Skate America stars landing in Everett
Evan Lysacek said it in Spokane two years ago. Kimmie Meissner echoes the sentiment.
More so than anywhere else in the country, figure skaters hitting the ice on arenas in the Northwest feel like “rock stars.”
“I feel great about going back (to the Northwest),” 2006 world champion Meissner says of competing at the 2008 Skate America competition, which runs today through Sunday at the Everett Events Center.
Northwest fans, she says, “definitely made us feel like rock stars. We were so excited to perform for them because they were so excited to watch us. It works both ways.”
She referred to the 2007 National Championships, a universally acclaimed success in Spokane, which sold out Spokane Arena for a week and welcomed the skating world with arms more open than it had felt in decades, if not ever. That success paid huge dividends for the region.
The overwhelming fan support in Spokane clearly helped a city such as Everett, with a new arena and broad ambitions but no figure-skating history, to land Skate America. The top-tier event draws much of the best skating talent not only from the United States, but around the globe.
And it absolutely helped Spokane claim the greatest prize as these things go: next year’s national championships, which will double as Olympic trials for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, B.C.
Put the three competitions together, and it makes the Northwest – suddenly, and perhaps improbably – at the center of the competitive figure-skating universe from now through February 2010.
The skating match is not exactly one anyone would have predicted. But it’s still bliss for Northwest skating fans who will be treated this weekend to skating star power the likes of which this region never has seen.
The women’s field is one of the strongest the world will see this year, outside the world championships. U.S. contenders include Meissner, last year’s Skate America winner, who is seeking to regain her old form with new coach Richard Callaghan; reigning world junior champion Rachel Flatt, last year’s U.S. championship runner-up; and Mirai Nagasu, the reigning national champion and a world junior bronze medalist.
International competitors are even stronger: The field is led by Kim Yu-na, of South Korea, a two-time world bronze medalist and winner of the ISU Grand Prix final for the past two years. Also competing is Miki Ando, of Japan, the 2007 world champion who slipped badly last season.
The men’s field is led by the dynamic American duo of Lysacek, the two-time reigning U.S. champion, and former national champ Johnny Weir, one of the most artistic men’s skaters in the world. They’ll be challenged by hard-charging youngster Adam Rippon, the 2008 world junior champion, as well as skaters from Canada, Belgium, Japan, Russia, Sweden and Slovakia.
The pairs competition features the reigning world and European champions, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, of Germany. Nipping at their heels will be two-time U.S. champions Rena Inoue and John Baldwin, who will be challenged by a team that likely now qualifies as America’s best: Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker, the reigning national champs.
The ice dance competition has its own star power: Olympic silver medalists and reigning U.S. champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, who likely will get all the heat they can take from Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, of France, the reigning world champions.