figure-skating Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
You won’t have 15-year old figure skaters to kick around anymore
Anyone remember the hot garbage fire that was the Olympic figure skating finals in February? For those who don’t, allow me to jog your memory — 15-year-old star Kamila Valieva, the center of a Russian Olympic Committee doping scandal, sobbing after falling twice as the pressure of the PED investigat...
Debacle on ice: Olympics women’s figure skating was the opposite of heartwarming
The scene after the end of the women’s free skate was hard to watch Thursday — tears, screaming, and heartbreak pouring from the Russian athletes expected to sweep the podium, their Olympic experience destroyed by a doping scandal involving the country’s 15-year-old star, Kamila Valieva....
Kamila Valieva’s saga sets a dangerous precedent for skaters
It wouldn’t be a proper Winter Olympics without a figure skating melodrama. It’s earned a reputation as the Olympics’ closest equivalent to soap opera. In 2002, a judge cheating scandal led to a reform of the entire scoring system. Tonya Harding’s sabotage of Nancy Kerrigan before the ‘92 Olympics a...
Nathan Chen deserves every second of the Olympic spotlight he’s about to get
The Winter Olympics are always sports’ most unique event. For the most part, it’s a collection of niche sports getting international attention all at once. Exceptions have existed with men’s ice hockey, with five straight Olympiads allowing the NHL’s stars to participate for their countries, last ta...
Olympic Figure Skater Ashley Wagner Says John Coughlin Sexually Assaulted Her When She Was 17
Three-time U.S. national champion figure skater and 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Ashley Wagner wrote in USA Today on Thursday that she was sexually assaulted by the late former pairs skater John Coughlin when she was 17 and he was 22....
Figure Skater Says Former Partner John Coughlin Sexually Abused Her For Years
Former figure skater Bridget Namiotka wrote a series of Facebook posts last weekend, accusing her ex-skating partner John Coughlin of sexual abuse. Coughlin killed himself in January one day after the U.S. Center for SafeSport placed him on interim suspension after he was reported for sexual miscond...
SafeSport Says It Found Culture Of "Grooming And Abuse" In Figure Skating
The U.S. Center for SafeSport declared on Monday to USA Today that it had uncovered “a culture in figure skating that allowed grooming and abuse to go unchecked for too long” while it was investigating sexual misconduct allegations against national pairs champion John Coughlin, among other cases....
SafeSport Has Closed Its Investigation Of Pairs Skater John Coughlin Due To His Death
The U.S. Center for SafeSport announced today that it was ending its investigation into multiple reports of sexual misconduct involving former pairs skater John Coughlin. SafeSport had placed Coughlin on an interim suspension in January after three people reported his possible sexual misconduct to t...
Alina Zagitova Says She Didn't Drink Water During The 2018 Olympics
Alina Zagitova, the Russian teen who narrowly edged two-time defending world champion Evgenia Medvedeva for the women’s figure skating gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics and recently took second at the European Championships, sat down for a series of interviews this week with Russian media. One of the...
Does Figure Skating Really Need Age Minimums?<em></em>
This weekend in Detroit, Alysa Liu won the senior ladies national title. Yet despite that, Liu won’t be competing at the 2019 world championships in Saitama, Japan. Those berths will go to second and third place finishers, Bradie Tennell and Mariah Bell. Disqualifying Liu is the fact that she’s 13 y...
Nathan Chen Is Dominant, Again
Nathan Chen, the defending world champion, captured his third straight senior men’s figure skating national title in Detroit on Saturday. He beat silver medalist Vincent Zhou by 58 points. ...
13-Year-Old Alysa Liu Becomes Youngest U.S. Senior Ladies Figure Skating National Champion
Alysa Liu became the youngest senior ladies figure skating national champion in U.S. history by defeating defending champion Bradie Tennell at the championships in Detroit on Friday....
The <i>New York Times</i> Can't Bring Itself To Hold The USOC Accountable
In my time as a journalist, stories about child abuse have always been the one genre that everyone, even internet commenters, agree are bad. But preventing child abuse—which costs money and takes long-term dedication of resources—who has time for that? ...
Report: Pairs Skater John Coughlin Was Accused Of Sexual Misconduct With Minors
Yesterday it was reported that former pairs skater John Coughlin died by suicide a day after his interim suspension from SafeSport was announced, but there was no public comment about the nature of the allegations against him by either SafeSport or U.S. Figure Skating. ...
Reports: Former U.S. Figure Skating Champion John Coughlin Dies By Suicide After Receiving Suspension From Sport
John Coughlin, a two-time U.S. pairs champion, died Friday by suicide just days after U.S. Center for SafeSport and U.S. Figure Skating suspended him from the sport, according to multiple reports. He was 33....
Not All Ice Sports Are Created Equal
Last night, I, along with several other Deadspin idiots, went to watch the Islanders and Golden Knights play a hockey game. It was my first time watching live hockey and I don’t know a whole lot about the sport, although I gathered from the booing that the house lights failing and play being delayed...
American Figure Skater Crashes Headfirst Into The Ice, Referee Allows Her To Continue
At the Golden Spin of Zagreb, a skating competition in Croatia, the American pair skaters Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc were in the final third of their long program on Friday, heading into their last overhead lift, when LeDuc’s hand appeared to slip as Cain was exiting the lift. She fell, headfirst...
Another Empty Congressional Hearing About Sexual Abuse In Sports Came And Went
With many of the cameras and reporters gone, the fourth Senate hearing about sexual abuse in Olympic sports took on a different tone. There was no yelling. There was no demanding of answers. CEOs of the organizations that oversee Olympic sports had a few chuckles. The grandstanding was gone, just th...
Report: Denis Ten, Kazakhstan's First Olympic Skating Medalist, Dies After Being Stabbed During Robbery
Denis Ten, the first figure skater from Kazakhstan to win world championship and Olympic figure skating medals, died in Almaty today. He was 25 years old....
The First Woman To Do A Triple Axel Is Still Skating
This week, Tonya Harding placed third in the Dancing With The Stars final. As we were reminded throughout the (blessedly) brief season, Harding was the first American woman to land a triple axel in competition, which she did in 1991. But Harding was not the first woman ever to do this jump—that dis...