Updated 3/1/2009 – see end of post.
Programming Note: I can’t talk hockey right now. Can’t. Not after Saturday night’s BU-Northeastern game. I’m too heated. Going to distract myself by writing another piece in my ongoing series, Revisiting My Teenage Geeky Figure Skating Lovin’ Self. I’ll resume hockey talk later, I promise.
I think one of the most redeeming aspects about me being a geeky figure skating lovin’ teenager was that I was not alone. Back in the mid-1990s, everyone in the United States had jumped on the figure skating bandwagon. Weekend afternoons in the late fall and winter would be filled with all sorts of figure skating shows and competitions on every single channel. The mainstream sports media covered the sport along with the big four professional sports. Everyone in America was jumping on the bandwagon, until they all jumped off disillusioned when Michelle Kwan didn’t win an Olympic gold medal again in 2002.
Now, the sport of figure skating suffers, having lost all of its relevance among the American viewing public. It gets about one prime time showing a year – the US National Championships on NBC. ESPN dropped all of its skating coverage. Even the women’s networks – your Lifetimes, WEs and Oxygens – don’t show the sport. Current figure skating fans blame this downfall in popularity at the lack of a recognizable star – a Michelle Kwan, a Tara Lipinski, a Sarah Hughes, a Sasha Cohen. I believe more of the blame sits on the marketers of the sport itself, but there is something to be said for the lack of a traditional “ice princess” over the past handful of years, which makes a sports marketers job a million times easier.
Well, America, I’d like to invite you back to figure skating. And here is the figure skater that is going to bring you back.
Caroline Zhang is a 15 year old out of Brea, California. In a twist that only an Olympic-fluff-piece creative director could love, she trains at a rink partially developed by Kwan. She’s been on the skating radar since 2006, and has consistently placed at international competitions more so than any other current US female skater.
And why haven’t you heard about her? Because she’s never won a National Championship. The US Figure Skating Association can’t quite market the silver or bronze medalist the same way they do a champion, even though the three most recent champions have performed poorly on the international scene. So when Caroline Zhang brought the house down in the Four Continents Championships, an Olympic venue tune-up event two weeks ago in Vancouver, most of the United States had no idea.
Watch Zhang’s long program from the event, and try to tell me that mainstream America wouldn’t eat this up (especially around the 3:45 mark on.) Don’t mind the Japanese commentary.
Update: Zhang won the silver medal at this week’s World Junior Championships, coming back from being 10th in the first round of competition, the short program. She won the free program outright to make the jump in the standings, even though she only had two weeks to make changes to this program to adhere to junior competition elements and length requirement. Unless something drastic occurs inbetween now the World Championships a few weeks from now, Zhang’s season is over.
Here’s Zhang’s free skate from that competition.