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Viewing information for the European Championships is now available on our website.
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Adam Siao Him Fa (FRA)
2024 World Championship Free Skate (206.90)
So, I need y'all to understand the many levels on which this was an epic free skate. He'd had an appalling short program. Total bomb (for him). Under 80 points. For reference, 80 points is respectable, 90 points is terrific, and 100 points is next-level in elite men's short programs.
Nineteenth place going into the free skate. NINETEENTH of twenty-four. And he'd come in a favorite for gold!
So he goes out there and lays THIS down. And because he is who he is, he throws the backflip in at the end despite it being a competition-illegal element that will get him a deduction. Because what the hell, right? He's not even close to medal contention. (And it's a bit of a fuck-you to the International Skating Union, which racistly refused to legalize the move when French skater Surya Bonaly, who is Black, became the first to land it one-footed at the Olympics.)
Scores over 205 points with it, which for an elite men's free skate is next-level. EVEN WITH THE BACKFLIP DEDUCTION.
And ends up winning the frickin' bronze medal. From nineteenth to THIRD. Which, if you're not familiar with figure skating competitions, means that he skated early on (to the point that if you'd been watching live on US network TV you would not have seen his skate) and competitor after competitor after competitor simply couldn't catch up to his score, until the very final skaters in the final group.
First Worlds medal for a French man in, like, fifteen years.
And after this, the ISU rolled its eyes, said "Fine, be that way" in multiple languages, and legalized the backflip in competition.
ADAM SIAO HIM FA, gentlefolk.
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gabriella-papadakis-blog
Gabriella Papadakis / Madison Hubbell: Not Loud Enough (snippets from the 1st performance)
at Art on Ice 2025
Source: instagram.com
It's lovely to see more of their routine. The video below shows more of their choreography in rehearsal, and they also discuss what the project means to them and why current international competition rules make same-sex ice dancing a trend that is slow to develop. It's so cool that such high-profile Olympic skaters are serious about getting more visibility on this in hopes of encouraging younger skaters to take a big gamble with their careers and pursue a style of competition that is not yet allowed at Worlds or the Olympics.
Reblogged alexseanchai
gabriella-papadakis-blog
Papadakis / Hubbell's debut at Art on Ice 2025
Source: instagram.com
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minorblue-deactivated20251001
a triple lutz from ilia malinin, adam siao him fa and lukas britschgi
Source: instagram.com
Reblogged williamrikers
Ilia fucking Malinin’s world record breaking free skate
Oh my God every bit of this is wild
-when he does the first big jump the announcers start screaming. I don't understand enough of what I'm looking at to get what about this is breaking records but the announcers screaming was a pretty big clue
-He's dancing to music from Succession????? I don't recognize all of it but some of it is definitely the theme from Succession. At one point the audience claps along to the music. And I'm not sure if it's out of support for the skater or because they like the song 🤣
-when he finishes he just lays down on the ice incredible
THAT'S MY BOY!!! I SKATE AT HIS RINK!!!
- That first big jump is a Quadruple Axel. It's 4.5 rotations in the air (you take off forwards rather than backwards, which is the extra half rotation). Nobody else in the world can do this jump it's so hard. He is the first and only person to ever land it cleanly, much less consistently. He had to land it cleanly here to have any hope of winning the World Champion title.
- Yes, he's skating to music from Succession! The audience is clapping in support because he was doing so well (also because it was hosted in Montreal and the audience was very supportive of all the skaters that evening).
- He lays down on the ice because he just broke multiple world records. He landed all 6 types of quadruple jumps cleanly, which no one has ever done at all (again, because he's the only one that can do the quad Axel), much less in a single program like this. This was an insane feat of athletic ability! If you go watch the other guys who competed against him, Yuma Kagiyama was in second place by 20 fucking points, and Yuma skated with no falls. This is Micheal Phelps / Katie Ledecky levels of smashing the competition (sorry the only other sport I know is swimming).
Some other notes for everyone:
- Ilia listed that first jump as a Triple Axel on the sheet you give to the judges, meaning that he wasn't committed to doing the Quad Axel. (Technically you're not committed to anything on the sheet but it's generally your "plan" for the program.) He also doesn't do a quad axel in the 6-minute warmup beforehand when he does go and do it in the program, so it was a complete toss-up as to whether he was going to go for it. It's incredible that he manages to land the jump so perfectly without warming it up first!
- He was 3rd coming into this skate from the previous short program. (All skating competitions require you to skate 2 different programs, 1 short and 1 long.) In order to win the title, he was going to have to skate without any falls, especially because his one strong point is his jumps and other skaters are stronger in other areas. There are many, many skaters who fall on their quad jumps, even when they're just doing one. It is so fucking hard to do even one of the 6 types of quad jumps. And he just does all 6! In one program! Insanity!
