Belbin looks like an Olympic medalist. But we say the winner is . . .

(Judge for yourself whether ice dancer Tanith Belbin gets style points for this.  Photo courtesy Men's Health magazine.)

A few figure skating observations as the Grand Prix series heads into its last event before the Dec. 4-5 final in Tokyo:

*Over dinner Sunday night in Lake Placid, five reporters who will be covering figure skating at the 2010 Olympics agreed to hazard predictions on the Winter Games medals.

I decided to come up with an aggregate of our picks by assigning five points for a prediction of gold, three for silver, one for bronze.

I know the whole thing is very unscientific, but the point here is simply to have some fun.

The results showed: no man getting votes from all five of us; Yuna Kim of South Korea being unanimous for gold; wide difference of opinion on the other women's medals; and compelling unpredictability in three of the four disciplines.

In ice dance, we liked reigning world champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia even though they have not competed this season because of his knee injury, and a couple of us thought Isabelle Delobel would come back so strong from giving birth to a son Oct. 2, and that she and Olivier Schoenfelder, the 2008 world champions from France, could make the Olympic podium.

(Our panel was Juliet Macur and Jere Longman of the New York Times; Christine Brennan and Kelly Whiteside of USA Today; and me.  FYI: Groups of us have done this in the past, and although the predictions have been lost to the mists of history, it should be noted Longman was the only one among a previous panel to pick Tara Lipinski as 1998 Olympic champion.)

In listing the 2010 predictions, I will give total points and votes by place.  So, for example, in ice dance, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto of the United States had 17 (2-2-1), which means 17 points on 2 firsts, 2 seconds and a third.

Without further ado, the envelope, please:

WOMEN:  Yuna Kim, South Korea, 25 (5-0-0); Rachael Flatt, U.S., 6: (0-2-0); Joannie Rochette, Canada, 4 (0-1-1); Mao Asada, Japan, 3 (0-0-3); Miki Ando, Japan, 3 (0-1-0); Akiko Suzuki, Japan, 3 (0-1-0); Julia Sebestyen, Hungary, 1 (0-0-1).

MEN: Evgeny Plushenko, Russia, 16 (2-2-0); Evan Lysacek, U.S., 12 (1-2-1); Patrick Chan, Canada, 7 (1-0-2); Nobunari Oda, Japan, 6 (1-0-1); Brian Joubert, France, 4 (0-1-1).

PAIRS: Savchenko-Szolkowy, Germany, 21 (3-2-0); Shen-Zhao, China, 16 (2-2-0); Pang-Tong, China, 5 (0-1-2); Zhangs, China, 2 (0-0-2); Mukhortova-Trankov, Russia, 1 (0-0-1).

DANCE: Domnina-Shabalin, Russia, 19 (3-1-1); Belbin-Agosto, U.S., 17 (2-2-1); Davis-White, U.S., 7 (0-2-1); Delobel and Schoenfelder, France, 2 (0-0-2)

*Surest sign the Olympics are approaching:  an attractive U.S. female athlete pictured in a state of undress for a magazine.

This time, it's ice dancer Tanith Belbin on the cover of Men's Health, where she is called, ``America's hottest Olympic athlete.''

The hottest stuff is nothing new for Belbin, 25 a naturalized U.S. citizen from Canada (and ex-girlfriend of reigning world champion Evan Lysacek).  Voters on ESPN.com had called Belbin ``the hottest female athlete,'' period, in 2006, when she won the Olympic silver medal with partner Benjamin Agosto, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs.

The Men's Health photo spread, titled "How to Woo a Tech Girl,'' said Belbin, "loves SIM cards more than the average 25-year-old woman does.''

Belbin's relatively modest poses, by comparison with those of Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard and high jumper Amy Acuff, who posed nude for Playboy, follow in a tradition of self-revelation that includes, among others, swimmer Jenny Thompson, volleyball player Logan Tom, soccer player Brandi Chastain and water polo player Amber Stachowski.

Maybe Belbin is hoping the judges will find her love for everything hi-tech so convincing they give her higher technical scores in a scoring system that relies on all manner of gadgetry.

If it is an all-male panel, she's as good as gold.

*Rachael Flatt's performance at Skate America had big mistakes [fall on the jump combination in the short program, botched combination spin in the free skate] but it still clearly established her as the favorite in January's U.S. Championships -- unless, of course, Alissa Czisny or Caroline Zhang or Mirai Nagasu blows the doors off in this weekend's Skate Canada.

