Between Russian skaters who are banished from international competition due to the invasion of Ukraine, China who do not enter skateboarders and a whole host of other retreats, the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships will be like no other we have ever seen.
“At every World Cup after an Olympics, top skaters are missing,” said Dylan Moscovitch, the retired Olympic pair skater and co-host of CBC Sports’ That Figure Skating Show. “But the fact that the Russian team will not be there will be something to remember. It is certainly a unique time in figure skating.
“This is the best World Cup I can remember.”
The championship is on the 21st-27th. March in Montpellier, France. Three of the four Olympic champions from last month’s Beijing Games are not participating, and none of the reigning world champions will take the ice either.
Kuck | Vanessa James, Eric Radford on the shortcomings of Russian, Chinese skaters:
Vanessa James and Eric Radford talk about the flaws of Russian, Chinese skaters on worlds
With many top athletes missing by the 2022 World Cup, the Canadian pair team talks to Dylan Moscovitch and Asher Hill about how that will affect the tone of the event. 5:23
Women and couples most affected
The women and couples events will be most affected by the lack of Russian and Chinese skaters.
In pairs, Russia and China are simply the top teams in the world. Olympic silver medals Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, plus bronze medals Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov will not be allowed to participate. There will also be no Chinese skaters, especially Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong.
That means the pairing event will be without the top five Olympic teams, a chance for American teams like Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier as well as Japanese pair Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara to open.
In the ice dance, the failures of reigning world champions Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katasalapov, and their teammates Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin will leave a big dent in the top five, giving the top American teams plus Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier an even better chance. . on the Podium they come.
The men’s event was also hit with absences, but more so with significant withdrawals from other skaters such as competitors from Russia and China. Both reigning world and Olympic champion Nathan Chen, and two-time Olympic and world champion Yuzuru Hanyu did not compete due to injury.
Kuck | Chen wins crowded Olympic gold:
Despite pressure, Nathan Chen skates Olympic gold
The 22-year-old Nathan Chen was expected to become Olympic champion, but he was not caught by the pressure. The American won with great leeway, even with an incredible show by the Japanese men. 15:16
How do absences change worlds?
“The fact that Russian athletes are not there is unfortunate,” Canadian skate skater Eric Radford, 37, told CBC Sports. He and his partner Vanessa James live and train in Montreal and are in Montpellier to compete together in their first World Cup. “I’m sorry for them.
“I know they have worked very hard this season to make great performances.”
James, 34, shares Radford’s feelings while supporting the ban on both Russian and Belarusian athletes. Both claim, no matter who is competing in France, that they are concentrating on themselves with the goal of running two, clean programs. And with the top pairing teams out there, the chances of them getting on the podium have grown exponentially.
“It’s kind of funny, because when you go to the Worlds or the Olympics, it’s like a wild card and now there are three or four,” James said. “So it’s everyone’s game.”
Kuck | James, Radford compete in Beijing:
‘Everything is possible’: Vanessa James and Eric Radford compete in Beijing after retiring
While not riding to a podium place, reaching for an Olympic-level program in less than a year is putting together its own reward for pair skaters Vanessa James and Eric Radford. 1:29
And that, in Radford’s view, is the reverse of this situation and makes this an exciting opportunity.
“It turns it into a whole new competition,” he said. “Pretty much everyone who gets on the podium would be completely new world medals.”
The same feeling suggests that those who are not the strongest in the field may end up as world medals. But James and Radford feel that a medal in France has left the same value despite the gap between Russia and China.
“There will be people who say ‘Oh, whoever wins worlds is not a true world champion because the best skaters are not there,'” Radford said. “But I also think that every competition is its own entity, despite some reasons other athletes are not there.
“Nothing can be taken away from whoever is at the top of the podium. In my eyes, and I hope in many other people, they are world champions.”
Silver lines
Even if the best in the world will not be at these World Cups, their contempt leaves room for other developments.
Even without the Russians, the ladies event will not simply be about landing a triple axle or a quad to collect as many technical points as possible to bring the event back to basics. This will allow athletes like 18-year-old Madeline Schizas from Canada to shine brighter and set the tone of their new Olympic quadrennial.
“This is a huge opportunity for new skaters to show solidarity in a new echelon in the event ahead,” Moscovitch said. “It will be interesting to see what these skaters get up to [the opportunity]but there is no denying that it is more in place. “
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