Finlandia Trophy 2025 Recap — ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix Series
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The final 2025 Grand Prix qualifier event provided a terrific women’s competition, more judging controversies in ice dance, plus blood, tears, and several truly memorable, beautiful performances. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 0:31 — Dance Scoring Controversy 19:47 — Errors and Incompetency 21:21 — Ice Dance Competition 47:50 — Ice Dance GPF Qualifiers 49:47 — Men's Competition 1:02:54 — Men's GPF Qualifiers 1:03:38 — Pairs Competition 1:12:21 — Pairs GPF Qualifiers 1:14:27 — Women's Competition 1:29:00 — Women's GPF Qualifiers 1:30:32 — Gold in our Hearts 1:32:04 — Warsaw...
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Skate America 2025 Recap (Figure Skating Grand Prix Series)
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The penultimate Grand Prix Qualifier, Skate America, featured a hotly contested women’s podium, some spectacular ice dance performances, numerous disasters in pairs, and a surprisingly weak men’s event. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:44 — Women’s Competition 1:51 — Alysa Liu vs Rinka Watanabe 4:56 — Anastasiia Gubanova vs Lara Naki Gutman 7:06 — Starr Andrews 10:00 — Top 5 score comparisons 11:31 — Chaeyeon Kim 12:21 — Lea Serna 12:43 — Haein Lee 14:31 — Hana Yoshida 15:11 — Ekaterina Kurakova 15:49 — Wakaba Higuchi 17:47 — Josephine Lee 18:26 — Pairs Competition...
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NHK Trophy 2025 Recap
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Kaori Sakamoto reigned supreme at her final NHK Trophy competition! The Japanese Grand Prix event gave us exciting podium wins, surprise come-ups, frightening injuries, and a disappointing debut from the returning Shib Sibs. #FigureSkating #GPfigure Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:33 — Women's Competition 1:50 — Kaori Sakamoto 5:52 — Sofia Samodelkina 7:55 — Loena Hendrickx 10:34 — Young You 14:05 — Sarah Everhardt 16:29 — Yuna Aoki 19:23 — Anna Pezzetta 20:02 — Wakaba Higuchi 21:17 — Elyce Lin-Gracey 22:17 — Canadian Women / Ice Challenge 24:18 — Ice Dance Competition 25:25...
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Skate Canada 2025 Recap
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The third stop on the Grand Prix series gave us a bombastic new world record from Ilia Malinin, a shaky win from Gilles and Poirier, some pleasant surprises in pairs, and a charming trio of medal-winners in the women’s event. Plus more frustrating judging, and potentially racist kiss ’n cry fan gifts. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:57 — Men's Competition 21:39 — Ice Dance Competition 52:34 — Women's Competition 1:10:06 — Pairs Competition 1:18:20 — Racist Kiss 'n Cry fan gifts? 1:23:22 — Gold in our Hearts 1:24:53 — NHK Trophy Preview 1:29:13 — Wrap-Up
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Cup of China 2025 Recap (Figure Skating Grand Prix Series)
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The second Grand Prix event of 2025 featured the return of Olympic champions Sui & Han, exciting wins from Amber Glenn and Shun Sato, and a nervous victory for Chock & Bates. Plus more questionable judging, and a kiss ’n cry controversy. Chapters 1:37 — Women's Competition 24:10 — Pairs Competition 39:16 — Men's Competition 57:21 — Ice Dance Competition 1:21:45 — Final thoughts on Cup of China 1:22:25 — Gold in our Hearts 1:23:42 — Skate Canada Preview 1:26:23 — Wrap-Up #figureskating #gpfigure #cupofchina #figureskatingpodcast
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Grand Prix de France 2025 Recap
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The first 2025 Grand Prix event featured extraordinary upsets (Ami Nakai, Fournier-Beaudry and Cizeron), expected dominant wins (Ilia Malinin, Miura and Kihara), and controversial Ice Dance scoring (Guignard and Fabbri) sure to spark heated debate for some time… We dig into the incredible highs, and truly WTF moments, from Grand Prix de France. Adron savors his perfect podium prediction for the Women’s competition. The wild ice dance judging ties us in knots. If this is the sign of things to come, this season is gonna be a roller coaster… Chapters 0:00 — Intro 2:44 — Ice Dance...
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Trialeti Trophy 2025 Recap and Grand Prix Preview
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We discuss Georgia’s first ever Challenger event, the Trialeti Trophy, where Georgian skaters (rightfully) swept the golds. We also preview and give predictions for the Grand Prix de France, which kicks off the GP season. And we talk about the unsettling Shibutani Siblings rink video. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 2:07 — Trialeti Pairs Competition 14:52 — Trialeti Men's Competition 24:57 — Trialeti Ice Dance Competition 35:32 — Trialeti Women's Competition 45:04 — Grand Prix de France Preview 46:46 — GP France Men's Preview 52:05 — GP France Dance Preview 57:18 — GP France Women's...
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Denis Ten Memorial Challenge 2025 Recap
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The Denis Ten Memorial Challenge gave us our first look at Mikhail Shaidorov’s new programs, a terrific showing and win from Haein Lee, and solid first outing from Davis & Smolkin. We also talk about Rika Kihara’s move to ice dance, Bradie Tennell’s successful program switch, and more. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 0:54 — Men’s Competition 23:21 — Dance Competition 39:38 — Women’s Competition 49:35 — Adam Siao Him Fa improvements 52:20 — Rika Kihara and Shingo Nishiyama ice dance pairing 57:49 — Bradie Tennell changes short, scores big 1:03:06 — Gold in our Hearts 1:05:01...