Flatt, known for her consistency, had been consistently lackluster in her earlier Grand Prix event, Cup of China, finishing 5th in the short program and free skate.  Slow and steady can only take you so far. 

"This certainly gives me a lot of confidence heading into nationals,'' Flatt said after Skate America, when she hit seven triple jumps.  "I have been doing clean programs or close-to-clean programs in practice, so I'm glad to finally compete the way I've been practicing.''

Should Flatt win nationals, she would be the fifth different women's champion in the past five years.  That never has happened before under normal circumstances.

The only similar streaks occurred in the seven years from 1990 through 1996 and the five years from 1960 through 1964.

There were six different champions from 90-96 but the 1994 title, won by Tonya Harding, was vacated because of Harding's involvement in the attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.  Harding also won in 1991.

There were five different champions from 1960 through 1964, but the elite of U.S. skating was wiped out in a 1961 crash of the plane taking the team to the world championships.

Flatt, 17, has been the runner-up at nationals the past two years.

*In the ships-passing-in-the-night dept., we have U.S. men Brandon Mroz and Ryan Bradley, who are both coached by Tom Zakrajsek in Colorado Springs.

Mroz had plenty of bravado after the short program at Skate America, telling reporters he had the same technical ammunition as Russia's Evgeny Plushenko, the 2006 Olympic champion, who has made an impressive return to competition after a three-season absence.

Then Mroz, 18, shot himself in the foot (feet?) over and over again at Skate America, in one of the worst performances I ever have seen an accomplished skater give.  It compared (unfavorably) with Carolina Kostner's mess at the 2009 worlds.

Against the weakest men's field in any of the first five Grand Prix events this season, Mroz finished 11th of 12 in the free skate.  His scorecard: one fall, only one decently executed triple jump, other triples repeatedly turned into doubles.

Bradley had several performances similar to Mroz's disaster since finishing second at the 2007 U.S. Championships.  One was at the Paris Grand Prix this season, where he finished 10th of 12 in a free skate he amazingly opened with a successful quad jump.  Bradley was 8th overall there.

Bradley, who turned 26 Tuesday, was headed for the abyss again at Skate America after botching his first two jumps and finishing eighth in the short program.  Then he rallied to finish second in the long program -- and overall -- with solid skating in a delightfully whimsical interpretation of a program called ``Chamber Music,'' which includes snippets of Albinoni, Mozart and others.

Bradley's scores were a long way from those of winner Lysacek -- but also a long way from where he had been.

``I didn't put myself on the Olympic team today, but I didn't take myself out of the running, either,'' Bradley said.  ``There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  It was looking a little dark for a while.''

*Frank Carroll, paraphrasing a quip he had heard another coach say, delivered the best line ever about most skaters' lack of relationship to the sounds they are skating to.  Said the coach of a skater after a particularly tone-deaf effort:  ``The music never bothered her.''

-- Philip Hersh

A hundred days until the Vancouver Games is just another day to Evan Lysacek

While Olympic organizers marked the 100-days-out point before the Vancouver Games, world figure skating champion Evan Lysacek on Wednesday did what he’ll do with 99 days left, 98 days, and just about every other day before the Olympics.

He trained long and hard, skating powerfully through a morning practice session at the Toyota Sports Center.

Although a surprise blizzard delayed his return from last week’s Cup of China competition in Beijing, he was on the ice Wednesday as usual, sharing the surface with Italy’s Carolina Kostner, 2008 U.S. champion Mirai Nagasu, Bebe Liang and others. Afterward, he pondered whether 100 days is a long time or a short time to wait for what looms as the biggest moment of his career.

“Both. I have mixed feelings,” said Lysacek, who pulled up from third after the short program to finish second at the Cup of China behind Japan’s Nobunari Oda.

“I feel like I’m really in a good place physically and mentally for this season, but at the same time, 100 days is a long time to stay calm. As it gets closer, anxiety will start to kick in a little more than it already has, but I feel like the last several years for me have been so rewarding.

"I’m really satisfied with the way things are going. I don’t feel the constant need to be proving myself, and proving myself and proving myself, and I think with that, I’ve found an inner peace where I truly love skating every single day and being with my friends and traveling.”

That, he said, has helped him rediscover the essential joy of skating.

“I’ve sort of come full circle. I feel like I’m right back where I started where I’m just doing it because I love it,” he said. “And I really hope I can keep that, because I want to have that feeling at the Olympics and be able to enjoy the experience and not be so hung up on how every tiny little detail is going in my skating.

