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We're back with previews, Michelle.
I can't believe it. Hi, Jackie.
For for those of you who are new to the Rocker Skating Podcast
and or new to figure skating because you loved it so much at
the Olympics, the season is not over yet and you're like, what
is going on right now? We have a Junior World
championships happening in a week, less than a week, and then
we have a senior World Championships happening at the
end of March. So there's a lot still
happening. And figure skating nerds will
tell you world and junior worlds after the Olympics.
If I can categorize it as fun, I think I would.
Fun is one of the adjectives that we would use for for those.
Messy is another adjective that we could use for those.
Chaotic would be another one. Michelle, what would you call
it? I feel like if I weren't so
tired from the Olympics, these would 2 be like two of my
favorite competitions in the quad.
They're yeah, very unpredictable.
And we often see like, I don't know, like breakthrough
performances at junior worlds. That exactly, like really
extraordinary as something about like the juniors, like still
like improving throughout the season.
Their season is so long. They've been competing since
like, August and, you know, they're being inspired by the
Olympics and yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, totally.
Let let's, let's talk about that in just a second, But a couple
of pieces of news for Worlds, which is we had the first set of
entries that came out and Worlds will be in Prague this year.
But as we know and we know every, even every Worlds, right,
the, the first list that comes out is never the final list that
happens. There are always withdrawals,
there are substitutions or all kinds of stuff.
I, when I was at the Olympics, I heard about a number of them,
some of which may not actually happen, but some of it has
already happened, which is, yes, some haven't happened yet.
But Luna Hendrix being out of worlds, that was, that was for
me expected. I heard about just basically
she's she's Michelle and I talked to her at the World
Championships or at the Olympics and she was basically like week,
I don't even know. I didn't even know last week if
I could come to the Olympics, right.
And so she was really holding it together to just be competing
there. And she competed and it was
often very, it was just very, you know, like she gave it her
all there. And so no worlds for Luna
Hendrix. And then Lyra Kiara after
winning the Olympics, they're not going to worlds.
They were originally on the the list but withdrew.
Japan does not have a second or a third pair to send.
And so there's no substitution for that.
And Luna Hendricks will be substituted by Yada Hoveen, who
sadly missed worlds by like a fraction of a point last year
because of the world, the the, the technical minimums.
And she gets to go this year. So she's very excited, but
expecting there to be maybe a couple more before.
Yeah, I mean, I don't have any inside information, but I feel
like that there's going to be some in dance.
I mean, it's like these, they're not all going.
There's no way. Yeah, those two were were
certainly two of the ones that I, I knew about beforehand.
And then, you know, we'll see what happens with with the rest
of them. So that's the World
Championships. Well, we will talk more about
the World Championships as the the next few weeks come along.
But to your point about Junior worlds being something of a what
do you call it? Star making debut events.
It certainly is star making. I mean, you look at some of the
post Olympic World Champion or Junior World Championships that
we've seen in the past 20-30 years or so, right?
2002 you had Daisuke Takahashi winning. 2006 you had Takahiko
Kozuka. 2010 you had Yuzuru Hanyu. 2014 Nathan Chen was the
bronze medalist. Yelena Ilenik and Nikita
Katsalapov winning in 2010, Yeah.
Right. Yeah, and they.
They have Vancouver and I was like, do I want to be a Junior
World? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean you, you look at the women too, right?
Like what was it 2014 was Radionova was Medvedeva that was
that was that year. Truseva was 2018, Isabel Levito
was 2022 and Jia Shin was also 2022.
And because of the the age eligibility changes that have
happened over the past four years, she stayed in juniors for
then the next Four Seasons and one forced world silver medals
in a row. And of course she.
Was at the Olympics. Right, she was at the Olympics.
So she won't be. In Junior World to get.
Yeah, she'll be in senior worlds and for the first time in a
whole Olympic cycle, we will have a new silver medalist at
junior worlds. I mean, crazy.
We'll talk about the women in just a bit, but like Sway and
Han in 2010, Tarasova Morozov in 2014, like you, just you look at
the, the skaters who have been through junior worlds in the
post Olympic junior worlds competitions.
And you know, these are these are some names that we got so
excited to see where it all goes.
