Day One at the 2003 World Figure Skating Championships Championships

Report and photographs by Marie L. Hughes

And we're off!

Worlds officially started today and so did SkateFAIR's onsite activities. Yes, there are now numerous skating fans wandering around the Washington, D.C. area wearing No Secret Judging buttons and various SkateFAIR merchandise. So far, no thong wearers. At least none that were advertising that fact.

Last night at this time, I was not feeling nearly so sanguine about SkateFAIR logistics. The pins, which were supposed to have arrived that morning, still hadn't shown up and on top of that UPS was giving conflicting messages including claiming they had delivered them but we hadn't accepted them!?!

After several phone calls between UPS and my mom (to whom the package was addressed), we finally figured out what was going on. It seems that someone at UPS Hong Kong decided that Brian Hughes of Herndon needed our pins much more than Joy Hughes of Herndon did. (Joy? Brian? There's a difference?) The only thing that saved us is that Brian didn't want to pay the custom duty on something he hadn't actually ordered.

None of this would have been discovered in time though, if it hadn't been for the proactiveness of Andre, the night shift supervisor, at the local UPS center. He became as obsessed with the whereabouts of our pins as we did and actually tracked them down in the warehouse and had them re-addressed properly right then and there instead of waiting for the Day Supervisor to deal with it. Go Andre!

Of course, being the anal-retentive type, I was still a bit worried but at 10am this morning - just as promised - the doorbell rang and there they were. All 100 pounds of them.

After a bit of puzzling, my mom and I finally figured out how to get them into the car and managed to drag them over to Ann Craven's office in D.C., but my back still hurts thinking about it. I have no idea how Ann is going to get them from her office to the Convention Center tomorrow for the Pin Sticking Party.

Ann is a lively woman with a southern accent - not a rarity in this area, but to this West Coaster, unusual and a bit exotic. Ann has turned her corner of the USPS into SkateFAIR Central with banners draped on all the cubicle walls and an office full of SkateFAIR supplies that she's been collecting from SkateFAIR members all over the country.

A bundle of energy, Ann was busy running her office, introducing us to her officemates (who all came running to see the crazy SkateFAIR ladies who were so het up about figure skating judging), working on miscellaneous SkateFAIR projects and eating lunch - all at the same time! I admit I was a bit exhausted by the time we left time just from watching her. I thought I had a lot of energy but I surrender my crown as Queen of Multitasking.

I was also in awe of the many signs that SkateFAIR member had made and mailed in from all over the country. The signs that Janice made are works of art and if they don't get on TV, there is no justice. Cleo and Monica's signs looked like professionals had done them. Ann has also been busy making "No Secret Judging" signs in many languages including Italian and Russian. The one my sister made for me in Chinese fit right into that international environment showing that SkateFAIR is concerned about all the skaters, not just the North American ones.

After leaving most of the pins with Ann, my mom and I made our way over to the Convention Center. Once we wandered around aimlessly for a long time, we finally found the practice hall where I was able to easily get in my extra bag of SkateFAIR stickers and buttons in spite of the fact that doing so violated all the posted rules. (I can only hope we are this lucky tomorrow for our pin and button party.)

Confession time: I felt kind of goofy wearing my SkateFAIR polar fleece vest (available online for a mere $33.99US) and No Secret Judging button. I was sure all the volunteers would glare at me or give me a hard time for disrupting "their" competition. But I was wrong.

Not only did no one say Boo to us, as soon as we got to the bleachers I heard "It's SkateFAIR people!" in an excited tone of voice from a friendly woman who turned out to be Marlene - a fellow SkateFAIR member. She was very happy to get some buttons and pins of her own and when other fans saw her getting them, they came running over to get some too. Some of them had heard of us just recently when they had discovered our web site and some knew nothing about us but the "No Secret Judging" message resonated with them.

In fact, I had several people approach me as I was walking around trying to figure out how to buy Worlds merchandise asking where they could get a button and later on I ran into some more SkateFAIRians who had come all the way from Vancouver.

John and Stephanie had heard about SkateFAIR on the Skatefans list and also on FSU (Figure Skating Universe). I had heard that there was some controversy about SkateFAIR over there but since I'm not a member I didn't understand what "the big deal" was. So I asked.

Stephanie's take is that there are some skating fans who are afraid that if we shake things up, the ISU will respond by making even more changes that we won't like and things will get worse instead of better. Her own opinion? "I don't think it can get any worse."

While chatting with Stephanie and John, a quiet woman came up to us and made a comment I didn't catch about my No Secret Judging button. It took me a while to figure it out, but it was Naomi, our PR Goddess. Part of my confusion stemmed from the fact that she looked nothing like I was expecting. She looks about 10 years younger, 25 lb. lighter and 5 inches taller than I thought based on her comments online. (I definitely can't believe she's older than I am.)

While we were introducing ourselves and handing out more buttons and pins, another fan came up to see if they could get a button too. She had never heard of SkateFAIR so I got to watch Naomi in action as she gave a verbal demonstration of our various "talking points." It was awesome.

At this point, I decided to pay some attention to the skating. Most of the skaters hadn't shown up yet but I do have some interesting news to report. First, Galit and Sakhnovsky have ditched Lord of the Rings/Lord of the Dance and gone back to their Paganini Free Dance of two years ago! Second, all rumors to the contrary, the Chinese team is here and attached to this report is proof in the form of a photograph. Finally, the Compulsory Dances are drawn and going to be the Austrian Waltz and the Tango Romantica. I knew you were dying to know that.

While watching the practices, in I roped my mom into helping me get a head start on putting stickers on the pin bags. It was exhausting but I feel better knowing that all the people who have pledged for pins have their pins set aside for them.

Finally, after hundred of pins got stickers and lots of skaters got applauded, we dragged ourselves home where I decided to do a quick peek online to catch up on the doings of a Trading Spaces message board I hang out at when not rabble rousing for SkateFAIR. That is where I saw this heartwarming message for us:

As a longtime skating fan, one who was fortunate enough to go to Lillihammer in '94 and also attended the Nationals here in Cleveland a few years back, I'd like to thank you and the rest who are working to return credibility to this wonderful sport. I hope your protests finally start to drive home the message to TPTB in skating that the days when the sport was their own little fiefdom where they could do as they pleased have to come to an end.

And on that note, I think I'll take myself off to bed.