 Archway Anecdotes #7 - Determined Athletes and Detective DaniilU.S. Figure Skating Correspondent As the week goes by, the side stories turn out to be the most inspirational.
Notes from Thursday, Jan 12 Wednesday
7:30 a.m.
Didn’t get back from the arena and into bed until after 2 a.m. last night, so decided to sleep in. My cell phone rings and I don’t recognize the number—or even the area code—so send it to voicemail and fall back to sleep.
9:30 a.m.
Alarm goes off. Check my messages and my early morning caller didn’t leave a message. I hate that.
9:50 a.m.
Get in the shower and realize my legs are covered in bruises. Oddly enough, they are all at the same level on my thigh. Mention to roommate Daphne. She goes for her shower and has the same bruises. Then we realize the culprit—cupholders in the back of the seats at SavvisCenter.
11:05 a.m.
Head for the bus and pass Emily Hughes talking on her cell phone. It is a quite the skater phone, as it is decorated with Swarovski crystals. Cool.
11:45 a.m.
There is a press conference on the new judging system down in the media center of Savvis. I feel like I have gone to about 20 of them but sit in on this one to hear if anything is different.
1:15 p.m.
The judging system press conference had four speakers-Ted Barton from the ISU; Ron Hershberger, president of U.S. Figure Skating; Charlie Cyr, a U.S. judge and co-author of the system; and Peter Carruthers (pictured). Peter has to leave early, so he makes a speech and then takes questions. They play a video of a performance that I don’t recognize and show how the elements come up on the screen and their base vaule. Then they show another video I don’t recognize and play the audio of the technical controller and specialists actually calling the elements, levels, and reviews. It’s actually really interesting to hear what they say. The callers aren’t allowed to chat. They can only say what is coming up (based on the planned program content the skaters submit) and then what happens. If one of the other two on the tech panel wants to question the call, they say “review” and then at the end of the performance they go to the video to check for cheated landings and things like the number of changes of positions in a spin. I was a little surprised by the number of reviews that were called. I assume that is why there is such a long delay now waiting for the scores.
One of the interesting things of note is whether they call things like flutzes. Charlie Cyr says that right now the way it is done internationally and what the U.S. has adopted is to give the benefit of the doubt to the skater and to judge the planned jump. Therefore if it is “supposed to be” a Lutz, they will call it a Lutz, even if it switches to the inside edge. Next year, however, the U.S. is considering changing that to calling the actual performed jump. Therefore, Charlie said, some ladies might have four flips in a long program and some men might have four Lutzes. Two of the jumps will not receive any value.
3:00 p.m.
I just got finished going to three back-to-back-to-back press conferences by Tim Goebel, Johnny Weir, and Evan Lysacek. Johnny and Evan’s were both very good and provided lots of quotes. Johnny’s was… unique. Just like him. It really was like going to a combination stand up comedy show and coffeehouse dramatic reading. Makes you laugh and makes you think.
 Later
The next few hours are a bit of a blur. I have two articles to write before the pairs competition. I work in the deep freezer—I mean SavvisCenter seats—while keeping half an eye on the junior free dance. Pilar Bosley (pictured) and John Corona get a very loud ovation. Pilar can barely get off the ice. I run down to the media room and ask if I could speak to her in the mixed zone. And then I feel really bad because she is leaning on the railing and trying to be so classy about answering questions when she looks like she’s going to pass out.
Turns out Pilar and her friend Clare Farrell (another junior ice dancer) went to dinner together on Monday. They both ordered hamburgers and fries. Back at the hotel, Pilar started dry heaving and they went to medical services who wasn’t able to diagnose her definitely with food poisoning, especially because Clare didn’t get sick. Back in her room, Pilar started vomiting pretty badly. She hadn’t really eaten in two days but didn’t want to drop out of the competition. She didn’t want to let her partner down, for one, and the two of them had worked so hard all year to make a strong showing at the U.S. Championships.
The lively young lady I covered last year at novice dance was now a shaking junior skater just trying to be a vertical athlete. Pilar said she was surprised what her body could do when she needed it to. She didn’t give up. It may not have been their best performance, but it was very brave and one of those moments when I realize there are many reasons why this is called the U.S. Championships.
7:45 p.m.
It’s senior pairs short program. Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig have just finished their program. Brittany Vise and Nicholas Kole take the ice, only to hear the announcer say that there will be a brief intermission while the ice is resurfaced. Oops! Brittany and Nicholas laugh it off, as they are reintroduced to very loud applause.
9:10 p.m.
I’m doing the wireless thing and my mom is on IM. I chat with her during the Zamboni break. She tells me that three raccoons were on the porch last night. When she turned on the light to see what was making all that noise, one of the raccoons stood up and made boxing punch moves at her. Pretty much freaked her out. She also said the raccoon said very bad words to her, but I think she made that part up.
11:50 p.m.
I try to get into my hotel room to finish my senior pairs article and photos from the press conference. My room key doesn’t work. Ugh. Drag the warped camera bag to the elevator to go down to the front desk to find out why. Ice dancers Sergey Magerovskiy and Daniil Barantsev are going in the same elevator, and Daniil asks what I’m still doing at this hour. I tell him about the key. He asks if I kept it next to my cell phone. I did. Yeah, that’s bad. It demagnetizes it. It happened to him twice this week before he figured it out. Hmm. So I go to the front desk and the woman asks me if I’ve kept the key by my cell phone. Go, Detective Danill!
Thursday morning, 2:21 a.m.
Just finishing up some things, like this blog, so I apologize if it is a little late. I’m doing the best I can to bring you some stories you won’t see on TV. to top |