the US has had a slump in women’s figure skating ever since Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen retired in the mid 00s. Before that the US was quite dominant ever since the 90s at least. But following Michelle Kwan/Sasha Cohen’s retirement, there was a long and legendary rivalry between a south korean and a japanese skater (mao asada and yuna kim) for a decade and then came the russian dominance, which recently if you recall has come under question bc one of their stars tested positive for doping at the 2022 olympics. This has seriously called all of the past results of recent russian skaters into question (and honestly it’s very likely that they’ve all been doping). Had it not been for the systemic russian cheating more American skaters probably would’ve been winning medals but probably not sweeping championships, as Japanese women are generally more competitive.

Anyway I digress, but the US has still had very great men’s and dance fields this whole time. Nathan Chen was very very dominant and American ice dance has many very high quality top teams, probably the most out of any country this era

if you look at her jumps, particularly her toe jumps like lutz and flip, you can see she is very hunched over when picking. that indicates an excessive and unsustainable use of her back to generate power into her jumps instead of a more sustainable and healthy balance of using core, leg and upper body muscles. what her technique reminds us of is evgenia medvedeva’s, who was a young star who swept a bunch of awards for a few seasons as a teen but then got a back injury so severe that she now cannot even turn her back anymore. their technique simply cannot be tolerated by a non prepubescent frame and it becomes harder and harder on the back as they get older. ofc Isabeau has many great qualities about her (edges, performance quality, carriage over the ice, etc) but there’s just a lot of worry about her technique. she does seem to be making conscious efforts to improve her technique though (and her speed in and out of jumps)

yea her technique is very dangerous, it relies on her low weight and prepubescent frame to get her up instead of using developed muscles for sustainable jumping. as she grows with this technique she is at serious risk of a back injury

no the US has had national championships for decades now, this is just Levito’s first win

it’s the national championships so it’s her first US nationals win

there hasn’t been a world champion from the US women’s since 2006 but the american alysa liu did win bronze at the 2022 world championships last year

it’s the national championships so it’s her first US nationals win

there hasn’t been a world champion from the US women’s since 2006 but the american alysa liu did win bronze at the 2022 world championships last year

Lol isn’t nj super ugly tho

Lol isn’t nj super ugly tho