Since we we're on the subject of the women, let's start with the
women. OK.
Oh, we won't have a four, five time.
No. Junior World silver medalist but
we might have a four time Junior World champion, won't we?
Yeah, that's that's crazy. I mean, let's go Mao.
But that if she doesn't win, she's never lost an
international competition. She's been first at every single
one she's ever done. So I I expect her to win, but
you never know and we haven't seen her compete in a minute.
It's been since Japanese nationals.
I don't know if she's done any. She's she's done a domestic one,
I'm pretty sure in January, but that was that was sort.
Of it, it'll be interesting to see what her score is too.
And then looking at like you add some additional steps into it
where it would have finished in the Olympic, the Olympic
results. Well, we, we remember very
famously in 2006, Mao Asada and you're not Kim.
We're not at the Olympics. And it was you, not Kim, who won
in 20 in 2006 and Mahasada who was second.
So that, you know, for some foreshadowing going on there,
you know, you look down this list like you and I had both had
to dig into our memory banks of what happened during the Junior
Grand Prix, which felt like a lifetime ago.
And you know, because these are these are juniors, right?
Like they a season for them is actually a a long time in terms
of growth. But I, I do think we had a
little bit of, of with us with the women because we, we, we
have a little bit of a refresher because we saw them at Korean
nationals, Japanese nationals and US nationals.
So some of them are in my memory.
Some of them I I kind of had to dig for.
I mean, they're, they're you certainly have like the, the,
the three Japanese women, right? Mao Shimada, Maiyuka Oka, which,
who I love and I, I, I'm so excited to see if she can really
bring it because she just, she has such a maturity about her
skating. May Okada, who is like a a
different kind of breed of skater from like the the three
Japanese women who are going to junior worlds are going to be
all three very different in terms of style, in terms of jump
technique, in terms of everything.
And they all, they all are great.
You got the two Korean women who are not the two Korean women you
expected to be here. You Song Kim, you expected her
sister UJ Kim did not skate as well at Korean nationals and
therefore did not get the spot for Junior World.
She Uha, she's the one who got the spot and she's she's a
beautiful, artistic skater. I love her.
So those, those 5 right, like, yeah, totally those 5, you would
expect them to be amongst the top, but then you got a whole
bunch of others who who really like you.
You never know with these women because it's like you get a
couple of clean programs and all of a sudden your, your, your
score is way up there because some of these skaters really
have some big difficulty. I was remembering Hannah Bath
when I was going through this list and she was such a standout
on the Junior Grand Prix. She had a really strong triple
axle, triple toe combo. And yeah, I, I feel like she,
she was very like near to breaking through to winning some
of her events. And I think she could.
She could make a move here. She was very close to, she was
very close to getting into the Junior Grand Prix Final.
If it weren't for an invalidated jump, she would have.
Yeah, one of those. Yeah, yeah.
And then Sophie Jolene we saw at Nationals, but I'm excited to
see her here. I'm really interested in what
kind of technical content she attempts.
Nationals were, was I think the only event she did this year
that she didn't attempt her quad sow but I, I would guess we're
going to see it again here. Yeah.
I mean, they're they're going to
be a lot of triple axels in this group, like Sophie Jolene.
All three of the Japanese women are likely going to be trying
triple axels. Yousong Kim has a triple Axel.
Inga Gerganitze has a triple Axel.
I don't, I think she's done it this season.
Hannah Bath has a triple Axel. Leandra Zimpukakis has a triple
Axel. Like all.
Really. Yeah, yeah, She, I don't think
she's. Landed it cleanly.
Yeah, I don't think she's landed it cleanly yet, but she's done
cues and, you know, it's a it's a nice jump.
So we'll see. It's, it's, it'll be really
interesting to, to just watch this group and, and see who
could potentially, you know, if Mao Shamada has an off day, who
could, who could dethrone her because she has not been immune
to mistakes this season. That's true, yeah.
And I, you know, for me, it's like you want a dark horse for,
for the upset. I my Yuko Oka is my my vote.
Yeah, Oh yeah. I mean, her short program is
glorious. And I mean, I'm going to be
eating my words, but I'm going to say when everyone skates
clean, I feel like she deserves to win the short program.
