Two major facilities, the heated swimming pool and, more significantly, the main skating rink itself, were still closed last week, even though the pool opened in time for holiday crowds to use over the Rosh Hashana weekend.... The greatest impact of the closure has been on the Israel Ice Skating Federation, which handles all of the competitive figure skating and speed skating. In order for athletes to continue their training, the IISF was forced to spend a significant amount of its funding on sending skaters to various training camps overseas.
The Skating With Celebrities couple let OK Magazine tag along as they bought items for their baby to be.
Really.
Not that Lloyd Eisler and Kristi Swanson let them, but that OK Magazine actually wanted to do this.
I wonder, is it Lloyd's Olympic medal that's providing the luster for their alleged celebrity-hood, or are we living on Buffy fumes?
Full story here. But tread carefully. We've got Kristi talking about her period, Lloyd alluding to birth control and both suggesting they considered abortion -- with surprising nonchalance. It could give the impressionable nightmares.
A Sportsnet spokesman confirmed Mike Toth called a Russian woman in a U.S. Open tennis highlight package, "Anna-take-your-top-off," explaining he couldn't pronounce her name.
The player was Anna Chakvetadze.
(Karen) Preston, a two-time national figure skating champ, said she was stunned by the comment in a Sept. 4 broadcast and wondered about the negative perception relayed to young viewers in particular.
"I have just been completely disgusted by one of your male commentators this morning," she wrote in an e-mailed complaint to Rogers Sportsnet.
Ah, foreign athletes and their names. It's a non-dying issue in every sport.
And then there was Scott Hamilton's on-air announcement that he couldn't pronounce Viacheslav's Zagarodniuk's name, and thus would be calling him "Zaggy." By the time the Ukrainian Champion finished his competitive career, that's all anyone on any TV network called him.
When Irina Slutskaya burst onto the scene as the surprise winner of the Europeans in 1996, the big question was, "Is it SLOOT-skaya," or "SLUT-skaya." That entire season, she was called "The Little Slut." But at least it was off-camera only.
And then there's Anton Sikharulidze. Before his name became a household word (well, in a mangled sort of way) thanks to Skategate in 2002, I spent the 1998 Olympics coaching Peter Carruthers in how to pronounce it. Ultimately, I just wrote it out phonetically on a little index card and taped it above the TNT camera lens.
But maybe we should have called him Anton "Seeks Whores a Lot, See?" Might have made it easier for the announcers to get it right...
Nelson's passion for food developed during the four years he toured as a professional ice skater. The Chicago native often dined out while on the road. After marrying a fellow skater, Cheryl, Nelson earned a two-year culinary degree at Florida Technological University and moved to his wife's hometown of Lansing.
Forget your "Ice Castles," "Cutting Edge" and Sonja Henie DVDs. Here's a real life romantic saga with ice skating at the center:
Their story began in 1954 France, when Latourelle was 21 and serving in the Air Force. While in Europe, he and a 20-year-old Scottish ice skater on tour, Evelyn Johnston, fell in love.
They spent a few magical weeks together in Bordeaux and Paris, and when Johnston's show moved on to another country they lost track of one another. Through a tragic misunderstanding, Johnston thought Latourelle knew she'd be in Switzerland next. But he didn't. He had no idea where she was, and they had no way to contact one another.
She realized a few months later she was pregnant, and her efforts to find Latourelle after she gave birth in July 1955 went nowhere. Johnston eventually gave up, married another man and never told her daughter the man she knew as her dad was not her biological father. And then...
For all those tired of "Cutting Edge-type" stories of hockey skaters throwing on a pair of figure skates and heading straight for the Olympics, here's a real life tale of Georgia's Besa Tsintsadze, who went the other way.
(The only fictional story I can think of where a figure skater went hockey, was "The Mighty Ducks.")
As word of US and World Champion Michelle Kwan taking the season off to attend school dominates Google News, we here at www.FigureSkatingMystery.com take a look at the academic careers of some of her fellow skaters.
Three Olympic victors— Dick Button ‘52, Tenley Albright ‘55 and Hayes Alan Jenkins Law ‘59. Fourteen U.S. champions. Five members of the World Hall of Fame and 14 members of the U.S. version, most recently Hugh Graham ‘55. And seven presidents of U.S. Figure Skating, including the original (A. Winsor Weld ‘30) and the incumbent (Chuck Foster ‘57). In fact, there might not have been competitive figure skating in America had it not been for George Browne GSA ‘42, founder of Browne & Nichols School and holder of a Harvard master’s, who introduced the ‘international style’ in 1908.
And even MIT, not a bastion of sports by any means (my husband is an alum; they're bright fellows, but not exactly the athletic type) could boast an Olympic ice dancing duo!
I can not tell a lie. The above title isn't mine. But it did catch my attention. Now, you too can read the article that came under that headline, here.
And speaking of skating porn stars... (and really, who doesn't love a chilly naked person), I am always entertained how many hits this website gets from people looking for Anna Semenovitch. One time skater, current singer and exhbitionist.
Other nude and partially nude skaters include Katarina Witt (Playboy December 1998), Maria Butyrskaya (Russian Playboy 1998) and Tanja Szewczenko (German Playboy April 1999).
Plus, 1993 US Junior Pair Champion Lance Travis has reportedly tried his hand at some gay porn, but I have never seen it, and so only pass the info on as rumor.
