World Figure Skating Championship Exhibition

My parents are in town for the next week, which worked out very nicely since the World Figure Skating Championships were last week. My mom has always been a bit figure skating fan, so I got us tickets to the exhibition show today. Andrew didn’t come with us, since he’s not much for ice skating (or any sport, for that matter), so it was just Mom, Dad and me.

It was a great show! I usually watch the exhibitions when they air them on ABC, and it’s in some ways more fun than the competition. The skaters are much more relaxed, so that even if they are skating one of the programs they used for competition, they usually do a much better (or at least less tense) performance.

Notable performances:

• Michael Weiss skated to a montage of Rolling Stone songs, and his first jump is his tornado — back flip with a full twist. Wow!
• Elena Sokolova did a program that was memorable merely because neither my mother or I understand it at all. I think it might have helped if we’d known what the music was from, because it was obvious that she was skating some kind of story. She started out in a monk-like robe with a cross on the back. She shed the robe about half-way through.
• Evgeni Plushenko had fun with his program — he came out in a comical, oversized mask, reminiscent of the life-sized puppets I’ve seen at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. He was dressed in bold colors — orange and bright purple. He had an “I Love You” heart-shaped balloon in one gloved hand. During the program, he went to the sideline to give the balloon to a woman, but it floated to the ceiling instead. A bit later, he pulled out a flower to give to another woman, but as she reached for it, it wilted. About half-way through the program, he took off the mask and top, and things got a bit more serious, with a couple triple jumps and foot work. Very fun performance. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the music he skated to.
• Michelle Kwan, of course, was the highlight of the afternoon. She did the same program she did after the 2002 Olympics, to “Fields of Gold”. I was moved again by it, remembering her tears during the performance after losing the gold at the Olympics. This time she was all smiles.

Of course there were other great performances, but they are all running together in my head. I may have more to say if I watch the show on ABC next weekend.

One embarrassing “highlight” of the afternoon. After Sasha Cohen skated, Mom and I decided to go to the ladies’ room, to avoid the rush at intermission. We started leaving while the lights were on, but they had gone down again by the time we got to the stairs down to the exit. I missed the first step, falling face-first down the steps. Fortunately the stairs turned after the top two, so that I was able to catch myself instead of going headlong down all of them. As I was falling, I heard the section above me do a collecting “oohh” at my misstep. This, perhaps, was the worst part. I stood up, smiled sheepishly, and told them all that I was alright. Then I limped off to down the remaining stairs and off to the ladies’ room. I so wanted to just crawl home without facing the crowd again. I now have a bruise and scrape on each of my legs — my left knee and my right shin — which will serve as a short-term souvenir of my trip to the 2003 World Figure Skating Championships. Sigh.