You know, I'm, I'm sure like a week from now, Mao Schmad is
going to make me look like an idiot for saying that.
But that's just that's just my my my opinion.
Well, the the interesting thing about the Junior women short
program is you cannot do a solo triple Axel as your as your axle
jump as opposed to you know, we saw it with Amber Glenn, right
and and others who do a triple axle as the solo axle jump.
You have to do a double axle for your solo axle jump.
And therefore if you want to put a triple axle in, it has to be.
Combo. It has to be the the combo.
Yeah, it has to be the combo because you have to do a triple
flip, right? This year, no triple loop.
This year it's a triple loop so so the only place where you
could do the triple Axel is in the combo, which makes it
doubly. Risky.
Risky, right? I, I, I know.
We know that Sophie Jolene has the triple Axel combo in her
short program. Yeah.
But Mao Shimada does not. Yeah, Mao Shimada has not done
that. I think Hannah Math has done
that. I might be wrong.
So you know, that that short program will be interesting.
You wonder if my Yuko Oka has been, you know, over the last
couple months been like, how do I add this triple Axel in the
short program, You know, and then she's got a beautiful one,
and she does it well. When I was at Japanese
nationals, it was just like, yeah.
Yeah. She was just landing all these
triple axes. I was like, Oh my God, they're
so good. Yeah.
So women, oof, excited to see where that goes.
Let's go to dance 'cause I know you want to go to dance.
There's a very clear favorite here.
Yes, I I think so, but I don't think that they they're
unbeatable. So Hanna Maria Aboyan and Daniel
Veselucan of the United States adore them.
They have so much personality. It's just like oozing out of
them. I mean, I'm expecting to
sensational performances from them.
I'm so excited to see them compete again.
And they won the Junior Grand Prix final.
So it it seems like they're the the likely winners of worlds,
but junior worlds. But I think that they're, I
mean, there's a bit of competition I think from a
couple other teams I want to mention, like First off, the
French team, Amber Perrier, Gionescini and Samuel Blanc
Klopperman, they were sensational at the Junior Grand
Prix Final. They were so good.
They have really strong programs.
They've been competing really well this year.
I think they're going to be right there.
I don't, you know, we'll see, we'll see what will happen.
I think the Ukrainian team should be in the mix as well.
Let me scroll back down to them, Irina Pidgayina and RTM Kaval
maybe saying that wrong, but they have a very like they have
like a senior look like they're very mature.
They have some like unbelievable lifts.
Their free dance is it's just so upbeat and complicated and
flashy and I know. We'll see one Grand Prix final
of you remember they they were very tight at the Grand Prix,
the junior Grand Prix final at the end of third a boy and
vessel Lukin won that by 7 points over Perrier Giannisini
and Blanc Kopperman. There's I think the the six who
went to junior worlds are likely going to be the six who are
fighting for for the sorry Junior Grand Prix Final are
like. Junior Grand Prix Final.
My brain are likely going to be the six who are fighting for the
junior world's podium and and they've been close this season.
They were not so close at the Junior Grand Prix Final because
of some mistakes. Because, you know, I think there
were there were some when when you got all of them sort of in
the same place going back-to-back to back it the,
the, the differences in their components really start to show.
And so that's why you saw, you know, a boy in Veseluc and, as
Michelle has said, the best vogue rhythm dance of the
season. Absolutely.
I stand by that and that's phenomenal.
Yeah, you know, they that's a stand out program for them for
sure. And they won the short program,
that rhythm dance by 3 1/2 points almost at the Junior
Grand Prix Final. So, you know, you wonder if they
skate well, they they can they break 70 here.
Yes. You can see.
It Let's go. I junior wants.
Yeah. I want to mention the Canadians
too, Leila Vellon and Alexander Brandis, they had a mistake in
their rhythm dance at Junior Grand Prix final.
I can't remember right now what it is, but I remember that was
distinct and it really took them out of contention.
But they have a really strong free dance as well, and I think
they could also be in the metal hunt.
Yeah, I mean, you look at the free dances, right?
They went first out of the six and they they ended up third in
the free dance. So that's, that tells you where
the judges are, are are sort of slotting them in some ways.
And you know, I think my guess is those 4 will be your podium
in some order. But again, you never know.
