence produced this week in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s McLaren Report, it is a fair question. Just to review, Russia’s Adelina Sotnikova was awarded the gold ...
The 2016-17 skating season officially began with the recent release of the Grand Prix assignments for the new campaign. It didn’t take long to find a big surprise in the listings. Three-time world champion Mao Asada will not skate in the NHK Trophy (Nov. ...
In January 2008 Mao Asada suddenly split from coach Rafael Arutunian after 16 months of working together. It was a move made without warning or explanation, and left a great many in the skating community scratching their heads over the reason behind the decision. ...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. That was the feeling Ice Time had after watching the world championships in Boston unfold last week. Every time figure skating tries to take a step forward, it inevitably moves backward. Just over two ...
Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu will be looking to regain his title at the world championships this week in Boston after narrowly losing it last year to Spain’s Javier Fernandez following a physically calamitous campaign. Hanyu has been in great form this season, setting six ...
The depth of Japan’s skating prowess was on full display at the world junior championships in Debrecen, Hungary, over the weekend, where Marin Honda, Wakaba Higuchi and Yuna Shiraiwa took three of top four places in the women’s competition. Honda, a 14-year-old from Kyoto, ...
When Yuna Kim retired after her controversial second-place finish at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, many felt it was too abrupt an end to a brilliant career for the 23-year-old. It turns out fans and the media were not the only ones who felt that ...
