Results from 2010-2011 Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Courchevel, France

The first of the 2010-2011 ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) Series began last week and concluded today in Courchevel, France. The JGP consists of seven competitions held throughout the world, culminating in the JGP Final. The events are:

• Junior Grand Prix Courchevel, France (August 25 - 28, 2010)
• Junior Grand Prix Brasov, Romania (September 8 - 12, 2010)
• Junior Grand Prix Graz, Austria (September 15 - 19, 2010)
• Junior Grand Prix Karuizawa, Japan (September 22 - 26, 2010)
• Junior Grand Prix Sheffield, United Kingdom (September 29 - October 3, 2010)

• Junior Grand Prix Dresden, Germany (October 6 - 10, 2010)
• Junior Grand Prix Ostrava, Czech Republic (October 13 - 17, 2010)
• Junior Grand Prix Final Beijing, China (December 9 - 12, 2010)

The top ten finishers for the junior ladies, men and ice dancers for JGP Courchevel are as follows. Note: SP=Short Program; FS=Free Skate; FD=Free Dance and SD=Short Dance, which was instituted by the ISU this season to replace the Original Dance. The SD is a combination of the Compulsory Dance and the Original Dance and is 2 minutes and 50 seconds.)

JUNIOR LADIES:

FPl	Name	Nat	Points	SP	FS
1	Polina SHELEPEN	RUS	151.42	2	1
2	Yasmin SIRAJ	USA	140.64	6	2
3	Rosa SHEVELEVA	RUS	139.54	4	3
4	Yretha SILETE	FRA	134.03	1	4
5	Nina JIANG	USA	131.08	3	5
6	Anais VENTARD	FRA	121.49	5	7
7	Lenaelle GILLERON-GORY	FRA	120.78	7	6
8	Jessica FÜSSINGER	GER	112.47	9	8
9	Roanna Sari OSHIKAWA	JPN	108.89	14	10
10	Gerli LIINAMÄE	EST	107.82	16	9

JUNIOR MEN:

FPl	Name	Nat	Points	SP	FS
1	Andrei ROGOZINE	CAN	184.39	1	2
2	Jason BROWN	USA	180.57	3	1
3	Max AARON	USA	178.00	2	3
4	Thomas SOSNIAK	FRA	157.15	4	4
5	Romain PONSART	FRA	149.33	7	5
6	Ryuju HINO	JPN	144.68	8	6
7	Noah SCHERER	SUI	140.77	5	7
8	Franz STREUBEL	GER	130.49	6	10
9	Takuya KONDOH	JPN	129.14	10	8
10	Kevin ALVES	BRA	128.23	9	9

JUNIOR ICE DANCE: 

FPl	Name	Nat	Points	SD	FD
1	Alexandra STEPANOVA / Ivan BUKIN	RUS	117.60	1	1
2	Anastasia CANNUSCIO / Colin MCMANUS	USA	108.61	3	4
3	Evgenia KOSIGINA / Nikolai MOROSHKIN	RUS	107.93	2	5
4	Gabriella PAPADAKIS / Guillaume CIZERON	FRA	107.29	4	2
5	Geraldine BOTT / Neil BROWN	FRA	102.46	6	3
6	Alexandra ALDRIDGE / Daniel EATON	USA	97.95	5	7
7	Lolita YERMAK / Alexander LIUBCHENKO	UKR	91.28	7	9
8	Carolyn MACCUISH / Tyler MORRIS	CAN	90.61	10	6
9	Gabriela KUBOVA / Dmitri KISELEV	CZE	87.91	12	8
10	Sarah COWARD / Michael COWARD	GBR	84.02	9	10

Splitsville for Yu-Na Kim and coach Brian Orser

• Evgeni "Dr. Evil" Plushenko not eligible for 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. [CBC]

• Meet Evan Lysacek in Plano, Texas! [AllenAmerican]

• Kurt Browning’s gold medals safe after fire destroyed his home. [TheStar]

• Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett, the 2010 US pairs champions and 2010 Olympians, switch coaches to John Zimmerman and Silvia Fontana. [US Figure Skating]

• Nicole Bobek talks about overcoming addiction. [ABCwpbf]

• Love this quote: "Another controversy was that she is the first African American princess but she is a frog seventy-five percent of the movie. So a lot of people were annoyed that they couldn’t even make her be human for the whole story." [Iranian]

• Rena Inoue and John Baldwin withdraw from Grand Prix NHK Trophy (Nagoya, Japan from October 22 - October 24, 2010). [icenetwork]

• Yu-Na Kim, Michelle Kwan, Johnny Weir and others star in All That Skate LA - tickets available September 7. [Staples Center]

• It's splitsville for Yu-Na Kim and Brian Orser (see below). Orser tells media he feels embarrassed and bewildered. [USA Today]

• Yu-Na Kim's camp tells media Orser shouldn't feel bewildered, he knows why the split happened. [Chicago Tribune]

• Watch Brian Orser give first television interview about the split. [CTV]

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir: Our Journey from Childhood Dream to Gold

TESSA AND SCOTT: OUR JOURNEY FROM CHILDHOOD DREAM TO GOLD

by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (With Steve Milton, Foreword by Tracy Wilson)

Coming this November from House of Anansi Press, the first and only book about Olympic ice dancing champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, in their own words! Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir dazzled the world when they became the first Canadians — and first North Americans — to win an Olympic gold medal in ice dancing in 2010. Now, for the first time ever, they share their incredible and inspiring story with the world.

