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CHRISTINE BRENNAN
Skating

Figure skating world championships a fresh start for many without Russians | Opinion

The figure skating world championships held immediately after the Olympic Games often are viewed as an afterthought. What’s the point, the thinking goes. The biggest event of the past four years has just been held, so it can be difficult for skaters to rally again, and so quickly, for another major international competition.

The 2022 world championships, starting Wednesday in Montpellier, France, are a bit different. While three of the four Olympic gold medalists are out, which is not unusual for the worlds right after the Winter Games, there is an added aura of freshness to this competition.

That’s because the Russians aren’t coming, not because of their state-sponsored doping, but because they have been banned due to their nation’s invasion of Ukraine. Few will miss them. Their absence means the women’s event will be wide open without the first, second and fourth-place finishers from Beijing, giving at least two women the opportunity to make the podium who did not have that chance last month. It also means the second- and third-place finishers are out in the pairs event, as well as the silver medalists in ice dancing. 

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WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:US team medal no longer a priority as attention turns to Ukrainian ice dancers

In other words, it’s a fresh start. 

The freshest will be in the pairs event, where the top five finishers at the Olympics will be missing in France. China isn’t sending its skaters to worlds, including gold medalists Sui Wenjing and Han Cong. Russians finished second, third and fourth in Beijing, followed by another Chinese pair, so that means the sixth-place finishers at the Olympics will be the favorites at worlds.

And that’s significant because those sixth-place finishers are Americans Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier. If they were to win, they would become the first U.S. pair to capture a world title since Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner in 1979. Any medal would be the first for a U.S. pair at worlds in 20 years. 

Americans Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier have a good chance to medal at the world championships in France.

Another opportunity for an American to win a medal will be in the men’s event, where Vincent Zhou is hoping his luck changes after testing positive for COVID-19 right before the men’s event in Beijing. Zhou, part of the silver-medal-winning U.S. figure skating team that was deprived of a medal ceremony at the Olympics due to the Russian doping scandal, said last week on a call with journalists that he is still working through that devastating disappointment.

“Coming off the Olympics has been a really challenging time for me, I would say one of the most challenging times of my whole life,” he said. “Life really wants to get me down right now but I’m not ready to go down without a fight.”

Zhou, the 2019 world bronze medalist, will be the top American in the men’s field due to the absence of Olympic gold medalist Nathan Chen, who withdrew from the worlds last week due to “a nagging injury.” Zhou, 21, is the only skater to defeat Chen in the four years between the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics, upsetting his countryman at Skate America last October. 

After getting out of quarantine in Beijing, Zhou said he naturally was looking ahead to worlds. “In a way, you could say it might be like my personal Olympics,” he said, cautioning quickly, “Don’t use that quote as a headline. It’s just kind of a you-know-how-it-is type quote.”

The only Beijing gold medalists who will be at worlds are French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron. They are competing on home ice, of course, and are expected to win their fifth world title. Two decorated American ice dance teams are likely to join them on the medal stand: Olympic bronze medalists Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue and Olympic fourth-place finishers Madison Chock and Evan Bates. Both dance teams won silver medals in the team competition. 

If the world ice dancing podium changes the least from Beijing, the women’s likely will change the most other than pairs. Missing will be gold medalist Anna Shcherbakova, silver medalist Alexandra Trusova and fourth-place finisher Kamila Valieva

“It does sort of open up the field just (because) there’s three ladies that won’t be there, and the top ladies,” American Mariah Bell said last week. “So obviously the results will be different, and there are some opportunities to bump up.” 

The most likely American to crack the top three is two-time national champion Alysa Liu, who finished seventh at the Olympics. Bell was 10th and Karen Chen 16th. Their combined finish was the worst for the U.S. in women’s figure skating at the Olympics since 1936.

Whatever happens this week will have to be better than that.

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