Latest / The Rocker Skating Podcast / News of the Week - 3.2.26-3.8.26

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News of the Week - 3.2.26-3.8.26 · The Rocker Skating Podcast

• 0:05
  Welcome to Rocker Skating Podcast News of the Week.
• 0:08
  We haven't had one of these news of the weeks in a long time
• 0:11
  because we've been talking about a lot of news as it was
• 0:14
  happening, but this is for the week of March 2nd to March 9th.
• 0:21
  Well, March 8th, and we're talking about that because
• 0:24
  there've been a lot of World Championships withdrawals.
• 0:28
  Hi, Michelle. Hey.
• 0:28
  Jackie, are you still entered in?
• 0:31
  Worlds I, I will withdraw from Worlds when I, when I can.
• 0:39
  No, I, I will. I'll still be there, hopefully.
• 0:42
  But the biggest one that we have seen so far, well, there've been
• 0:46
  a lot of big ones, but all three of the four Olympic champions
• 0:50
  are not going to Worlds. Misha Scheider off was like, see
• 0:55
  you later. He didn't.
• 0:57
  He wasn't even on the. List busy being crowned king of
• 1:00
  Kazakhstan. I mean, the videos are
• 1:02
  incredible of his ceremonies, yeah.
• 1:05
  And getting a car and like. Do you see the one where the
• 1:09
  woman was standing in front of him and she went like, and she
• 1:11
  like dropped this rug, unfurled this rug in front of him and it
• 1:14
  had like a giant embroidery of his face on it.
• 1:18
  It was incredible. It's incredible.
• 1:20
  They're doing amazing things over there.
• 1:23
  King of comics Die Misha Shidorov.
• 1:26
  So yes, we we know that he we knew from the beginning he was
• 1:31
  not going to world. We also knew that Charlene
• 1:38
  Guignard Microfabri we're not going to worlds from the very
• 1:41
  beginning because they were also not on the list.
• 1:45
  But then we got this list and a lot of people were like, Oh my
• 1:50
  God, such and such as going to worlds and Michelle and I were
• 1:53
  literally like. No, just you wait.
• 1:57
  Just you wait, you know, we, we, we had a lot of conversations
• 2:03
  with athletes when we were in the Olympics.
• 2:06
  We had a lot of that conversations with other people
• 2:08
  when we were at the Olympics and and we knew that the list was
• 2:14
  not going to be what it ended up and what it's going to end up
• 2:18
  being. But we also know that people
• 2:21
  change their minds, right? And so there was nothing was
• 2:24
  official withdrawals or not withdrawals until it was
• 2:27
  official. And so that's why neither of us
• 2:30
  not like not like Michelle is saying anything on Twitter
• 2:33
  because that's not what she does.
• 2:35
  But neither of us have been saying anything about what we
• 2:38
  heard because it's not for us to say.
• 2:42
  But just yesterday, Alyssa Liu, who was very much wanting to go
• 2:48
  to worlds when we knew when we were talking to her and her team
• 2:54
  after she won the Olympics, decided to withdraw.
• 2:58
  And I think. She's busy being extraordinarily
• 3:03
  famous, like unbelievable. Out of this world superstar
• 3:08
  overnight. I I don't think we have had a a
• 3:13
  figure skating phenomenon quite like Alyssa Lou since Michelle
• 3:22
  Kwan. Yeah, really.
• 3:23
  We definitely haven't had one in the like social media age.
• 3:28
  Absolutely not like the fact that she has now 7 million
• 3:32
  Instagram followers is out of control out of control.
• 3:39
  So props to you Alyssa, because you know, I people talk about
• 3:49
  the 15 minutes of fame right after the Olympics.
• 3:51
  I think her, I think her fame is going to be a lot longer than 15
• 3:55
  minutes, especially given that she's got this great following
• 3:59
  now. Like people know her name,
• 4:03
  people in mainstream media know her name and it is quite
• 4:09
  amazing. And we're talking about,
• 4:12
  obviously we're talking about the US, my.
• 4:14
  My neighbor told me that she had withdrawn from Worlds.
• 4:17
  I was like #1 how do you know who she is, Number 2?
• 4:19
  How do you know before me? He's like, I got an ESPN alert
• 4:22
  on my phone. It's like, whoa, all right.
• 4:26
  I totally thought that you thought your neighbor had
• 4:28
  withdrawn herself themselves from worlds.
• 4:32
  My neighbor told me about a list.
• 4:35
  So, so listen. No worlds for Alyssa and no
• 4:38
  worlds for Rikumira Rishikihara. That one, I knew the day that
• 4:43
  they won the Olympics, but it was not something I could say to
• 4:47
  anybody. So when I, when I, when I saw
• 4:51
  her and I'm on the list, I was like, ha, ha, that's funny.
• 4:55
  So, so three of the four are out.
• 4:58
  Fornier, Beaudre and Cicerone are still in, and as far as we
• 5:02
  know, they were saying at the Olympics that they wanted to go.
• 5:08
  The world's. Well, like that was there.
• 5:09
  Yeah, they haven't. Very.
• 5:10
  Different worlds together yet so right.
• 5:13
  And we know from Olivia Smart's podcast, she mentioned that
• 5:18
  Guillaume was at the rink, so I guess they're training.
• 5:22
  Yeah. So that those were the, those
• 5:26
  were the three really big ones. And then there are some other
• 5:30
  big ones too or well four of the really big ones.
• 5:32
  And then there are some other big ones too, including Conti
• 5:34
  Machi and Luna Hendrix, both of whom were dealing with injuries
• 5:39
  at the Olympics. And it was very likely that we
• 5:44
  weren't going to see them and they are.