"I know it’s about the sport as a whole, but like any athlete will tell you, we’re ambassadors for our sport, our country, each of our families and cities and clubs and coaches.”

That sounds like a lot of responsibility, but not to him.

“No. It’s an honor,” he said.

Lysacek also said he was happy with his performance at the Cup of China.

“I just had a couple of questionable calls on edges,” he said. “I sort of had my list of what I wanted to work on, but reviewing them, I don’t so much. It seemed like just calls. I’ll just try to make it more obvious, I guess. What they say with this system is, ‘Don’t leave any gray area.’ Even though I think it was correct, what I did, I did leave a gray area so that’s what I have to correct.

“I’ve seen great skating so far this season. It’s going to be a really exciting season leading up to the Games.”

And, as of Wednesday, there were only 100 days left until the Feb. 12 Opening Ceremony.

-- Helene Elliott

Evan Lysacek: Change of seasons signals last lap toward Vancouver Olympics

Evan Lysacek, a native of the Chicago area, has called Los Angeles home since he moved here in 2003 to train in El Segundo with renowned coach Frank Carroll. With Carroll standing at the boards to support him, he won the world championship in March at Staples Center. When he's not practicing, competing, skating in shows or getting his costumes designed by Vera Wang, he's an occasional contributor to The Times' Olympics blog.

He took time from preparing for "Improv on Ice," a show in which he'll share the spotlight Tuesday at the Honda Center with Turin Olympic silver medalist Sasha Cohen and the Goo Goo Dolls, to compose another post.

As I walked out of a Coca-Cola Olympic celebration reception on Friday night at Millennium Park in Chicago, and had trouble distinguishing the precipitation, it was clear that fall has arrived.

With fall comes the start of the figure skating season, but this season will be unlike any other for me.

The first major difference is that each event this year is a step closer to the 2010 Olympic Games in February.

The second difference is that I come in as the reigning world champion, a title that I earned in March at Staples Center in my hometown of Los Angeles.

With that title has come a considerable amount of opportunity. I've spent the "off-season" traveling the world skating in shows and TV specials, shooting commercials and photos for sponsors, working with NBC on its Olympic promotions, making appearances trying to spread Olympic spirit and excitement, working in Toronto and New York on new programs and costumes for the competitive season, and of course I've been training
for the big event.

Evan Lysacek's short program music: Firebird

Sometimes it pays to hang around hockey rinks.

While the Kings were doing laps Monday on the Olympic rink at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo, world figure skating championEvan Lysacek was stretching and preparing for his practice session.

He was especially eager to get onto the ice because he said he had just gotten his short program music: Stravinsky"s "Firebird," a piece chosen by his coach, Frank Carroll, and choreographer, Lori Nichol.

"It's definitely a stretch for me,  but I'm excited about it," Lysacek said.

I'll try to peek over to the figure skaters' rink in between the Kings' sessions on the NHL-sized rink.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo: Evan Lysacek. Credit: Jamie Squire / Getty Images.

Figure skater Mirai Nagasu has more than usual teenage angst

Reporting from Chicago -- No figure skating judge has ever judged Mirai Nagasu as harshly as she seems to judge herself.

Nagasu, 16, and in her junior year at Arcadia High School, is introspective and self-deprecating to an unusual degree. When she made errors last season, she'd describe that as giving in to her dark side; on today, speaking at the U.S. Olympic Committee's media summit, she called the sport in which she excels "a burden I like," and said she sometimes resorts to golf when she needs "an excuse to hit something" and relieve her stress.

Exactly how much stress should so young a girl have been feeling, especially after winning the 2008 U.S. title and enchanting judges and fans with her grace and spirit?

Will IOC swoon for Tokyo bid, too?

With a week to put things in perspective, a few reflections on the International Olympic Committee evaluation commission’s visit to Chicago and other international sports matters:

1. During the Cold War, a group of specialists called Kremlinologists would read between the lines of cryptic pronouncements by the Soviet leadership. Now we will need a similar group – call them Olympologists – to parse the news conference the evaluation commission gives after its Tokyo visit this week to see if the superlatives match those the IOC doled out freely in Chicago.

2. If South Koreans all share the views of Seoul Times writer Lee Jay Walker, the paper’s Tokyo correspondent, the Japanese capital’s rivals for the 2016 Summer Games should do everything they can to make sure South Korean IOC member Lee Kun Hee is reinstated in time for the host city vote. (Lee, the former Samsung chairman, has been suspended as an IOC member since being found guilty of tax evasion.)  Walker called Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara a "dangerous maverick who installs anti-Korean and anti-Chinese hatred …a rampant sexist … and anti-foreign in general."  Tokyo 2016 sent out a news release Monday headlined, "Tokyo Governor to play major role during IOC evaluation commission visit."

