Last Thursday,
American skater and LA resident Evan Lysacek won gold at the World Figure Skating Championships in front of an ecstatic hometown crowd. He's the first American man to win the competition since Todd Eldredge in 1996. Evan, who was in second place going after the short program, skated a flawless program to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. He was thrilled, esp. since he loves attending games at the Staples Center. He has lived in LA for the last six years and is coached by the legendary Frank Carroll who also guided Michelle Kwan and Linda Frattiane to world titles. (I know Los Angeles doesn't seem like the kind of place that would be a mecca for skating, given the warm, sunny weather, but competitive skating went indoors a long time ago, and quite a few well-known skaters have called Southern California home, including Peggy Fleming and Sascha Cohen.)
Evan Lysacek has been on the scene for a while now (he's 23, practically an old man by skating standards) and I've witnessed his ups and downs, so I was really hoping he'd win. I had to work on Thursday night, so I set the DVR. My DH knew Evan had won before I could watch, but he thoughtfully refrained from telling me. Seeing him win brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. It was well-deserved and a long time coming. What made it more remarkable is that he skated that well with a stress fracture in his left foot. He didn't say anything about that until after he'd skated because he didn't want it all to be about the foot. What a Mensch!
Here's video from YouTube of Evan's short program at at the recent Four Continents Championship where he came in second to Canada's Patrick Chan who earned silver at the Worlds.
Linda
My Town Monday is the brilliant brain child of writer/blogger Travis Erwin. Thanks, Travis! Go to his blog to read his latest post and find links to the other participants.
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10 comments:
What a great idea for a MTM post, Linda!
Congrats to Evan. I'm always glad to see the US take the gold.
Great going, Evan. It has been a long time.
Great post, Linda! Glad your favorite won. Did you have money riding on him? I guess there aren't really any fantasy figure skating pools are there?
Congrats to Evan! Even if it's a sport I don't follow closely, hearing about exciting victories from someone who's so obviously passionate about it is vicariously cool!
Barrie, Travis, Patti and Clare, yes, it's great to see the US take the gold, esp. after such a long dry spell.
Teresa, I don't know if there is any betting on skating or not, but I don't recommend it, esp. with the new scoring system. Maybe in Ice Dancing. It's harder to shake things up there, and they don't tend to fall as much. One fall can lose a championship. I'm not a gambler anyway. Patrick Chan was favored to win, so someone would have lost money on that bet.
Between the music and the quality of the skating, the video gave me chills. Kudos to Even!
I hear you, Debra. Evan's skating is intense and powerful.
Evan's done very well in perfecting his axles. This was a great idea, Linda. I love figure skating but don't watch much since I don't have cable. Figure skating is alot like equestrian dressage where the competitors have to pay their dues in competing before they get their marks and medals.
I know what you mean, Barbara, and with the new scoring system, it's even more true that competitors have to pay their dues and hone their skills. The little jumping beans can't shoot right to the top any more unless they can also spin and do the footwork, too. I imagine CBC will have lots of coverage of next year's Olympics. There wasn't much coverage here this season, even on cable. Wish I had a better internet connection so I could watch IceNetwork.com. Oh, well.
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