Kwan hands-down. Perfection. 💜

3T-1/2 Loop - 3Sal

Michelle Kwan was amazing as usual. Irina gave it her best - a bit sloppy but what a fighter. i just realized that Sarah Hughes while good is perhaps one of the luckiest skaters in the world. She is fairly graceful and a decent jumper but nothing special or spectacular and both here and at the olympics some iffy judging gave her the medals. If you were going to give Michelle over Irina I would have put Maria as well and that would have give Butyrskaya the bronze. And now we don' t even know he top skaters names or they only last a season or in the case of kostornaia one missed worlds due to covid and her shelf life appeared to expire.

Ира сильнее,засудили!

Not totally convinced by this standing ovation for Irina. I think the Canadian audience felt obligated to stand for her because she was in the last group, and she did stand on her feet, so they didn’t want to make the girl feel terrible standing at center ice bowing and wondering: “why is nobody standing for me.” So I think it was more of a sympathy standing ovation than anything else, because the Canadians knew they would look like mean people if they stayed in their seats clapping. And Canadians hate for people to think they are mean. Now, the reason I come down so hard on the Russian women is because they always look so freaking sloppy. The very notion of straight legs, good posture and turn out are all foreign to them. I want to know why they let Irina go out there with a spiral looking like that. You literally have 12 year olds who can do better spirals. When the competition is so close, you need to be as finessed as possible. Unfortunately Irina was about as finessed as a truck driver. I really go hard on the Russians because they truly have every resource at their disposal. They have the best choreographers in Russia, and they have access to the Bolshoi ballet and the Kirov if they want. If the coaches wanted to they could have expert choreographers from the ballet companies come in and look at each of their skaters and say: “this is what needs to be corrected,” and they would not have to pay a dime. So there is no reason for Irina to be out here on the world stage looking sloppy as she moves from one end of the rink to the other. I say this because there is something intriguing about Irina’s skating, and I think she could have become a better overall performer had she understood the power of artistry.