Like we, we, we saw at the Olympics, a twizzle goes off and
all of a sudden you're in 25, 25th PL. or whatever.
Yeah, it's like really tough. Yeah, and the field is that deep
here, so yeah, yeah, Twizzle, twizzle your twizzles.
That'll be very interesting to see.
Pairs, pairs is very like, I think this is this is one of the
stronger set of pairs that we have seen in recent years.
I mean recent years being that Olympic silver medalists.
Anastasia Metalkina and Luka Baruova have been at Junior
Worlds over the past couple of years and just like blowing it
out of the water because they're literally a senior pair.
Do you? Think they thought about coming?
Like, yeah, there's no way. But but like, you know, they had
no business being in junior worlds and they've been, but
that's also to say, I think the, the, the, the set of junior
pairs have really skated up and they're, they, how they look,
their elements, all of that have improved in the past couple of
seasons. And you know, if we got you
finally got some Chinese pairs who are back in the mix, you
know it, it's been it's been a bit of a glut of Chinese pairs
in the juniors in junior field for Zhang and Huang who are
going to the World Championships, right, because
Sway and Han are not going. Oh yeah, OK.
Yeah, so. I hadn't noticed that on the
list. But yeah, yeah, that's right.
I mean, yeah, Song Han. Song Han will not lace up a pair
of skates for the rest of his life because he's like, I'm done
with this. So you know Owen Zhang won the
Junior Grand Prix final. Yeah, I, yeah, they are so
stunning. I feel like it's they're really
going to do well here, yeah. It's they are they are one of
those juniors skaters this season who started off much less
interesting than they have developed.
Like they've gotten better and better during the season and
that's often times you see that trajectory with junior skaters
because they are developing as as like right before our eyes.
They're they're getting better and they and they have certainly
gotten better. I love Kemp and Elizarov skating
the Canadian pair. That's one of the three Canadian
pairs who's who's here. They have a, they sometimes have
trouble with their side by sides and that's been a big a bit of
the issue. But they're, they have some
beautiful skating. And then you can't forget about
Olivia Flores and Luke Wang, who has not been on the junior
circuit because they've been skating in seniors all season
and they they, they, they have they they also have improved.
They had an injury at the very beginning of the season that
made them look like they like what was going on, and as the
season has gone on, they've gotten more and more solid so.
Yeah, yeah. They had a great nationals.
They skated really well there, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And you know, don't forget about
Goran Zhang's quad twist. Let's go.
The best quad twist I've ever seen.
I mean, hands down. Just floats like.
Such a nice nice element. So, you know, lots that could
also happen there. And I think it's going to be
some fireworks. And I think, as with all pairs
these days, it'll come down to those side by sides.
Unfortunately. Unfortunately, yeah,
unfortunately. All right, let's get on the men
all. Right, this is the big showdown.
I look, I, when I was thinking about this a few weeks ago, I
was like, oh, it's, it's like the fight between Minkusa and
Rio Nakata and Jacob Sanchez, right?
And then I looked at the list and I'm like, no, it's not like
there, there's certainly going to be 3 of them, right?
But there's a lot of good skaters here too, Like my
goodness, goodness, goodness. I think the Minku and Rio
showdown is the big one. Yes.
And we didn't get to see it play out at the Olympics because
they're both age and eligible, which is sad.
But yeah. And it's been it's been a bit
of, you know, back and forth. Like, you know, I feel like last
year Rio Nakata really had like the the dominance, but Minku
unseated him at the final and it was surprising.
And Rio was not happy about it. And yeah, I mean, he's really
going to be looking for vengeance at this event.
I mean, he's he's going to be really fired up.
He's such a fierce competitor. I'm excited to see how he likes.
Expected to just completely throw down here so.
It was interesting watching him at Japan Nationals and I, I got
to see him sort of a couple times here and there and he was,
you know, as much as he is amongst the top of the seniors
right at, at Japan nationals, he was still very much in awe of
the whole thing. And and, you know, taking it all
in, he would they sent him to the Olympics to to watch.
And to just like take. In the atmosphere, it was very
good to see him there. But you know, if you if you look
at consistency, right, Minku has had the consistency, Rio has had
the big jumps, but he's falling apart here.
And there. And there's no quad in the short
program. Yeah, yeah.