Tessa & Scott: Our Journey from Childhood Dream to Gold tracks the pair’s first meeting at the ages of seven and nine; their early competitions at the World Junior Championship and World Championships; and their incredible history-making, gold-medal performance at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which established them as icons of the sport.

Lavishly illustrated with never-before-published personal photographs and memorabilia collected over the course of their lives, this book is as much a spectacular visual history as it is a behind-the-scenes look at the ascent of two of Canada’s premier athletes. A must-have for fans and collectors alike.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the 2010 Olympic gold medal in ice dancing. They are also the 2010 World champions, the 2008 Four Continents champions, the 2006 World Junior champions, and the 2008–10 Canadian National champions. They received the first perfect score for ice dancing under the International Skating Union (ISU) Judging System, and are the current world record score holders for the original dance. As of April 2010, they are ranked third in the world by the ISU.

Steve Milton is a sportswriter who has covered six Winter Olympics and more than a dozen World Figure Skating Championships. He is the author of nine figure skating books, including Figure Skating's Greatest Stars and Figure Skating Now.

Publication Date: November 2010 (208 pages)

Hardcover with Jacket: 978-0-88784-273-3 $34.95 CAD

www.anansi.ca (We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.)

Johnny Weir and his post-Olympic stardom

Check out the New York magazine profile on Johnny Weir and how he has been searching for his post-Olympic stardom. From the article:

He’s also had several meetings with Cher’s director and choreographer, Doriana Sanchez, to discuss what he refers to as “the Spectacular.” “The goal is to do a show at Radio City Music Hall,” he says. “The whole show will be about self-acceptance and self-beauty and what you see in yourself. We’ll have strippers, contortionists, porn stars, singers, athletes. It evokes Berlin at night before the Second World War: painted ladies swinging on birdcage swings, beautiful men dancing and gyrating on each other up on top of buildings, and a gorgeous cabaret singer belting at the piano. That’s what I want. Just add some ice skating.”

(Video below, could this number be in the Spectacular?)

Kristi Yamaguchi honored at 2010 Figure Skating in Harlem benefit gala (video)

Kristi Yamaguchi (see below right), the 1992 Olympic figure skating champion, was honored at the 2010 Figure Skating in Harlem annual gala in April. The event, held at Wollman Rink in Central Park, NYC, always draws the A-list of skating talent past and present. The attendees included Johnny Weir, Mirai Nagasu, Sasha Cohen, Dorothy Hamill, ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White (2010 Olympic silver medalists), ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto (2006 Olympic silver medalists), Jeremy Abbott, Timothy Goebel, JoJo Starbuck, Sarah Hughes (2002 Olympic gold medalist) and Emily Hughes. (Click here for photo galleries of skaters from the evening.)

Figure Skating in Harlem is an after school program that combines free ice skating lessons and academic tutoring for girls in the Harlem community. It was fitting that Kristi was an honoree this year (along with Law & Order SVU actress Tamara Tunie and Chief Marketing Officer of Amway Candace Matthews), since she has been leading her own efforts to improve children's lives for over a decade. After retiring from amateur competition in 1994, Kristi founded the Always Dream Foundation in 1996, which helps children in need in any way possible. The organization has provided computers for schools, mattresses for shelters, run summer camps for at-risk kids, held ice skating parties for children who wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity to skate, and the list goes on.

In addition to her philanthropic efforts, Kristi has stayed in the limelight through her skating by touring with Stars On Ice for ten years and participating in the many televised professional skating shows when skating was in its heyday in the 90s. Now with hubby Bret Hedican (they married in 2000) and daughters Keara, age 7, and Emma, age 5, by her side, Kristi has also branched outside of skating by winning season six of Dancing with the Stars, appearing on PBS' Faces of America, being the spokesperson for The American Lung Association and being part of the NBC Universal Sports broadcast team during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Kristi is one of the few skaters whom we instantly recognize on a first name basis and she has certainly made the most of her Olympic gold medal. At one point during our interview, she notes that:

The Olympics is one thing, but then it's over with, and it's what you make of that gold medal. I think some of the work that I do now, I know has happened because of my gold medal, but I think the things I do in the community with my Always Dream Foundation -- I think that makes my gold medal mean a lot more now because I'm still able to do something and do something positive in the community.

(photo below, from left to right, Tamara Tunie of Law & Order SVU, Dorothy Hamill, Kristi's husband Bret Hedican and Amway's Chief Marketing Officer Candace Matthews)