- He did a 4 Lutz - 3 Flip at the halfway point of his program. Almost no one puts a Flip on the end of their combos, it'll usually be a Salchow instead because it's much easier. The only other skater I can think of to put a Flip on the end of a combo is Shoma Uno (who was also at these championships but didn't have a good skate).
- His last jumping pass was a combo that was supposed to be a 3 Lutz - 2 Axel. He decided, in the moment, to change the 2 Axel to a 3 Axel. Nobody else has ever attempted this, much less succeeded. It is orders of magnitude more difficult to do another rotation to the second jump in a combo, at the very end of a 4.5 minute sprint no less.
In short, this kid is wild, had the performance of a lifetime, and I had the blessed opportunity to witness it.
Reblogged beatrice-otter
Gabriella Papadakis (FRA) and Madison Hubbell (USA) spoke about their same-sex ice dance team project and a lot of things in this wonderful article. The article speaks about heterosexuality expectation in figure skating - especially ice dance, power imbalance between male and female skaters in ice dance and pairs, the positive effects the sports could have if same-sex teams are the norm and many more. Please give it a read, it really captures the current situation in figure skating.
Reblogged beatrice-otter
Today, let’s talk about Rudy Galindo.
His victory at the US Championships in 1996 is an underdog story if figure skating ever had one. It’s an iconic performance that could easily be the climax of a movie without changing a thing.
In 1996, Galindo arrived at Nationals without having won it since his days as a novice, or even having stood on the podium since he was a junior. (In singles, that is - he and Kristi Yamaguchi also skated pairs and were double national champions together.) He’d had some success as a junior - bronze, then silver, then gold at junior Worlds, the last the year before he and Yamaguchi also took the title in pairs - but once he and Yamaguchi split for good, he spent years without any big international assignments, with a best of fifth place at Nationals. By this competition, he was 26, old enough for people to start remarking on his age.
That wasn’t the only disadvantage he had working against him, though. First, after years of feeling like the judges were biased against him for being too camp and because of his Mexican heritage, he had come out as gay in a book published just days before. It was a bold move in a judged sport rife with homophobia and with very few active competitors who were out at the time.
Second, while skating demands large amounts of money, Galindo was lacking it. In the run-up to 1996, he was given zero funding or encouragement from USFS. He biked to the rink because he couldn’t afford a car; his sister started coaching him for free and helped to cover some of his expenses.
And lastly, he’d been through enough personal tragedy for a lifetime in only a few years. In 1989, his and Yamaguchi’s coach died of AIDS complications. In 1993, his father passed from a heart attack; in 1994, his brother, who he helped nurse, also died of AIDS; and in 1995, yet another coach of his died from AIDS as well. No wonder he needed to take an eight-month break from training after 1995 Nationals.
But the 1996 championships were in his hometown. And Galindo decided that he wanted to give everyone a performance they wouldn’t forget, not one they would cheer for just because he was the local competitor.
Spectators at practice sessions noted a composed confidence in Galindo, and he carried that through his short program. He was not the fastest skater on the ice, but his performance was enough to land him in third place (apparently to boos from the crowd, who thought he should be higher).
For his free skate, he wore a costume that not even the most conservative judge could object to, and skated to one of the most standard pieces of music in all of figure skating: Swan Lake. Galindo’s Swan Lake was unique, though, in that rather than a swan or a prince, he characterized himself instead as the evil wizard Rothbart.
Though he was last to skate, he betrayed no hint of nerves as he started his program, striking a few dramatic poses before landing a smooth 3A3T that made the commentators exclaim aloud. The bombastic opening section merged into a calmer one, where he showed off his flexibility:
And man, remember dramatically held spread eagles in big circles?
The music went light and playful, and Galindo became light with it, completing each jump and then continuing through his choreography with ease and grace:
In the last minute of the program, you can see him begin to smile to himself as his movements become celebratory.
He even took a moment to wave to someone in the audience :)
He finished his program with the traditional spin, showing off his nice layback position while the audience started to cheer and then didn’t really stop. Those who were there say that people were on their feet for him before he was done skating.
As he came off the ice, he hugged his sister, before he turned his head and shouted upward to convey his love to some of those he had lost. When the technical marks were announced, the crowd didn’t just scream their heads off - they started to chant their opinion for the artistic ones: SIX. SIX. SIX. SIX. SIX.
Two of the judges agreed, and the rest placed him high enough to win over the favorite, Todd Eldredge. And Rudy Galindo, the twenty-six-year-old who had never stood on the senior podium at Nationals or been sent to any major competition as a singles skater, who was bearded and Hispanic and gay, was now the US men’s champion.
(He’s often cited as ‘the oldest in 70 years’; however, this number seems to be closer to 60, going back to Roger Turner, and he was only a few months older than Tickner was in 1980. Still an impressive accomplishment!)
His exhibition was a tribute to those he and so many others had lost to the AIDS crisis, the theme made loud and clear by his simple costume consisting only a black suit with a large red AIDS awareness ribbon around his neck.