I'm really impressed with how Minku has been so consistent
while growing his arsenal. I think that's so impressive
adding the quad sow in over the course of the season and being
strong with it. And yeah, it's it's it's very
impressive. But yeah, that the short program
is the very like level playing field.
So I think that's a good, I don't know place for mink you to
start building. Yeah.
You got to be like, if you are in the hunt for a medal, you got
to be in the upper 70s into the 80s for for the short program.
Because otherwise if you're digging yourself out of a hole
in like in like a, you know, 70 point short program, that's not
that's not going to happen. It's going to be very tough to
to see that. But yeah, I mean, Jacob Sanchez,
first, first junior competition of the season for him because
he's been also been skating and seniors and he had a great
nationals. He had a.
Great 4 continents. His he, it feels like he's
starting to round into form a lot more than when when he was
at the very beginning of the season.
No quads that I know of. He was training quad Sal at
nationals, but it wasn't ready yet.
I don't think it's ready yet unless, unless there's a there's
been a huge development over the past couple of months, but he
will have to rely on. Yeah, he was in Milan.
They sent it to Milan because they had a, they had junior
world's camp in Italy. In Bergamo, where the American
team, the Olympic team was training, which was really cool,
yeah. Good to see, like all of them
being kind of part of this Olympic atmosphere.
But like, outside of the three of them, Lucius Kasanecki,
right, Like he was the surprise bronze medalist at at the Junior
Grand Prix Final hop in Choi, who is the the sort of opposite
of Menku saw in a lot of ways because he's the one who brings
in all the technical firepower in Korea, but doesn't have the
same kind of basics as Menku does.
But you know, if he if he skates well, he's he's certainly got a
shot. Taiga Nishino, Daya Ebihara,
Yanghao Lee, I mean. And not in the metal, not in the
metal conversation, really. But I'm really excited to see
you, Shan Lee, again. I don't know.
He's, you know, props to him doing another competition after
the three weeks we had and I didn't have to skate.
Yeah, he's coming down from, I mean, he was, he was training
and training and training in, in the last week before the closing
ceremony. I was, I, I was watching him do
triple flip triples, triple loops.
See, I was watching him do like different things.
I was watching him do quad letzes.
He was trying quad letzes. That Olympic practice Ice Post
event is really profitable for a lot of people.
You're just watching these, these, these do other things.
He's the only Olympian in the field.
I think he is. Possibly.
Possibly somebody's going to tell us somebody else's was on
was in there, but. No, I don't think so.
I mean, because the Paris the Paris definitely in the dance
weren't and then of the women so like these a couple different
countries like France, Israel, Estonia, they have entries, but
they're not what their Olympic entries were.
So yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure he's the only Olympian at junior
worlds from Olympian, from Milan, Olympian in general.
Yeah, it's, it's going to be a fun Junior World.
It it will be a marathon. Yeah, and it's back.
We're back in the the home of figure skating.
Tallinn, Estonia. Tallinn.
For those of you who don't know about what Michelle is talking
about, Tallinn, Estonia has been both the hosts of many big
competitions and the substitute hosts when the when some other
hosts couldn't do it. Like there was one year when 4
Continents was also at in Thailand because it was supposed
to have been in Beijing, I think.
And they couldn't do it because of COVID.
And they were like, we have to get somebody else to do it.
And Thailand was like, hey, we're going to host both
Europeans and 4 continents. Like 4, they're hosting a
competition that has no entries from their own continent.
That's incredible. It's something else, but it's,
it is a, it is quite the marathon because we have 43 men,
we have 51 women, we have 30 ice dance teams and then pairs is
the only place where we get a little bit of reprieve and we
get 18 pairs. But like, you know, we're, we're
talking about 51 women. Over half of those 51 women will
not make it to the 24 person free skate.
But they will make it onto the Rocker Skating Twitter feed.
Live call of the event. They will because.
I hope, I hope you stayed on the whole.
Thing I'm watching and live tweeting and giving you
everything for all of next week so.
I may not catch them all, but I will catch as many as I can,
yeah. Oh boy, it's it's going to be a
long week. Mm hmm.
