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Johnny at US Nationals
A bunch of articles and some pictures. You can also listen to audio of his press conference here!
Johnny Weir talks Lady Gaga, 'Carmen,' road ahead
Jan 28 | By Michelle Smith
SAN JOSE -- Johnny Weir was in the building Friday night, talking about creativity and competition, Lady Gaga and "Carmen," marriage and friendships, but mostly about the comeback he's about to make in competitive figure skating.
Weir, the three-time national champion, announced his comeback earlier this month, saying he intends to return to the ice and prepare to compete for a spot in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
He showed up here on the same day as the men's short program was being contested in the U.S. Championships, a night that ended up being dominated by a couple of training partners from Detroit, the current heart of U.S. Figure Skating.
Two-time national champion Jeremy Abbott set the bar high with a charming and clean performance, scoring a 90.23 and taking a sizeable lead heading into Sunday's free skate. Right below him on the scoreboard was training partner Adam Rippon (82.94), and Armin Mahbanoozadeh was third (80.66). Defending U.S. silver medalist Richard Dornbush had a disastrous program, falling on his first jump and popping out of two others to tumble to 16th place.
After a "pretty crushing" fourth-place finish at last year's nationals, Abbott said he felt "fantastic" Friday night, snapping his suspenders and skating with spirit and speed.
"I've just building confidence with each competition and slowly kind of chugging forwards and upwards," Abbott said. "I just kind of feel like the 'Little Engine That Could' at this point. To see a score of 90, it's huge."
Rippon has never finished higher than fifth at nationals and had a history of struggling with his short program in this event.
"I think it's really affected my whole skating in a really positive way," said Rippon, who began training with Abbott last summer with coaches Jason Dungjen and Yuka Sato. "I feel like we are kind of coming in here as a team."
Weir, meanwhile, was in town to get reacquainted with the sport he walked away from after finishing sixth in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
"I have found, especially in the last few months, that I really like performing, that I love figure skating in front of people," Weir said. "It's easy to forget that when you are competing and have the pressure of all that. I love skating and sparkling and flying around the ice and people clap for you. It's an amazing feeling."
Weir will return and once again become one of the most interesting figures in the sport. On Friday, he showed up carrying a fur coat, wearing a pinkish streak in the front of his hair and painted nails. He said it is his intent to skate with more freedom at this stage in his career, and to worry less about scores and required elements.
"I do hope that I will win something," Weir said. "I would love to become a four-time national champion and, leading up to Sochi, a five-time champion. And world medals ... all those things are beautiful and sacred and something that I hope for. But they are not something that I can control. So I'm going to skate exactly the way I want to, create programs that I like and everything will fall into place where it is supposed to."
Weir said he has been working on dropping weight (another 6 to 8 pounds) so he can get back to his full complement of jumps, including the quad. He said he has been on the ice since the fall, ramping up to every-day skates over the past few weeks. He intends to skate events beginning in the summer leading into the next season.
"I can do all of my triples and my triple-triple combinations," Weir said. "We are working on fresh spins, fresh positions, working on my edge work ... The biggest thing for me has been relearning how to skate.
"I've already said to my fans and the press of the world that this is going to be a slow comeback, I'm not going to come back and be No. 1 right away. There's some comfort that I can come back and fall down and I can move forward."
He is working to talk his coach, Galina Zmievskaya, into letting him mix Lady Gaga and "Carmen" for his long program.
"I don't know if it will happen. Galina is very anti-mixing," Weir said. "But we are definitely coming up with creative ideas ... I showed her and played them back to back and she said 'Hmm,' and that's a positive thing for me."
He said he came back with the support of his husband Victor Voronov. The two were married in New York on New Year's Eve.
"Victor is very supportive of my comeback," Weir said. "It's important to me to have a strong and happy marriage, especially being a young gay couple and it being a very new thing for the world for gay people to actually be married. I wouldn't have come back if Victor had told me no."
Weir will find himself again competing against 2010 Olympic champion Evan Lysacek, who is set to resume his competitive career in the next few months. The two have had a tumultuous relationship through the years.
"He and I have had a rocky relationship. We were very competitive with each other, from the same country, competing for the same titles," Weir said. "As testy as he and I have been, he was literally one of the first three people to congratulate me on my engagement and my marriage. So, despite all of our rivalry, we do have mutual respect."
Weir had plenty of praise for Abbott, even before Abbott's performance Friday night.