3. Tokyo is worried that the city’s notoriously bad Friday traffic could throw timing glitches into their planned venue tour for the IOC evaluators, but that shouldn’t be a factor, since Olympic priority lanes would be created for the 2016 Games. And comparisons to the Chicago experience will be meaningless, because the venue tour in Chicago was on a Sunday.

4. But Chicago did get some good news on the travel front, with questions about its Olympic transport plan apparently answered to the IOC’s satisfaction.
The IOC working group report (which was based on data, not on-site experience) published last June before the 2016 field was cut to the four finalists, had said, "Most venues along Lake Michigan ... appear to be some distance from rail stations’’ and noted a lack of detail about transport between the venue clusters.
    When I asked evaluation commission chair Nawal El Moutawakel about those concerns during the IOC news conference last Tuesday, she replied, "We felt that the whole concept of the Olympic Games within the city of Chicago is very compact, and the transport distance between the Olympic Village (planned on the lakefront) and all other venues is reasonable, and I don’t think there will be any problems."

5. The answer Mayor Richard M. Daley gave to my question about diversity afterthe IOC news conference showed the mayor knows host city history.It is a simple fact that Chicago is a far more diverse city than its three rivals, and that point was underscored in several videos the bid committee showed the IOC. When I asked Daley if that emphasis on diversity was intentional, he said, "We think that’s one of our great strengths, but they [the IOC] went to Beijing."  In the vote that made homogeneous Beijing the 2008 host, runner-up Toronto gained little traction with its diversity pitch, and New York failed even more miserably after it emphasized diversity in the 2012 race.

6. Harvey Schiller is in a league of his own. Schiller, president of the International Baseball Federation, first tried to get softball to go along with a joint attempt for reinstatement on the Olympic program. But International Softball Federation President Don Porter rejected that idea out of hand in late February, knowing baseball would drag down softball in the eyes of IOC members. Two weeks ago, a desperate Schiller decided to play the gender game, saying women’s baseball has been added to the portfolio. It’s enough of a negative in some eyes that baseball hardly is a universal sport, one of the criteria for being on the Summer Games program, but women’s baseball barely exists anywhere.

7. There is one thing I don’t understand about the latest set-to between Lance Armstrong and French anti-doping authorities: did the tester who arrived at Armstrong’s home try to stop the rider from taking a shower during the 20 minutes while the rider’s team manager, Johan Bruyneel, checked the visitor’s credentials?  Or if the tester allowed the shower (which Armstrong said was the case), why didn’t he supervise Armstrong to make sure the rider did not try one of the tricks athletes use to beat dope testing?  (After all, testers are present when urine samples are given to make sure the athlete gives his own urine.)
    Armstrong may have committed a doping protocol violation if he defied requests to wait or to allow supervision, but the tester has some responsibility, too.

8. Think U.S. Figure Skating could try this? Didier Gailhaguet, who should have received a life suspension for his role in the Salt Lake City pairs judging affair but instead was re-elected president of the French Ice Sports Federation, has told French figure skating star Brian Joubert in no uncertain terms how the federation wants him to prepare for the Olympic season. (Joubert, 2007 world champion and 2008 silver medalist, dumped his coach after finishing third at last month’s worlds in Los Angeles.)  "I’m not going to put a rope around his neck to lead him (Joubert) where I think he should go, but if Brian rejects our plan, he will no longer have our trust,"Gailhaguet told the French sports newspaper, L’Equipe.

-- Philip Hersh

 

Photos: At top, IOC evaluation commission chair Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco high fives Chicago gymnast Jerome Redmond, 11, after a performance at the United Center. Credit: Associated Press/ Nam Y. Huh. Above,French figure skating officials have Brian Joubert where they want: on his hands and knees after a fall during the world championships. Credit: Associated Press / Paul Chiasson

Scoring system, Dick and Michelle, Kim Yu-Na and other thoughts

Came home from the final evening of the World Figure Skating Championships late Saturday night and watched my tape of the NBC broadcast. Wished there had been more Dick Button and Michelle Kwan.