It'll be it really will be interesting to see how how all
of these skaters do because it's like it really is for some of
these skaters. This will be the biggest event
that they will ever skate in. And it's it's very cool for some
of these smaller feds, some of these rising feds, like there
there's someone from Kyrgyzstan who is skating.
In the next event. Like I've never seen Kyrgyzstan
in in a competition before. They, I'm, I'm guessing they
were in a junior Grand Prix at some point as well.
But you know, you have you, you do have a lot of these different
federations who aren't necessarily in the big leagues
all the time. And you know, Hong Kong's got a
couple of people, Kyrgyzstan, New Zealand's got a couple,
right. Yonhali is part of part of the
New Zealand team. Like there's just it, it'll be
very interesting to, to, to see these and, and again, for, for
the, for the figure skating fans out there, especially for those
who are new to Junior World. If you're going to watch Junior
world's, it's a different level of competition, but it's also a
very different, the stakes are very different, right?
The what it means to these skaters is also very different.
Like some of these skaters, Junior World is basically like
their Olympics and it's a very cool thing for them to be.
And some of these skaters may not make it to the big leagues,
but they will likely have some kind of effect on their own
countries and the future of skating in their own countries,
which you really have to take that into account.
Yeah. Junior World's starting on
Wednesday and going on for five years.
The short programs will take a long time.
Yeah, don't, don't miss the last groups of these, of the free
skates for these events, because you're going to be watching the
skaters in them for many years and it's your first real look at
them, you know. Well, for some of them.
Yeah. Before we before we end on this
thing, I do have what one thing I will mention is that this
junior world's is the end or not the end, but the continuation of
this control experiments, if you will, of the ISU, which is it's
which is basically this age eligibility change that happened
four years ago where a good number of the skaters who are
who have been competing over the past four years in the junior
events had expected to be seniors before this Olympic
Games happened. Mao Shimano was one of those.
And because of the age eligibility changes, there are a
number of skaters who now have to reframe their entire career
because their Olympics is no longer 2026.
Their Olympics is now fast forwarded or extended to 2030.
And the grand experiment here is that the hypothesis is if you if
you keep skaters in juniors for a longer period of time, they
will have time to develop both artistically and in their
potential longevity. And we will see over the next
four years if that does become the case, you know, like does Ma
Shamada make it all the way to 2030?
I I hope so but she's been doing triple axels for like 4 years.
And quad toe. Yeah, and quad toe and.
Who knows what else at home, Yeah.
And and these skaters that we're talking about the the women
especially, that's that's where it the the effects will see.
It's see will materialize. Most is in the women's event.
We're seeing a lot of triple axels here.
We are seeing a lot of skaters really up the ante.
And the question is, does that follow through in the senior
events or will they be just doing the triple axels in the
junior ranks and maybe the first year or so in the senior and
then it falls away. We don't know yet.
We have no idea. This has not, this has never
happened before and and this is this will be something that we
will be keeping an eye on over the four years.
Yeah, just looking through the ages of some of the skaters we
mentioned, Mao Shimada, Yousong Kim and Sophie Jolene Van Felten
will be eligible to move up to senior next year
internationally. I assume they will, but we don't
know. But Maiuka, Oka and Maokada have
another year or two to wait. So, yeah, the the next four
years will certainly be interesting and seeing these
junior skaters from from this past quad going up to seniors.
All right, well, I'm going to go sleep for a couple of days and
wake up to do all of these short programs.
But I'm, I'm, I'm excited for more skating, frankly, I will be
very interested to see how much Ricky Martin we have in.
Oh my gosh, it's going to be hours. 30 hours rhythm dances.
Ricky Martin himself will be at the boards singing.
I'm so excited for that. The same song, Maria.
Yeah, Maria over and over again. Maria, yeah, yeah.
And you know, the 4th place finisher at Junior World's last
year in the women's event ended up in the Olympic podium.
So if you missed the podium, don't worry.
Pretty well next year. Was was, I mean Akai 4th last
year? Mm hmm.
Yeah, at least Lynn Gracie beat her for the bronze medal I just
got. This feeling that.
Wild. Yeah, I know.
Crazy, right? But that's also the thing.
I mean, Akai had a really not great junior season last year.
Yeah. Just not really not great season
period. Last season she was 15th at
Japan Nationals Like. Wow.
