blogborygmus

Well, since it comes up so often, I’ll say it again: figure skaters — especially pairs skaters — are the greatest athletes in the world. By the way, they routinely go out and compete with injuries that bench hockey players.

This was our third world championships (after Oakland ‘92 & Vancouver ‘01) and tenth or so major competition. Despite the huge ratings (typically double an NFL game, and that’s way down from the post-kneecapping peak) it’s still a small enough sport that you’ll bump into world champions just walking around the arena or sitting in the hotel bar. (And I do mean literally bump into — I’ve personally said “excuse me” to Michelle Kwan herself.) We’re anything but pushy scrawl-hound types, yet have had conversations that went beyond “congrats you’re great” with Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas, Denis Petrov, Vadim Naumov, Sarah Hughes and Robin Wagner, Tai Babilonia & Randy Gardner, Gwendal Peizerat, Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, Justin Dillon, Dorota Zagorska & Mariusz Siudek, Laetitia Hubert, Yulia Soldatova, Elena Sokolova, Alisa Drei, Angela Nikodinov, and that’s just off the top of my head. Very generous young men and women, working in the most artistic of sports and the most athletic of art forms, and all at the mercy of an establishment so essentially irreformable that it would give pro boxing a run for its money in the cheerful corruption department.