Worlds!

Last week I had the chance to indulge in one of my favourite activities: watching live figure skating. I have to confess, one of the deciding factors in my decision to come to Japan was the fact that Tokyo was hosting the 2007 World Figure Skating Championships. Not only did I luck out in being assigned to Tokyo, the arena where the event was being held is literally a five minute walk from Greg’s house. Unfortunately, as I discovered in January, tickets were both prohibitively expensive and difficult to get, owing to Japan’s recent emergence as a singles skating powerhouse. Fortunately, Japan still sucks at pairs and ice dance, my two favourite disciplines, so I was able to procure tickets to the first day’s events, the compulsory dance and the pairs short program, with little effort or money.

I’ll spare you the details of the actual competition (if you cared, you were probably watching on TV). I spent the first half of the day sitting alongside the fiancé of Mexican ice dancer Laura Munana. He, like the entire Mexican skating team, is actually from California. Having just flown into Tokyo the night before, he was much more interested in asking for sight-seeing recommendations and useful Japanese phrases than watching the actual competition- he’s more of a fan of his fiancé than he is of ice dancing, but has by now been to enough competitions that he’s starting to understand the basics.

During the second half of the day my section of the arena attracted a great deal of attention when Brian Joubert, the French heartthrob and eventual winner of the Men’s competition, sat a few rows away from me. While attempting to cheer on his French teammates he garnered a decent mob of autograph-seeking fans. This being Japan, the mob was actually more of an orderly, polite line than a free-for-all scrum.

Okay, now I am going to talk a bit about the actual skating. This competition was especially exciting for me as it was the first ever world championships of one of my favourite teams, and the last worlds for another. The day was kicked off with the compulsory dance of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, a team of young ice dancers from Ilderton, Ontario. I first noticed them years ago, when they were still pre-novice skaters, because they were so incredibly smaller than their competitors. Three years ago they won the Canadian junior title. Through a crazy coincidence, I wound up meeting their coach in Halifax and getting the chance to watch Tessa and Scott train with her while they were on their way to the Jr. World Championships. More than their incredible skating, I was impressed by how personable and fun these kids were. They’ve been skyrocketing up the ice dance ranks ever since, and finished a shockingly good 6^th in Tokyo.

The day ended with the final short program that Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China will ever skate at a world championship. Over ten years of competition, they had won 5 world medals, including two golds, and two Olympic bronze medals. I fell in love with Shen and Zhao when I went to the 2001 worlds in Vancouver. The competition between Jaimie Sale and David Pelletier and the Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze dominated the news, but it was Shen and Zhao’s quiet grace determination that won me over. They’ve improved so much over the years and become my all-time favourite skaters. Last August, it looked like the skating days might have been over when Hongbo ruptured his Achilles’ tendon. Having been back on the ice training for only a month, they managed to win the bronze medal at the Olympics. They continued skating this year to prove that they could regain their old form after the injury, which they did in Tokyo, setting a new world record in their short program and easily winning their third world title. And to add to the fairy tale ending, Hongbo proposed to Xue at the end of their Long Program.

Now begins the long, 7 month off-season. Hopefully this latest skating fix will hold me through to October!