Yeah, I, I, that's, that was how how she sort of like navigated
last season and, and it was it was on the heels of like a good
Junior Grand Prix final and, and, and a decent junior
Japanese nationals that she made it to the Junior World
Championships, but. Well, the season, yeah, the
season before, she was 10th at nationals and wasn't even
assigned to junior worlds. It was the season before that,
202223, where she was third at junior worlds and 4th at
nationals Senior. That's interesting.
She's had quite a quite a wild ride in.
Juniors, I think. Yeah, the growth, the growth for
its for certainly part of it. It was good for her too, I
think. Yeah.
Yeah, OK, that's it for our junior world's preview.
Those of you again who are new to figure skating because of the
Olympics, welcome to the fray because it's the juniors are are
very interesting bunch and I hope you continue to watch.
We can watch them on YouTube. And you can watch him on
YouTube. Yeah, hopefully with Mark
Henry's commentary, I haven't asked him, but I assume he's
doing this. I think he.
Is I think he is I think he told me he was so everything will be
live streamed 0 Geo blocking on the ISU skating let's go YouTube
channel. It's at skating ISU so easy to
watch and and no no no need to figure out your VPNs.
You can use one if you want, but you don't know exactly you.
Don't need. You don't need to.
All right, Well, for Michelle Ellis, this is Jackie Wong,
chief skate nerd of rockerskating.com.
Thanks as always to John Wilson Blades for sponsorship and to
Tara Nichols who only has 1/2 hour well 40 minutes of of this
preview to edit and produce. The other thing also is there
were a couple of interviews that came out over the past couple of
days, which I think you would be very interested in Yuna Aoki.
They are interview from a couple weeks ago just came out.
She was a delight to talk to. I loved having the chance to
interview her. So it's on YouTube.
It's on all the podcast channels.
Go take a listen and go take a watch.
And then also if you are excited about pins, and I know, I know
Michelle was certainly excited about pins.
I'm very excited about the. Pins I I rounded up three of the
premier figure skating pin connoisseurs from Milan.
That would be Maddie Skisys, James Hernandez and Anthony
Panamarenko. We had three different countries
of experiences, but they all were very much talking to each
other at the Olympics, figuring out all of their pin strategy
and pin trading. You think my pin collection was
impressive? It is nothing compared to those
three. It was.
It was it was so fun. I I when I was editing, all I
was doing was just laughing my ass off.
It was just such a fun video to shoot.
So that that's on my YouTube rap rocker skating and go take a
look at that when you get a chance.
Anything else, Michelle? I have a a fun pin trading story
about James Hernandez. I can share if we, if we haven't
gone too long. So as you know, in I gave you
the NBC pin, gave you the NBC pin with a coffee cup on it.
And James Hernandez saw that you had it and asked me for it.
And so I was doing everything I could to track down more because
we had like a pin shortage in the NBC pins.
Like Andrea ordered her own pins.
Like they're just not enough. My production manager had to
actually request 2 coffee cup pins from another venue for me
to give to James because I was like, they're British.
She was British. I'm like, please, please.
She did it. She did it for me.
And then like the day, the next day, Ting Tsui, who is working
with us, comes up with a bag of pins.
There's probably like, I don't know, 30 NBC pins in it.
And she's like, look at this bag of pins that James asked Johnny
to get for him. Johnny asked me to give this to
James. I mean it's like every pin you
could imagine from NBCI was like he's, he is tapping everybody at
our company trying to get all the pins.
So James probably has the most comprehensive collection of NBC
pins from Milano Cortina that is out there.
It's very comprehensive for sure.
He's he's yeah, he had a busy side hustle going skating was
secondary to the pin collecting. I mean, you're there for three
weeks. Yeah.
You, you practice, you have some downtime.
What do you do? You go and trade some pins.
Yeah, That's that's, it's such a sport over there.
It's like the unheralded pastime of Olympians.
Yeah, he's going to be one of those people that has his own
pin in 20-30. Absolutely.
I mean, when we were talking about it, like his face just lit
up, he was like. Oh, we.
Should do that. All right.
OK, we're really going this time.
We'll talk to you again soon and the and the Junior World
Championships will be happening in less than three days, so see
you later. Bye.