Let's start off with a rarity that So Youn Park fans have been aching to see - a clean So Youn Park free skate! She won the National Winter Games in South Korea with this seven-triple free skate, certainly a good confidence-booster for her heading into Four Continents and Worlds. And with that, here's a round up of the latest and the greatest.
Sarajevo Open
— Jackie Wong (@rockerskating) February 6, 2016
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva SP: 2A, 3T2T, 3Lz(fall)
TES 29.07, PCS 32.60, -1.00, SP 60.67 1st
Kostner back in the fall
When we saw Carolina Kostner at the Medal Winners Open last month, we knew that 1) she wanted to return to competition, and 2) she wasn't nearly competition-ready yet. So it wasn't a surprise when she announced that her return to competition won't be this season (which would have been extremely aggressive), but in the fall next season. Exciting!
Sarajevo Open
— Jackie Wong (@rockerskating) February 6, 2016
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva: 2A, 3Lz2T2Lo, 2F, 2T2T(invalid), 2Lz, 2S1Aseq, 2A
TES 40.34, PCS, 61.06, FS 101.40, TOTAL 162.07 1st
Tuktamysheva still competing, but no Worlds
After Anna Pogorilaya's uneven free skate at Europeans, there was still a glimmer of hope for the likes of Julia Lipnitskaia (7th at Russians), and reigning World champion Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (8th at Russians). And though both of them are slated to be at the Russian domestic event this month that has traditionally been the last data point for Worlds selection, Tuktamysheva's coach, Alexei Mishin, said that she won't be at Worlds.
Nevertheless, she's still competing this season in smaller events, likely as a way to regain her competition confidence. But her performances at the Sarajevo Open this week were not a good step toward that. She won the event but only landed two clean triples in her two programs.
Rippon out of Four Continents
Following training mate Ashley Wagner's announcement that she will be skipping Four Continents to concentrate on Worlds, Adam Rippon will be doing the same. Ross Miner will take his place.
He also noted that he's training the quad sal and quad toe in addition to the quad lutz that we saw this season. Don't be surprised if he ups his difficulty in Boston in front of the home crowd.
Aliev, Turskaya win Russian Juniors
And finally, while some skating fans were focused on US Nationals, Canadian Nationals, and Europeans, the Chinese Winter Games took place, with Boyang Jin becoming the first person to cleanly land three different quads in a program. The Russian Junior Figure Skating Championships also took place. Dmitri Aliev, Polina Tsurskaya, Anastasia Mishina/Vladislav Mirzoev, and Alla Loboda/Pavel Drozd won their respective disciplines.