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News of the Week - 3.9.26-3.15.26 · The Rocker Skating Podcast

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Rocker Skating Podcast News of the Week.
• 0:08
  It is the week of March 9th to March 15th that we are a week
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  away from the World Figure Skating Championships, which
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  also means that we have gotten a lot of withdrawals and I'm going
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  to talk about all of those here. Start off with actually all of
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  the ones that we knew were not going to be around because they
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  were not even on the original list of entries and that is
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  Mikhail Scheidoroff, Charlene Guillard, Marco Fabri, Rebecca
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  Gilardi, Filippo and Rusini Wenjing, Sway Song Han, Dianna
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  Stellato, and Maxime Duchamp. All of those were not on the
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  original list of entrants. And so we knew that one, that
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  they had made their decision quite a while before the, the,
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  the list actually came up. But two, that for a lot of them
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  that was the end of their season and who knows what's going to
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  happen with them. We will be starting to hear
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  about retirements and, or or not and, or but retirements or
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  continuations on to the next season probably within the next
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  month. So and we've already heard about
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  some of those. So Shyderov, Guillard, Fabri,
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  Gilardi, Ambrosini, Suehan still out to shop.
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  They, they were not on the original list.
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  Now the list then came out and a lot of people thought, wow,
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  interesting. So many of these skaters are
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  going as we know from both just regular worlds and also post
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  Olympic worlds, there are always withdrawals.
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  And for post Olympic Worlds, there are generally a lot more
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  withdrawals than there are in a normal season.
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  And so over the past few weeks as we have gone through the
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  couple of weeks of skaters either reflecting on their
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  current season and seeing what's been going on or just making the
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  decision to go or not go, we have seen a number of
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  withdrawals. So starting with Luna Hendrix,
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  who we knew at the Olympics was dealing with injury and you
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  know, there, there was a question as to whether or not
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  she would even be able to get to Milano to skate and she did.
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  But she has withdrawn and Yada Hovine will take her place
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  there. Then we had Rikumira
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  Ryuchikihara, who we were very certain at the Olympics that
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  they were not going to go to worlds and so they withdrew.
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  Japan does not have a second or third pair to send to the World
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  Championships. Not going to come, Muruguchi.
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  They are already going. And so Japan will be left with
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  one pair for the World Championships.
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  And the implications of that is that they need to finish in the
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  top 10 in order for Japan to keep their two spots for next
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  season for worlds. And then we had a few other ones
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  that were in some ways expected. I mean, most of the Italian team
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  actually ended up from the Olympics, ended up withdrawing,
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  right? So we talked about Ginyard Fabri
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  and Gilardi Ambrosini having not been on the original list to
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  begin with. Sarakanti Nicomachi also decided
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  that they were not going to compete at worlds.
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  They, as we know, Sarah Conti had been dealing with an injury
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  with her knee and it was, you know, touch and go for her to
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  get to the Olympics and, and she was able to a lot of rehab and,
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  you know, a knee brace and all of that sort of stuff.
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  And I'm sure the three weeks of pretty intense, you know,
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  practices and so forth took a toll.
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  And so they've they've decided to withdraw.
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  No substitutes for them. And so neither of the Italian
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  pairs who were in Milano are going to the World Championships
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  in Prague. They they are then left with one
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  pair, Caldar and Maglio, who will again, kind of like Nago
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  Comoriguchi, will need to finish in the top 10 in order for them
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  to keep the two spots for Italian pairs.
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  Then we had our third Olympic champion withdrawal, Alyssa Liu,
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  which in some ways it was a surprise, in other ways it
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  wasn't a surprise. It was a surprise because she
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  really did want to go to Worlds. She had told me, she had told
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  her team, she had told a lot of media that she was excited to go
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  to Worlds and she really certainly wanted to.
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  But over the past few weeks, there have been a lot of
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  developments in her fame and opportunities in the US.
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  And so it's it, it would be, it'd be tough to turn all of
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  those. A lot of these are, you know,
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  once in a lifetime opportunities that you get as an Olympic
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  champion in the US. And so, you know, we've seen her
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  take the the withdrawal and, you know, she was just at an Oscars
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  party yesterday. She's been at Paris Fashion
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  Week, She's been all over the place and not at the rink all
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  that much. So probably smart for her to not
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  go to the World Championships, Championships.
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  She will be replaced by Sarah Everhart and Sarah Everhart, if
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  you remember, is the second alternate for the the US women.
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  Brady Tennell was the first alternate.
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  She made it very clear on on Instagram that she opted to not
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  take that spot. She actually, I think told the
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  the that they told she, she told US figure skating that she would
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  not take the the spot actually fairly early so that Sarah
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  Everhart could start feeling prepared in case there was there
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  would be a withdrawal. So, so that was what what
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  happened with Alyssa Liu, then Madison, Chuck, Evan Bates, that
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  this was actually less of a surprise.
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  It was kind of more of a surprise that they remained on
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  the list for so long. Caroline Green, Michael Parsons
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  will be replacing them. And Chuck and Bates also have
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  been on a media blitz over the past couple of weeks.
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  They were also at the Oscars viewing parties and other
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  parties that were going on yesterday.
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  They were in New York over the past week doing all kinds of
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  stuff. And so there have been a lot of
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  those types of opportunities for these skaters and they are
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  taking full advantage of it. The last few that we have seen
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  over the past few days. Matteo Rizzo continues the slate
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  of Italian skater withdrawals. He will be replaced by Gabrielle
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  Frangipani. And then a couple of injury
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  surgery. Things that happened, which was
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  Sofia Val and Asaf Kosimov was a surprise withdrawal.
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  And it was a surprise to to Asaf Kosimov that he had appendicitis
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  and had to undergo emergency, an emergency appendectomy a couple
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  of days ago. So he will they will not be at
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  worlds. That means Smart and Deke will
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  be the only Spanish team they will need to finish in the top
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  10 for them to for Spain to keep the two spots.
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  And lastly and most recently, Kimi Rippon also out.
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  She's been dealing with injuries all season.
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  She's decided to take the time to rest and so Livia Kaiser is
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  the only Swiss woman to be at the World Championships.
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  She will need to finish in the top 10 in order to get the
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  second or just keep the second spot for the Swiss women for
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  next season. So I was lying about that being
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  the last one. There's one more withdrawal that
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  just happened, which is Ellie Cam and Danny O'Shea having
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  posted on their Instagram that they will be out of the World
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  Championships because they're dealing with an injury and
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  trying to rest up before the Stars on Ice show season starts.
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  And so they will be out of the World Championships and
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  replacing them will be Emily Chan and Spencer Howe, who are
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  fresh off a really good performance at the Olympics.
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  So that's your world's withdrawals for now.
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  We'll see if there any more before the World Championships
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  start next week. And that was your news of the
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  week for the week of March 9th to March 15th.