• 5:47
  They will not be going. And we talked about this with
• 5:49
  Conte Machi Michelle, where it's now up to Caldara and Malio
• 5:57
  because neither of the Italian pairs, Rebecca Ghilardi,
• 6:03
  Philippa and Rosina were not even on the original list.
• 6:05
  Because Rebecca at right after the free skate told me that she
• 6:10
  was like, yeah, we're not going. And also like she had she's I
• 6:13
  think she's doing something like media for Italian television in
• 6:17
  Prague. So like there was no way she.
• 6:19
  She is booked and she is done. Booked and busy.
• 6:23
  She's. Done.
• 6:25
  So we'll I'll see her you at in in a different capacity in
• 6:30
  Prague, which will be fun to. See, Cindy saw Sarah Conti and
• 6:35
  in Val de Femme where she's working on Paralympics and Sarah
• 6:38
  was up there for, I mean, the events ostensibly.
• 6:42
  So I think she's still involved in the Olympic Paralympic
• 6:45
  festivities and hopefully resting her knee and, you know,
• 6:49
  getting ready for next season. And this is we've talked about,
• 6:53
  we've mentioned Cindy a few times.
• 6:54
  This is Cindy Shay, one of the NBC researchers.
• 6:58
  She's actually the camera blocker.
• 7:00
  She does a lot of research, too, yeah.
• 7:02
  Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah.
• 7:06
  So, so very interesting to see all of these.
• 7:10
  Not at all surprising that we're seeing withdrawals.
• 7:15
  I am not, I am pretty certain we're going to get more as, as
• 7:20
  the next couple of weeks go on. And you know, I think there's,
• 7:26
  there's a lot that folks are wondering about like, oh, you
• 7:32
  know, all these fans bought tickets because they were
• 7:35
  expecting these people to be there.
• 7:37
  Like how does this necessarily affect the actual competition?
• 7:44
  And you know, the hosts, right? Who, who's done all this?
• 7:47
  The host knows, like if you are post Olympic worlds, you know,
• 7:51
  that there are going to be a lot of withdrawals that we, we don't
• 7:57
  see that many Olympic champions going to the post Olympic worlds
• 7:59
  because of the, the, the, the, you know, the actual things that
• 8:05
  they are now sort of required to do and sort of have feel the
• 8:09
  obligation to do. And also you can't miss the
• 8:11
  opportunity to capitalize on this.
• 8:14
  Yeah, I, yeah, I agree. I think they're going to be a
• 8:17
  few more withdrawals. You mentioned Charlene Guinard,
• 8:21
  Marco Fabri earlier. I saw a little interesting
• 8:24
  tidbit from an interview they did where they said that they
• 8:26
  were withdrawing from Worlds so they could rest and start
• 8:29
  preparing for the next season. That is news to me that they are
• 8:34
  going to do another season. I don't know if that's
• 8:37
  confirmed, but that's what they said.
• 8:39
  This is like the time we work on our programs.
• 8:41
  I mean, I'd love to see them, but I don't know if they're up
• 8:44
  to it. I don't know.
• 8:47
  It'll be interesting what? Career and high stands.
• 8:51
  We will certainly be keeping an eye out for retirement
• 8:56
  announcements over the next few months because they are bound to
• 8:59
  come. But also Alyssa Lou today said
• 9:05
  that she will be continuing next season and she has said it
• 9:08
  before. I think 4 at 4 continents when
• 9:13
  she was doing an interview or something, she was like, oh, I'm
• 9:17
  so excited to be back next year. Oh, no, no, no, no.
• 9:20
  It was, it was Grand Prix final. She was like, I'm so excited to
• 9:22
  be back next year. So like she was already thinking
• 9:26
  about keeps continuing to skate even before the Olympics was
• 9:31
  happening. So let's.
• 9:32
  Say in a weird way enjoys competing a lot more than I
• 9:35
  think a lot of other people do, so not going to miss out on that
• 9:40
  fun. I feel like she's, you know,
• 9:44
  it's like it's, it's sort of like sometimes when people
• 9:47
  graduate from college and they're like, we, I didn't have
• 9:50
  the college experience. And then they go back and do
• 9:52
  grad school and all of a sudden they're like loving it because
• 9:55
  they're reliving their college experience.
• 9:57
  This feels a lot of like that for Alyssa.
• 10:00
  I hope she does some fun touring over the summer too, not just
• 10:04
  Stars on Ice. I hope she gets to do some
• 10:06
  international shows and. I mean, there's going to be so
• 10:10
  much, so very much demand for can you?
• 10:14
  Believe how well the Stars on Ice Tour is selling.
• 10:16
  It's like almost totally sold out.
• 10:18
  It's it's incredible. The Alyssa.
• 10:21
  Yeah, seriously. Absolutely.
• 10:23
  I mean, the Olympics has, has been very big in the US and, and
• 10:30
  the, the, the addition of the thing that apparently US
• 10:34
  audiences have been waiting for, for.
• 10:38
  Yeah, You know, I find it so annoying because we have had
• 10:41
  incredible men skaters and absolutely incredible ice
• 10:44
  dancers, and we have a win, a woman win, and all of a sudden
• 10:48
  it is like, Oh my gosh, just like fireworks.
• 10:50
  Everyone is going crazy over this.
• 10:54
  I mean, there are other disciplines that matter.
• 10:57
  I know they all matter. They all matter.
• 11:00
  I mean, some matter more than others to me.
• 11:06
  Well, that was news of the week for the week of March 2nd to
• 11:10
  March 9th and we'll be back next week for more news and likely
• 11:15
  more withdrawals happening.