At his first and only senior Worlds in men’s singles, he won the bronze medal. Following this successful season, he considered making a run for the Olympics, but instead retired to the pro and show circuit, always receiving a very warm welcome from the audience. I highly recommend his pro program to Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which yeah, is pretty gay and always makes me tear up at this moment:
Despite his struggles with depression and addiction, and an HIV diagnosis in 2000, nowadays he seems to be doing well. He works as a choreographer and has become a coach, and he often posts proud videos of his students.
I feel like it’s doing Galindo a disservice, when mentioning his Over The Rainbow program, to not mention that in the 1990s and 2000s this was a song commonly sung or played at queer funerals and candlelight vigils, especially those who died of AIDS. The history of the song being claimed by queer men goes all the way back to the debut of Oz in the 1930s, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out Gilbert Baker’s idea for the Pride flag came from the history of the “friends of Dorothy.”
This isn’t just Galindo taking a song about rainbows and skating to it. It is a song fraught with queer history and emotional weight.
I found them on YouTube:
Reblogged educatedinyellow
miyaharasatoko
Karina Manta and Joseph Johnson skate their free dance to “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” at the 2019 US Figure Skating Championships. They are the first ice dance team in which both partners are openly LGBTQ, and scored a personal best by over 10 points in this segment.
The original link goes to a dead video, so here’s a fresh link
They’re so damn good holy shit
vampireapologist
the way they move they seriously look like two extensions of the same body, as if they’re both acting on the same impulse. The way they glide is incomprehensible to me. This is so cool!
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2019 US National Championships: Info & Streaming
The 2019 US National Figure Skating Championships will take place in Detroit, Michigan from January 17-27. US Nationals will be one of the competitions that will decide the USA’s Four Continents, Junior World, and senior World teams. Competitions will be held at the juvenile, intermediate, novice, junior, and senior levels. Here’s a guide on how to watch! This post will be updated with more info as it appears.
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2018 Winter Olympics: Info & Streaming
It’s here, folks, the event we’ve been anticipating for months - the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea will begin on February 9th with the Figure Skating Team Event! Here’s how you can watch the figure skating competitions online. Please be aware that we are not responsible for any of these streams, we only provide the links. We will not list every broadcast in every single country, only enough so that most people have options to watch. Please see here for a full list of official Olympic broadcasters. Some broadcast schedules in this post are still incomplete; more information will be added as it appears.
For new figure skating fans, don’t forget to check out our Glossary of Common Figure Skating Terms for an overview of how the sport works!
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cannot. stop. laughing.
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Johnny Weir’s whole entire fashion situation is bringing me life right now. He Instagrams his outfit for each day’s Olympic commentating at Sochi, and he always looks INCREDIBLE. Yesterday he had a braided pompadour and today he’s wearing a collarless lace shirt and IDK what’s going on with his hair but it looks enormous and very shiny. He’s extremely good at balancing the more out-there stuff (ie lace shirt) with something sensible like grey businesswear. Style inspiration all the way.
My fave Tara Lipinski outfit so far was definitely the pink one with the flower crown, because a) flower crown, and b) she and Johnny complemented each other beautifully.
Today, they HAD to have coordinated, because she was in a black shirt & white jacket with a big sparkly bib necklace, and he was in a white shirt & black jacket with a big sparkly bib necklace. It was so perfect.
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When you get right down to it, sports fan culture and online fandom are pretty similar. After all, is it really any less nerdy to blog obsessively about baseball stats, as opposed to collecting comic books or cataloging all of the gay subtext in Teen Wolf?
Yet oddly enough, the two types of fandom rarely overlap. Out of the hundred million or so people who watched the Super Bowl, pretty much none of them sat down to draw some Seahawks fan art afterwards.
Figure skating is one of the very few exceptions to online fandom’s geek/jock divide. Basically, if your tastes run more to Sherlock and Supernatural than snowboarding and ski jumping, then figure skating is the one sport at the Sochi Olympics that you might actually find interesting.
Drama, drama, drama
While most sports do thrive on media narratives, from underdog comebacks to epic struggles between rival teams, figure skating is more familiar with what can only be described as “drama.”
In the ‘90s, Olympic skater Tonya Harding was embroiled in a scandal when her ex-husband hired a hitman to kneecap her competition, Nancy Kerrigan. Then in 2002, the entire judging system had to be revamped after an Olympic official was bribed to give a pair of Russian skaters the gold medal over the Canadian favorites. But it was the 2010 Olympics that turned figure skating drama into an online fanfic phenomenon, and that was mostly thanks to the rivalry between Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek.
Never before had two men embodied the opposing sides of men’s figure skating so well. With Lysacek and Weir both competing for Team USA and scoring at similar levels throughout their careers, it wouldn’t have been difficult for the media to manufacture a rivalry with nothing else to go on. But this wasn’t just a competition between differing athletic styles, it was a war of personalities. [READ MORE]