Pouring Out the Cup of Disaster

Currently listening to Volker Bertelmann’s Conclave soundtrack, for reasons that will become obvious very soon.

I found myself six posts into a recap thread on Bluesky about this weekend’s Cup of China competition before I realized, “Ellie, no, that’s too much. Write a blog post and really let those lukewarm takes spill everywhere.”

You’re welcome.

In no particular order, and with no attempt to cover everything that happened this weekend, here are my Cup of China 2025 impressions.

Pope Innocent of the Frozen Waters

When Daniel Grassl appeared on warmup I did one of those hideous tooth-sucking whistles of distress that only small children and demons can hear. I spent my childhood forced to attend Sunday School and I like prestige drama: I can clock a fake cardinal’s robe at a glance, which is how I knew Grassl was taking us to Faux Vatican City.

Figure skating is sometimes accused of being tacky or gauche, an accusation that is unfair and often tainted by all sorts of homophobic and mysogynistic bullshit. Just because something is sequinned doesn’t mean it isn’t serious. Then I see a skater do a late-program costume change from Questionable Cardinal to Questionable Pope and I think, this is not helping us beat the tacky rap.

Unlike the Conclave film, where costume designer Lisy Christl created costumes that evoked the feeling of religious attire without veering into caricature, Grassl’s Conclave feels like it was fashioned from a Spirit of Halloween sale bin. If the costume was slightly more abstract, had more tactility (make the red bits velvet!), or had more motion to it (give the sleeves more volume!), it could have worked better. As it is, the costume is a distraction from the program itself, which has some good beats, even before the Big Reveal.

If you think I’m being too hard on Grassl here, keep in mind that figure skating has a long and unfortunate history of misappropriating religious, indigenous, and cultural iconography for set dressing. Unfortunately, I think Grassl’s apparel is flirting with this category.

Watch the program for yourself here.

The Nervy Return of Wenjing Sui and Cong Han

If you asked me to bet in September on one of this season’s many comeback skaters I would have put my money on Sui and Han. They have a history of successfully executing big comebacks with little preparation, they’re reigning Olympic champions, and I for one would not want to cross Wenjing Sui in a dark alley. Actually, make that any skater routinely lifted and thrown. They have seen things at the apex of a triple twist that would bleach your soul. They are tougher than nails.

Sui and Han looked underprepared at this competition. There were scary lifts with questionable grouping (was that really a Group 5 or just a very optimistic Group 4 press?), laboured jumping passes, and a real lack of snap and sparkle across the performances. They were very lucky to win a bronze medal here: the tech caller would have annihilated a team with lesser pedigree. It appears their training was quite limited leading up to this event. Maybe it’s unfair to hold Sui and Han to the same incredible standard we last saw them reach in 2022, but their competitors won’t wait for them to catch up.

I Want More Weird Ice Dance

Chock and Bates, to absolutely zero surprise, won this event by nearly six points and a bullfighter’s cape. It was a consummate performance of the kind Chock and Bates have perfected after letting that snake out of the box in 2019. But now that we’re several seasons into the CB House Style I would enjoy seeing something else. I’m at the point where Zingas and Kolesnik’s Romeo and Juliet program—and a Benoît Richaud Romeo and Juliet program at that!— felt fresh. I know a late career style shakeup is a fool’s wish: Chock and Bates are almost certainly on the verge of retirement (said every US ice dance team since 2022) and it’s clear their program formula works with the judges. This won’t stop me from yearning for Weird Ice Dance or Duchesnay-style arthouse elegance, even though I know IJS is not engineered to reward these styles.

Here I pour one out for Lopareva and Brissaud, who I fear may be flattened by the Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron Express Victory Train. I appreciate that in field full of warhorses Lopareva and Brissaud try to stretch into weird and unexpected places with their programs. If I had to pick one team to successfully tackle a Björk medley and an Eiffel 65 + Daft Punk mashup in the same season, it would be them.

No Jumping Beans, No Problem

Women’s figure skating has become so much more interesting and enjoyable to watch in the Russian Ban Era. The Ultra-C elements haven’t disappeared, but they’re not the only elements dictating podium placements. Amber Glenn’s victory here and Ami Nakai’s win last week at Grand Prix de France were buffered by their triple axels, but those jumps were not at the expense of all choreographic interest. The women’s events feel like anyone could win them, which makes for an exciting event to watch and, I imagine, a rewarding event to participate in.