The 2010 World Figure Skating Championships on CBC Bold will be remembered by me as a breath of fresh air where the battles were fought on the ice and not in the papers and in each case, in my opinion, the right people made it to the top of the podium.
More than the results, what I will also remember is the range of raw emotion that we saw, so often hidden from view in figure skating where the name of the game is self-control. The fear, the sadness, the surprise, the disbelief and the joy were all on display on my small screen (yours as well?) giving us glimpses of what it must be like for a skater in the eye of a hurricane like a Worlds, especially a post-Olympic Worlds. As much as anything, the exhaustion from the Olympic marathon season coupled with the anxiety of trying to reaffirm or dispute what happened in Vancouver proved to be too much for some:
The FEAR: On Carolina Kostner’s face before skating the free and the hypnotic eyes of Italian coach Edoardo de Bernardis’ as he tried to infuse her with confidence. (With sucess as she didn’t collapse under the pressure where she had so many times before)
The SADNESS: On Anna Cappellini’s face as she collapsed sobbing in dance partner Luca Lanotte’s arms at the end of the free dance where they had fallen on a required element and dropped to 11th place.
The SURPRISE: On Canadian ice dance coach Carol Lane’s face when the season’s best free dance score was announced for students Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier in the free dance segments. Her hands went straight to her face and she said “Oh My God! Oh my God!”
The DISBELIEF: On Olympic champion and defending world champion Yu-Na Kim’s face as she missed the entry into her layback spin and lost any points for the element which contributed to her 7th place finish in the short program.
The JOY: On Canadian Cynthia Phaneuf’s face at the end of her free program, realizing she had finally been able to tame the “jitters beast” and do the same kind of program she does in practice every day.
So many other moments; too many to mention and I am sure you have your own.
Riveting television? You bet!