It's a Junior's World... This Week in Figure Skating

Junior Worlds has yet to bring us its ladies; that will remedy itself tomorrow (or later today, depending on when and where you read this) as the SP gets going. As for the other disciplines… two of which are still in progress…

Junior men (after SP)— USA’s Keegan Messing in 1st, Russia’s Artur Dmitriev Jr. in 2nd, and Canada’s Andrei Rogozine in 3rd. As for the USA’s other two contenders-- Max Aaron is in 5th; Jason Brown is in 7th. (Messing’s winning SP is here as the Clip of the Day.

Junior dance (after SD)—Russia’s Ksenia Monko/Kirill Khaliavin are leading by almost 5 points over fellow Russians Ekaterina Pushkash/Jonathan Guerreiro… but less than one point behind them are the USA’s Charlotte Lichtman/Dean Copely. Down in 5th is another US team (Anastasia Cannuscio/Colin McManus), while Lauri Bonacorsi/Travis Mager, the final US team, are in 11th.

Junior pairs—China’s Sui Wenjing/Han Cong (aka Sui/Han) won gold, Russia’s Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov took silver, and Japan’s Narumi Takahashi/Mervin Tran claimed bronze. USA was represented by Ashley Cain/Joshua Reagan (who took 4th), and Cassie Andrews/Timothy Leduc (who finished 9th).

And while we’re talking about Sui/Han—who are actually repeating as Junior World Champs this time—you might have heard that they were one of the focal points of some “age inconsistencies” that were recently discovered between ISU bios and the same bios for the Chinese skating federation. In fact, to look one of them up on Wikipedia right now is to see the rare personal info box with two options regarding a birthdate. The discrepancies also included 2006 Olympic Silver Medalists Zhang/Zhang, as you may have seen in this CBC article from a couple weeks back. I’m not sure exactly where the “inconsistencies” stand as of this moment, but I have a sneaking suspicion this conversation isn’t over yet.