Noticed that there didn't seem to be a mention of figure skating on ESPN all week. Maybe I missed it. If so, sorry. But, geez, the world championships are held in the United States, an American man, Evan Lysacek, is the surprise men's gold medalist, and about 18,000 people are brought to their feet in a standing awe-vation over a Korean skater named Kim Yu-Na -- who, if you're an avid watcher of ESPN you've now probably not heard of. It was sports news; it's worth covering the worldwide leader.

And about the skating. It was lovely, it was inspiring, it made this skating fan look forward to the Olympic season. For awhile, especially during the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan and Tara Lipinski-Michelle Kwan-Sarah Hughes years, I covered a lot of figure skating. I first wrote about Naomi Nari Nam and Sasha Cohen here too. I've been more removed from the sport since the new scoring system was installed, but I've heard much about how horrible it is and how it's taking away the artistry and making the sport a robotic, jump-by-numbers snoozefest.

But that's not what I saw this week at Staples. It wouldn't matter if you used numbers, letters or perfect 6's, 10's, 100's or 1,000's, Kim was graceful and athletic, interpreted her music, felt her moves, covered the ice, jumped like Kobe and landed them like a Tiger Woods chip shot: silently and without movement. I don't see how the new scoring system has hindered Kim's development in any way.

Lysacek didn't need a quadruple jump to win a world title. He needed to land his triples, feel his spirals, play on the ice as if he were a gallant 1940s gentleman dancing to Gershwin, which he did, and the scoring system didn't stop Lysacek from playing to his strengths.

And it isn't the scoring system that is keeping the U.S. women behind Kim or Canada's Joannie Rochette or Japan's Mao Asada and Miki Ando. Can Del Mar's Rachael Flatt become a more musical, lyrical skater as she matures? Is Irvine's Caroline Zhang committed to the sport enough to rediscover the spark that made her a junior national champion? Will Arcadia skater Mirai Nagasu's foot heel? Will she be able to corral her talent and growth spurt and become the skater many think could challenge Kim and Asada? What if Cohen, who is living in Corona del Mar, decides to come back? Or Kwan (she teased NBC co-hosts Bob Costas and Button in Saturday's broadcast about whether she might make a comeback)?

What I liked was that even after Kwan saw Kim's ethereal, athletic and dominating winning performance, she was not intimidated. And maybe she shouldn't be. The top female skaters are still only doing five or six triples in their long programs. That's what Kwan was doing up until her injuries forced her from the Turin Games.

Should be a fun skating year leading to Vancouver. And a lot of the skating stories will be coming from Southern California. ESPN is opening its own studio out here next month. Maybe they'll even report on some of them!

-- Diane Pucin

Figure skating judging is still controversial

Despite the scoring changes adopted after the 2002 Winter Olympics, one thing has remained the same: Complaints about the judging.

The Toronto Star's Rosie DiManno was indignant at the scores received by Canadian Patrick Chan in the men's short program Wednesday at Staples Center. Yes, the word "scandal" was used.

But she wasn't critical after Chan's second-place finish in overall standings Thursday night, agreeing that Evan Lysacek of the United States skated well enough to win.

-- Randy Harvey

The victory skate

There's not much better for a figure skater than to take a victory lap around the ice in his home country just after he's won a world championship gold medal. By Evan Lysacek's giant grin and wide-eyed glee, it was obvious he hasn't had many better moments than this one Thursday night.

And how's this for a teary moment? Another former American world champion, Brian Boitano, was part of the medal ceremony. It was hard to tell who was more excited, Boitano or Lysacek.

Does Lysacek now carry enormous pressure into the next season because he will be the Olympic favorite? Will he have to put a quadruple jump into his program? Will he be asked that a thousand times between now and February? Or even tomorrow? Aw, who cares now. Lysacek is high-fiving the lucky folks in the front row at Staples Center, kind of like a Kobe Bryant on skates.

-- Diane Pucin

And the winner is....

France's Brian Joubert hit one quadruple jump* but fell on his triple axel and near the end took a header on a triple salchow, so those big quads weren't enough.

It means hometown favorite Evan Lysacek won the 2009 men's world figure skating championship Thursday night at Staples Center with a score of 242.23. Lysacek didn't attempt a quadruple jump, something he said he might do. The decision paid off when the feisty Joubert did the hard stuff but couldn't keep his energy and emotions well enough to do the easier stuff. Lysacek skated carefully but elegantly to his "Rhapsody in Blue" music and had no ugly falls or clumsy stumbles.

Joubert finished third, behind Canada's Patrick Chan.

-- Diane Pucin

* An earlier version of this post had Joubert hitting two quads, but he hit only one.