After a week away, we catch-up on a ton of figure skating news, including dance and pairs team splits, retirements, and other surprises. We also recount our trip to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. And Adron talks about learning his oldest sister was also a big figure skating fan, just days before her untimely passing last week.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro, the passing of Adron's sister (and connection to skating)
00:08:36 Our Denver Twice Trip
00:11:36 Skating News: Team Splits
00:25:02 Skating News: Retirements and Gap Years
00:32:29 Skating News: Misc
00:41:29 Our Colorado Springs visit
00:55:12 Call for Q&A Episode Questions
00:56:22 Wrap-Up

We're back with some offseason news after a short break. There's A LOT happening in figure skating for late April!

This month has been a roller coaster for us personally. Adron lost his oldest sister suddenly, which has been difficult for many reasons. We discuss this and how it actually connects to figure skating in the first 8 minutes of this week's episode. We know this type of discussion is challenging for some, so if you prefer to go right to the skating news, the chapter breaks can skip you ahead.

In terms of skating, the rumor mill has been going strong after video was shared by Marin Honda from Japan of her and Shoma Uno training at I.AM. The two have been doing ice dance routines in Shoma's tour, Ice Brave, and their time at I.AM. may be a continuation of that. Or, as we and many others are trying not to get too excited about, it could mean a possible return to competition. They have confirmed nothing, so let's keep it chill for now (with our fingers crossed).

When it comes to factual news, we talk through the splits of both Korea's Hannah Lim and Ye Quan, as well as Olivia Flores and Luke Wang from the USA.

We also get into our feelings over the un-surprising retirement of Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuchi Kihara. Following their victory at the Olympics, it was very much expected that they would hang up their competitive skates, but this one hurts. Others who have announced they are retiring are Ioulia Chtchetinina of Poland and Josefin Taljegard of Sweden.

Not retiring but taking a break for a season is Japan's Yuma Kagiyama. His absence will be a significant loss for the men's field, but may open opportunities for other Japanese men like Kazuki Tomono — or Rio Nakata, who will be moving up to the Senior ranks next season.

There are many other tidbits — like Alysa Liu's music video debut and Johnny and Tara hosting The Kelly Clarkson Show — which all makes for a very active month without competition. There's also discussion of our recent trip to Colorado Springs — the home of the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center for the U.S.. — which was admittedly not as exciting as we'd hoped for.

Off-Season Skating News: Team Splits, Retirements, and More