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Nebelhorn Trophy and Nepela Memorial 2025 Recaps
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We recount a long, LONG weekend of skating with two major Challenger Series competitions: Nebelhorn Trophy and Nepela Memorial. The highlight reel includes big wins from Amber Glenn, Lara Naki Gutmann, Hase & Volodin, and Smart & Dieck. But, wow, were there some sloppy skates in there too… Chapters 0:00 — Intro 2:13 — Nebelhorn Women’s Competition 14:31 — Nebelhorn Pairs Competition 24:06 — Nebelhorn Men’s Competition 31:20 — Nebelhorn Ice Dance Competition 41:28 — Nepela Women’s Competition 1:01:50 — Nepela Men’s Competition 1:09:38 — Nepela Ice Dance...
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Skate to Milano Cortina Olympic Qualifier Event Recap
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The final Olympic spots have officially been decided, the Russians have (sort of) returned, some of our favs punched their tickets, and the judges pulled some funny business at the Skate to Milano Cortina — aka Chinese Nebelhorn. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:26 — Women's Competition 25:01 — Ice Dance Competition 39:24 — Men's Competition 53:03 — Pairs Competition 59:52 — Gold in our Hearts 1:01:05 — Outro The (officially unaffiliated) return of the Russians. Many sighs of relief as some favorites lock their spots. And what’s an official Olympic-related event without some...
info_outlineIn our second annual Q&A episode, we answer listener submitted questions about the upcoming Olympic season, our all-time favorite programs, the origin story of the podcast, and lots more.
The off-season can feel LONG… especially the off-season before the Olympic season! This is why it was especially fun to dive into some “what if” scenarios, skating nostalgia, and even a few messy predictions for the coming year.
We also dig into a few more serious topics, including the pros and cons of getting into the figure skating creator space, why big success for the U.S. in women’s figure skating always seems to be the barometer for its popularity, and even a little bit more discussion on “comebacks”.
Without getting into spoilers, the links below are all relevant to our discussion — so either consider them teasers or listen first and come back to enjoy them!
Lastly, thank you to everyone who took the time to send us questions. We appreciate it immensely, and appreciate you all for listening!
- Mai Mihara’s “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence” https://youtu.be/YhJYbUwJxCI?si=469oxBFYHdOtF5m5
- — alt link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClZHvu2JmTI/
- Jason Brown’s “Melancholy” https://youtu.be/Qf2EX0TGugk?si=IzO7uHTfWFMaxbia
- Brandi Carlile’s “The Joke” at the Grammy’s https://youtu.be/KJqL1yIm9e0?si=dJoZMFt0wRcISe97
- Dee-Lite “Groove is in the Heart” https://youtu.be/etviGf1uWlg?si=iVec8zvt0goHQWeZ
- Sneaker Pimps “Six Underground” https://youtu.be/Wuwfe3DRJzE?si=YYbREsQmYkZcVU1y
- Duran Duran “Out of my Mind” https://youtu.be/daZCDGYKi74?si=JdH69p68ERtlMAMB
- U2 “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” https://youtu.be/eIdTNyJp38A?si=nlOrbCiowFXmzFlI
- Seal “Kiss From a Rose” https://youtu.be/hDd2G_V1rzc?si=5f8yKkXzA5-1EFHI
- Yelim Kim’s “A Thousand Years” https://youtu.be/8htyCI7JSiQ?si=5btBBXYbFsrGZOLv
- Papadakis and Cizeron 2022 Rhythm Dance https://youtu.be/Tbv1a5vYI24?si=PKMqA9i7CUFCpZjD
- Shoma Uno 2023 Worlds https://youtu.be/FsaGAYkNEwA?si=Okl8nAg_bgePlKRa
- Nathan Chen’s 2022 Olympic Short https://youtu.be/EY5EsGlKHmk?si=ZyBAEUMrzNMNbxVH
- Kurt Browning 1993 Worlds “Casablanca” https://youtu.be/1BXXk5r_5sA?si=SolQyTbnK4CLb8tp
Chapters
0:00 — Intro and previous episode reactions
2:21 — Thoughts on Figure Skating Critique
7:44 — Q: Who would you choose for Olympic teams?
16:13 — Q: One program to watch on a moonlight lake?
17:46 — Q: Programs/music you’d like to see this next season?
20:50 — Q: 90s theme for the Rhythm Dance, and AI music?
25:48 — Q: Should any piece of music be banned?
27:14 — Q: What do we think about Adelia Petrosian?
31:33 — Q: 5 performances you rewatch all the time?
35:34 — Q: Why is the Free Skate order random sometimes?
39:27 — Q: Why did we start a FS podcast?
43:50 — Q: Have you ever taken skating lessons?
45:36 — Q: Have you watched roller skating competitions?
46:58 — Q: Why don’t we appear on video?
51:50 — Q: Advice for FS content creators?
56:20 — Q: What has changed the most about FS?
1:02:07 — Q: Skaters that revolutionized the sport?
1:07:40 — Q: Waning US popularity and focus on the Women’s discipline
1:25:36 — Wrap-Up