Mark Hanretty has become a fixture on the commentary scene in international figure skating competitions. He and Ted Barton are halfway through another Junior Grand Prix series.Mark joined Jackie to talk about the new season, the new rules, and how he gets to know everything about every skater and their programs. And there's no interview with Jackie and Mark without a lot of nerding out on figure skating.
It was a light(er) weekend of skating, but there was still plenty of it, including John Nicks Pairs International and Tallinn Open, won by Aleksandra Boikova / Dmitrii Kozlovskii, Mihhail Selevko, and Niina Petrokina.Plus, the third Challenger event happens this weekend with Lombardia Trophy and it is yet another superb women's field. And the fourth Junior Grand Prix takes place in Ankara - Michelle and Jackie preview both of those events.
Olympic Champions Riku Miura / Ryuichi Kihara made history for Japan as the first ever Japanese Olympic pair champions, and they made more history in July with THE DESTINY, an unprecedented show featuring the best pairs and ice dance teams in the world .They are joined by the show's choreographers, Kaitlyn Weaver and Mitch Islam. We talked about Miura/Kihara's Olympic triumph, the behind the scenes with THE DESTINY, and what they are up to now that they aren't competingInterpreting and translation: Momo PodolskyCover photo: Danielle Earl Photography
The second Challenger series event of the season is upon us, and it's a big one. Some of the best from Japan and Russia are in Tokyo for this showdown. Michelle and I preview this event, which will feature the first international appearance of Alexandra Trusova (now Ignatova), Mark Kondratiuk, Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitrii Koslovskii since the 2022 Olympics. Japan sends their strongest, including Mao Shimada, Yuna Aoki, Rio Nakata, and Shun Sato.Plus, I got to sit down for a quick chat with Jacob Sanchez about his new programs, a short program with Misha Ge and a free skate with Adam Blake ("it's good!" he says), as he heads to Tokyo this week.In the meantime, the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation announced today that they wrote a letter to the ISU contesting the application of AIN criteria for eight Russian skaters. We don't know the implications of that officially for Kinoshita Group Cup, but things seem to be quickly moving.
Sofiia Dzepka and Lev Lazarev won their respective events at Junior Grand Prix Xi'an as Russia and Belarus athletes compete again in the international figure skating competitions as Individual Neutral Athletes.Michelle and Jackie recap what happened at the first JGP of the season, preview next week's JGP in Latvia, and talk about US Figure Skating's Summer Sizzler event this coming week