2017 ISU WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim scored more than 200 points and finished in the top 10.
get the job done.” China’s Wenjing Sui and Cong Han,
World silver medalists in 2015–16, reached the top of the podium with a score of 232.06. Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot earned the silver medal with
JACKIE WONG’S
TOP 5 TAKEAWAYS FROM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS What a whirlwind week at the 2017 ISU
World Championships in Helsinki, Finland. Te level of competition less than a year away from the Olympics continues to be incredible and even on the rise, and we witnessed some magnificent skating. Here are my top five takeaways, in no particular order. Yuzuru Hanyu on a mission — It took
a few tries, but Hanyu regained his World title, coming from behind with an absolutely brilliant free skate that showed his dominance when he is flawless. Tis event was not an easy one for him, as he had to win it by making up a huge deficit from the short program. Hanyu’s win sets him up once again as the one to beat heading into the Olympic season. But I’ll also add a note for Javier Fernandez’s incredible winning short program that showed that he’s still very much in the mix. Te incredibly deep level of pairs skating
—We are in an era of unprecedented depth in pairs skating. Te performances that we saw, especially in the short program, were phenom- enal, as one pair after another skated a clean
230.30 points, with Russia’s Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov garnering the bronze with 219.03 points. Two-time defending World champions
Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Cana- da placed seventh.
program. Te cutoff score for the top 16 who advanced from the short to the free went up almost 10 points from last year. And among the top pairs, the rivalry between Wenjing Sui and Cong Han, and Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, will take center stage next season. Stunning debut by Karen Chen —
Tere were question marks around Karen Chen’s consistency coming into Worlds, especially after her rough showing at Four Continents just weeks ago. But she proved her detractors wrong by skating two very strong performances to place fourth in her Worlds debut. Her gorgeous short program was one of the highlights of the entire competition. Osmond and Daleman breakthrough
— For the first time in history, Canada had two women on the podium at a World Championships. Kaetlyn Osmond (silver) and Gabrielle Daleman (bronze) both finally put two clean performances together and took home two of the three medals won by Team Canada. Te last two to skate their free skates, Daleman, and then Osmond, brought the house down with performances of their careers. “O Canada” indeed! Resilience on display — Tere were a number of skaters who came back to competi- tion late this season after major injury or sur-
U.S. pairs champions Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier open with a triple twist.
gery just months ago. Tere were also skaters who took spectacular falls in the competition and had to dust themselves up and roar back with a vengeance. Whether it’s Scimeca Kn- ierim and Knierim coming back from Alexa’s serious illness, or James and Cipres picking themselves up from a freak (and spectacular) fall in the short program to skate the rest clean, the #GetUp motto was surely in full force in Helsinki. Jackie Wong is a figure skating analyst at
Rocker Skating and a frequent guest host of ice- network’s podcast Ice Talk. He has been involved in figure skating for more than 20 years as a skater, coach, choreographer and judge. You can find him at
rockerskating.com, on Twitter and Instagram.
SKATING 25
JOOSEP MARTINSON - ISU/ISU VIA GETTY IMAGES
JOOSEP MARTINSON - ISU/ISU VIA GETTY IMAGES
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