Joannie Rochette

Today I would like only to honor Joannie Rochette, the Canadian figure skater who lost her beloved, 55-year-old mother to a heart attack on Sunday and who skated a flawless and love-filled short program last evening at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Rochette did not grow up rich. Her parents lost their first child before Joannie was born. With her father working extra shifts at a metals factory to help pay for his daughter's skating, Joannie herself took on employment, as a 16 year old, as a maid in a hotel.

You need so much to afford to skate. You need heart, above all else, to skate well.

You need your father, there with you, at the hardest time in both of your lives, and you need your mother close. Last night, Joannie Rochette's mother stayed close.

Please watch her skate. You won't forget her.

Read more...

Figure Skating Gold: Where Elegance Prevailed

I didn't think I'd be able to watch the 2010 Vancouver Olympics following the tragic death of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. I didn't think I could.

But slowly I've been drawn in by the stories of the other athletes, the quality of the production, the vast whiteness of Vancouver, and, of course, the figure skating. Two of the loveliest-seeming pair skaters ever—Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo—took the gold last night, eighteen years after they began to skate together under the direction of a coach who has given his life, truly his life, to building a program that saw three Chinese couples place in this Olympics' top four.

In both the short and the long program, across a wide variety of teams, elegance dominated. The gorgeous costuming (the longer, etherial skirts, the use of buttons and tucks, the pale pink of fabric roses sewn discretely into a seam, the underpower of color). The quiet orchestrations of meaningful songs ("The Impossible Dream," Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever"). The one-handed lifts. It was as if skating had (for the most part) stopped shouting and starting being.

I watch beauty like that through tears. I'll never forget this short program by the winners of pair skating gold.

Read more...