"Jeremy Abbott beat me and Evan in the last two years that we were competing against him in the national championships and I think he's a great skater," Weir said. "I would much rather watch Jeremy Abbott than [Canadian] Patrick Chan [the 2011 World Champion]. He is beautiful on the ice. He's very smooth. The way he connects his elements is very interesting. Much like me, he's had a very up-and-down career. My hope was that after me and Evan were out that he would be the face of men's figure skating."
Source
Two-time Olympian Johnny Weir speaks about his skating comeback
By Elliott Almond
The always flamboyant Johnny Weir never lacks in entertainment value.
The two-time Olympian was at it again Friday at the U.S. Figure Skating championships at HP Pavilion speaking to a handful of reporters in an all-black get-up that he said hid six extra pounds around his waist. Weir, 27, spoke from the hip about his comeback after a two-year layoff that has exciting skating fans.
He has rejoined coaches Galina Zmievskaya and Viktor Petrenko to prepare for next season and a run toward the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Weir's decision could make the road to the next Winter Games interesting as 2006 Olympic Evgeni Plushenko has mounted a comeback and 2010 gold medalist Evan Lysacek said he also is returning.
They might own gold medals but neither skater can match Weir at the microphone.
"I realized figure skating is huge and the biggest part to my life but it isn't everything," he said. "So I can come back to competition without my future resting on one performance.
"Whether I'm first or not it doesn't matter. This is a vanity project. I want to be thin and beautiful and skating in amazing costumes."
The three-time U.S. champion didn't hesitate to discredit the international judging system employed after the scoring scandal in the pairs competition at the Salt Lake Games 10 years ago.
"Right now Canada is politically strong," Weir said. (World champion) Patrick Chan can fall down four times and win by 40 points. It is quite evident a lot is going on behind the scenes that we are not privy to.
"The system is a lot of hot air. They try to make it as complicated as possible so you can't see what goes on behind closed doors. The system is just smoke and mirrors."
Weir still is miffed by getting sixth at the Vancouver Games despite a strong free skate. He felt he deserved to finish third or fourth.
"One year I was winning my Grand Prix (competitions) and then at the Olympics people beat me who fell down. The way I was skating wasn't interesting to the judges."
He called the free skate the moment of his life. "I accomplished it all in those four minutes in front of the world," he said. "Then my marks came up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see who is liked and who isn't."
Weir said a high-level skating official told his coach, "I wish we knew he was going do that."
Said the New York skater: "Why should it matter if they had known I was going to skate a certain way? It should have a fair sport judged on what you do that day."
He called Chan's quadruple jump beautiful. "But I just always learned if you fall down you shouldn't win a competition," he added. "It's the politics around Patrick that I don't like. There are certain things that aren't my favorite to watch. His hands and feet are sluggish at times to how quickly he skates."
After such comments Weir hasn't endeared himself to the judging community. But he isn't returning to make nice.
"My time for an Olympic medal might have passed in 2006," Weir said of the Turin Games. "It's not for medals or judges that I would come back. The comeback is for me. Now I can come back and completely enjoy it. I don't have the pressure of 'You either win the Olympics or you work at Home Depot.'"
That attitude has allowed Weir to consider creating a program mixing the raw power of Lady Gaga and the elegance of Carmen. He said it suits him because "on the ice I'm supposed to be elegant and off the ice I'm this train wreck of a fashion person."
Weir is discussing the arrangements for next season in San Jose with U.S. officials. He hopes his resume is enough to earn a spot in a Grand Prix competition. That would allow Weir to avoid going through regional and sectional qualifiers to earn a trip to the 2013 U.S. championships.
He also understands being a two-time Olympian doesn't give him a hall pass straight to the nationals. He will have to earn his place.
Weir recently returned to the rink in Hackensack, N.J., after a honeymoon in the Dominican Republic with spouse Victor Voronov. (The couple got married a few weeks ago). Not surprisingly the trip turned into a Weir adventure. He recounted getting a bad rash after touching seaweed while taking a dip.
"I got stung by algae," he said. "It was man-eating seaweed. I am terrified of sharks, now I am terrified of plants."
The skating world might be terrified of Weir. He's one skater who knows how to command a stage.
Source
The Inside Edge: Stylish Weir, beloved Kwan
Ladwig does good deed, retired legends embrace time off ice
By Sarah S. Brannen and Drew Meekins, special to icenetwork.com
(01/27/2012) - Johnny Weir held a lengthy press conference Friday afternoon to talk about his comeback, dressed in celestial all-black, with a black feathery brooch with pearls and a crystal drop, and silver stripe in his hair.
"I'm channeling Cruella De Vil" he said, clutching a monstrous Chanel bag. But we didn't see any puppies.
