Top Moments of 2011: February

Four Continents

Mirai Nagasu finally showed her potential with a stunning free skate that led her to a bronze medal and one of the top scores of the season.

Miki Ando also took the event by storm, winning the gold medal and scoring over 200 points.

Virtue and Moir withdrew after a few second of their free dance in their first event of the season citing an injury to Tessa.

Other

The Chinese Federation was accused of falsifying the ages of their skaters to make them age eligible for events, including Grand Prix Final medalists, Sui and Han.  The ISU launched an investigation but the story faded away.  Here's how I covered it.

Alissa Czisny had a small role in a major Superbowl ad which later launched a longer web ad based entirely on her story.

Chinese Federation Falsifying Ages?

Update February 15th: The document on the Chinese website has been pulled down and the Chinese Federation says it will investigate the ages of their skaters.  Full story at http://www.universalsports.com/news/article/newsid=517798.html#china+says+will+investigate+discrepancies?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The Chinese Federation has released a statement saying poor record keeping is to blame for the discrepencies and the birthdates given to the ISU are accurate.  This statement only seems to be related to the Zhangs and does not address any of the other athletes in question. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FIG_SKATERS_AGE_DISCREPANCIES?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Icenetwork has also posted a story about age issues at Four Continents.  http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110215&content_id=16637068&vkey=ice_news

Update February 14th: Here's a link to a New York Times Article on the topic: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/14/sports/AP-FIG-Skaters-Age-Discrepancies.html?_r=2&ref=sports

Other skaters under investigation are the Zhangs, Yu Gao, Bingwa Geng, Binshu Xu, and Yu/Jin.  Both Sui/Han and Yu/Jin are scheduled to compete at Junior Worlds at the end of the month and both may be ineligble.

The ISU has asked the Chinese Federation to provide additional information.