When Everett hosted Skate America back in October of 2008, it was billed as an opportunity to see the elite of international figure skating some 16 months before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, B.C.
It turns out promoters were right on the money.
Of the 55 skaters who took the ice at the Comcast Center that week, 22 will represent their countries in Vancouver this month. That number includes eight of the 15 figure skaters recently named to the 2010 U.S. Olympic team.
“We knew heading into it that it would be the best of the best coming to Everett,” said Steve Baker of Edmonds, who helped promote Skate America in 2008. “With it being a pre-Olympic year and the start of what is always described as the proving ground, it turned out to be exactly what we said it was going to be.
“We had the top skaters from around the world,” he said. “And now they’ve all moved on through their own country’s selection processes and, as predicted, a majority of them are going to represent their countries in the Olympic Games.”
Among the American skaters who used their stay in Everett as a stepping stone to the Olympics are Rachael Flatt and Marai Nagasu, who will represent the U.S. in ladies singles in Vancouver; Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek, who will be two of the three skaters in men’s singles; and the teams of Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, and Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates, who will be two of the three American couples in the ice dancing competition.
Only in pairs were there no U.S. skaters in Everett who are now headed to the Olympics. And that is because the Vancouver-bound American tandems of Caydee Denney and her partner Jeremy Barrett, and Amanda Evora and her partner Mark Ladwig, were barely on the international figure skating map 16 months ago.
“Those couples came from nowhere,” Baker said. “But that’s how it is (in figure skating). Nothing is ever set in stone until it’s over.”
American skaters failed to win any gold medals at the 2008 Skate America. The skaters who did will all be in Vancouver this month.
They are Kim Yu-Na of South Korea in women’s singles, Takahiko Kozuka of Japan in men’s singles, Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy in pairs, and ice dancers Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France.
Skate America is one of six events that comprise the annual Grand Prix of Figure Skating, which is organized by the International Skating Union. Other events are in Canada, China, Japan, Russia and France, and they all lead up to the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final.
Skaters compete in just two of the six Grand Prix events (the top six individuals and teams in each discipline then qualify for the Final), which is why all the top skaters in the world were not in Everett.
Jeremy Abbott, for instance, is the two-time U.S. champion in men’s singles, and perhaps the best American hope for a medal in Vancouver. But in 2008, he was assigned to the Cup of Russia and the Cup of China for his two Grand Prix events. He later went on to place first in the Grand Prix Final.
Likewise, the American ice dance tandem of Meryl Davis and Charlie White has won the past two U.S. championships, and they are solid contenders for medals in Vancouver. But in 2008 their two Grand Prix events were Skate Canada International and the Cup of Russia.
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