Kristi Yamaguchi on the ladies’ short program tonight: ‘Wow’

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Editor’s note: Ticket to Vancouver is featuring guest bloggers this week in honor of the World Figure Skating Championships being held here in L.A. Tonight is Kristi Yamaguchi’s turn. She is a 1992 Olympic gold medalist, 1991 and 1992 world champion and 1992 U.S. champion. Here are her thoughts on the women’s short program from tonight, with insights into leaders Kim Yu-Na, Mao Asada and Joannie Rochette, as well as U.S. entrants Alissa Czisny and Rachael Flatt.

My impressions are that I’m very impressed. We’ll start with Alissa. I was really, really behind her and pulling for her so it’s disappointing. But I spoke with her afterward and I was telling her, ‘C’mon, fight. You know you can do it, and enjoy it. Fight and do it.’

But the top three ladies -- wow. Yu-Na, I was so excited to see her skate live. This was my first time seeing her live, just seeing the speed and the flow she has on the ice. I always knew her jumps were gorgeous, but her artistic impression -- she’s very expressive and has that command on the ice which is fun to watch.

In the short you have your eight required elements and you can play with the choregoraphy in between. Mao, she just floats on the ice. She’s beautiful and elegant as well. It’s a different style but I like it, too. She has a light quality.

We were only required to do a triple-double and then footwork into a double, versus now they do footwork into a triple. Definitely after 17 years it’s a step up in difficulty there. It’s progressing.

There are no American women in the top five but this is Rachael’s first appearance at a world championships and this is invaluable experience she’s been getting. She’s competing with the girls who are the best in the world and I think she’s going to see how they train, what they’re doing, and take that home with her and she has all year to prepare and use that for the Olympics. Rachael is only 16 and I think she’s only going to get better and better, so this is a great learning experience for her.

She’s done well. Seventh is respectable. She just needs to go out and do the long program like she did at nationals, which I’m sure she can, and she’ll be sitting pretty.

You just see other countries emerging and being powerhouses in this sport. I think the U.S. has an incredible pool of talent. Look at the girls who didn’t get to come: Caroline Zhang and Mirai Nagasu, national champion. I think they’ll all be back in the mix next year for making the Olympic team. I think we’re just seeing stronger and stronger skaters from outside our country, which has been impressive.

I think there are good things and not-so-good things about this scoring system. I don’t think it’s perfect yet. By all means the other one wasn’t perfect but it served our sport for hundreds of years. It’s going to take a while, I think, before this one is perfected and I don’t think it’s quite there yet. It’s affected our sport, certainly, and the way that they compete these days.

You can argue whether it’s better or worse but a lot of us old-school people are seeing that a little something might have been lost. It’s hard to be wowed by a performance these days because instead of skaters developing their strengths and showing off their own strengths, their own personalities, they need to be in this cookie-cutter system to earn points.

And I think one of the things that made skating so interesting to the audience was that your favorite skater didn’t necessarily have to be the champion. It could be the skater in eighth place that had the personality. It’s hard to have that now because no matter who you are you have to try to do the Level 4 spin and Level 4 step sequence and the spiral sequence.

I’m sure if I had to do it I would have. I would have done anything to be competitive.

As far as Yu-Na, you certainly always have the cream rise to the top and with Yu-Na she’s found a way to bring out her personality. I think that just shows maturity. It shows the confidence that she has and great coaching, too.

Yu-Na seems so many points ahead of everyone that it’s going to be tough to catch her. She set a really good cushion for herself. If she can skate and put together a long program like she did the short, she’ll be hard to catch. I think Mao is going to come out banging because I’m sure she’s mad at herself for making the one mistake [a flawed double lutz instead of a triple]. So I’m sure she’s going to put up a good fight.

Joannie, she’s a powerhouse too. I think she’s another one who has a great personality and that she’s not afraid to show a lot of emotion on the ice. That should be a good final.

-- Kristi Yamaguchi