Quads, Queen Yuna reigns and more: Six things we learned from figure skating worlds
The anthems have been sung, the medals have been given out, and the 2013 figure skating world championships have come to a close. What did we learn from all that skating?
Yuna Kim is still the queen: The Vancouver Olympic gold medalist took more than two years off the ice, and it didn't matter. "Queen Yuna" is still reigning over the figure skating world. She won the world title with enchanting, yet still technically strong performances. Carolina Kostner took second place, and was more than 20 points behind Kim.
The Davis/White vs. Virtue/Moir rivalry is still going strong: In Vancouver, Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took ice dancing gold by a narrow margin. Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White took the last two world titles. On Saturday, the American pair beat the Canadians by four points, setting up another showdown in Sochi.
American women are on their way up: Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner had one job going into worlds. They needed to finish high enough to qualify the U.S. for three spots in Sochi. With imperfect but solid performances, they did just that. Wagner finished fifth and Gold took sixth, showing that the U.S. isn't an also-ran in women's figure skating.
While the American men are not: With experienced veterans Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir recovering from injury, youngsters Max Aaron and Ross Miner showed how green the American men are. Miner had three major errors on jumps during his free skate. Aaron's skate was mostly clean, but he crashed into the boards like the hockey player he once was. Miner took 14th and Aaron took 7th, qualifying the U.S. for just two spots for Sochi. They have to mature plenty in the next year, or Sochi won't be pretty.
Canada shall not be trifled with
: Canadian skaters made the podium in three out of the four competitions held this weekend. Patrick Chan repeated as the world champ, though some dubious judging did help. Virtue and Moir took second in ice dancing, and Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford took bronze in pairs. If they keep up this pace, get ready to hear "Oh Canada" plenty of times in 2014.
Quads and triple-triples will be a part of your vocabulary for Sochi: Every medal-winning man had at least one quadruple jump. Two of the top three women had triple-triple combos. Skaters looking to compete for a top spot will have to include these elite elements in the Olympics.
