Alissa is not done yet
Alissa Czisny has no desire to watch the replay on video -- and she won’t.
More than anyone, Czisny knows what happened 11 days ago at the World Figure Skating Championships when she fell seven times in the ladies competition and finished 22nd. It was one of the worst results ever by an American female skater with her ability at the event.
“I don’t want to watch that -- I mean, who does performances like that?" she asked, forcing a smile as she shook her head in disbelief.
This morning at a coffee shop in Bloomfield Hills, Czisny sat with her laptop answering emails and reading comments posted about her on a figure skating Web site. A former two-time U.S. ladies champion (2009 and 2011), Czisny said she’s grateful; most of the posts have been supportive.
“We love your skating no matter what,” one fan wrote.
Czisny, 24, is in the second week of a two-week break. She said she was invited by U.S. Figure Skating to compete in the upcoming ISU World Team Trophy in Japan, but her primary coach, Jason Dungjen, turned it down.
Czisny said it was the right decision: “I wanted to go because I love going to Japan and the event seems like it’s a fun event. But I wasn’t ready to skate again after that.”
Czisny is talking about what happened last month in Nice, France, when she and reigning U.S. champ Ashley Wagner traveled to worlds knowing they were capable of helping the U.S. recapture the third ladies berth for next year’s world championships in London, Ontario.
Wagner responded to the challenge: She took fourth overall.
Czisny, who was fifth at worlds in 2011, didn’t come close. The skater opened with a 16th -place performance in the short program after falling on two jumps and stepping out of a double axel. But despite the dismal start, Czisny said she thought she could make up ground in her free skate because the margin separating 16th and third wasn’t insurmountable - just 12 points.
But instead of mounting a charge, she did worse. She fell on five of her seven jump attempts, and the other two weren’t clean.
Czisny finished with 124.11 total points, more than 60 points behind world champion Carolina Kostner of Italy (189.94).
“I didn’t feel that bad on the ice, for the short or the long,” Czisny said. “I felt like couldn’t stay on my feet because I actually felt like I could jump -- and every time I went to go jump, I ended up on the ice. I’d get up and I was like, ‘OK. I’m not sure what happened but I’ll keep trying.'"
Czisny said she was grateful that her mother was able to travel to France for the competition.
“Being with her really helped me because I was so disappointed and discouraged,” she said. “When you finish something like that, you just want to quit. ... That wasn’t the case, but that’s how you feel."
Czisny has been the most consistent American female on the international level, despite her roller coaster performances. She has qualified for four of the last six world championships and the last two ISU Grand Prix Finals, including winning the event during the 2010-11 season.
And she’s not done.
Although she hasn’t discussed her future with her coaches yet, Czisny nodded affirmatively when asked if her plans include skating competitively next season.
“I could go pro and have a career and still enjoy it,” she said. “But there’s a big part of me that says, ‘I don’t want to go out like that.’ I love competing, even as much as I struggled with it this year.”
Asked if she could ever become national champion again, Czisny said: “I have no doubts about that. It’s, obviously, within my capabilities and that’s definitely my goal again.”
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