"I'm very excited to return to competition," he said. "I'm excited to get to work. I've been on the ice with Galina [Zmievskaya] since the fall, kind of secretly, at night, or in the morning before anyone had their mascara on, to see what my body's like as a 27-year-old gentleman. Now that I've taken two years off from competition and had time to eat and get fat, write a book, record a song, get married, I've realized that figure skating isn't everything. I realize I can come back without my entire future resting on one performance.
"My comeback is entirely for personal gain. This is kind of a vanity project. I want to get back on the ice and be thin and beautiful ... I don't know why but I have a quite high public profile for a figure skater. My time for an Olympic medal may have passed in 2006. This is kind of to put figure skating back on the map for pop culture."
Asked about the prospects for U.S. skating on the international scene, Weir said that the U.S. ladies, while incredible, will have a tough time beating the women from Russia and Asia. What about the men?
"In the men, we don't have anyone who will beat Patrick Chan or Evgeni Plushenko," he said. "Right now, Canada is obviously politically very strong. Patrick Chan can fall down four times and still win. There's obviously a lot going on behind the scenes that we're not privy to.
"I think Jeremy Abbott has done a good job of carrying on where Evan [Lysacek] and I left off. As far as the full package, we don't really have that in America right now."
Asked if he will compete even if he doesn't feel he can win events, Weir said, "I'm smart enough to know when my time is definitely over. If by the summer or fall I'm not where I need to be to compete, I'll hang up the skates. I'm not a dumb person. I'm not going to throw myself out in front of the cameras of the world if I'm not good enough to be there ... Of course I hope I can win something. I'll compete well. I'll try not to fall down."
Weir is considering a medley of Carmen and Lady Gaga for one of his programs, which he says Zmievskaya is skeptical about. He also says one of the main motivations for his comeback is that the Olympics are in Russia.
"It would be a beautiful way to end my career in a place that's inspired my whole career," he said. "U.S. Figure Skating has been quite open to my comeback. We've been talking about it for quite some time. They've been supportive, but they want me to understand that no one gets special treatment; I'd have to go through regionals and sectionals even to get to nationals in Omaha."
"I can do all my triples, and I'm going to go back and work on quads. If I get pregnant, then I can't do quads because I'll be too fat."
Source
WEIR'S WORLD: Time off hasn't tamed Johnny Weir
By Nancy Armour, Associated Press
Published: Friday, Jan. 27 2012
A week after announcing his comeback, Weir was at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Friday and no topic was off limits. The judging system, world champion Patrick Chan, "man-eating seaweed" - the three-time U.S. champ didn't shy away from any of it.
"It's not for winning an extra few gold medals in Grand Prixs and then a world medal. It's not about that. This comeback is for me," Weir said. "This comeback is for me to compete and feel great and feel I can do this and feel I can accomplish something. ... I can come back and completely enjoy it because I have a life. ... I don't have the pressure of being, 'You either win the Olympics or you work at Home Depot.' I'm not having that moment right now.
"I've built a life, I know what I'm capable of, I know what I can do. This figure skating thing won't define me."
Weir has always been delightfully refreshing, on and off the ice. He is one of the few skaters who speaks his mind, even when he knows it won't go over well with judges and federation officials, and he can be counted on for thoughtful answers on a variety of topics. His colorfulness is part of his massive appeal, and he's the rare athlete who's achieved crossover status, as likely to turn up on TMZ as on ESPN.
Weir embraces that celebrity, and hopes his return will help revive interest in skating.
"We've obviously been in a lull, as you all know. People don't really watch or come to events," he said. "I hope to ... bring attention to the amazing talents that are in this sport. That sounds pretty PC for me, but my time for an Olympic medal may have passed in 2006. ... This is to put figure skating back on the map with pop culture again. That's something I feel I'm in good position to do."
Make no mistake, though, Weir doesn't plan to be some sideshow. It will take time, but Weir thinks he can once again be a medal contender. He's already able to do all of his triple jumps again, as well as triple-triple combinations, and is hoping to be working on a quadruple jump by March. He would like to do at least one Grand Prix, but is open to going to lower-level international events to get face time with the judges.
And if it gets to be the end of the summer or early fall and he doesn't feel he can be competitive, than Weir said he will pull the plug on his comeback.
"I think it's definitely possible for me to get back to a place where people think of me as a threat," he said. "(But) I'm not a dumb person. I'm not going to throw myself out in front of the cameras of the world ... if I know in my heart I'm not good enough to be there."
Source
Johnny also did commentary for the men's SP on icenetwork, and although I haven't heard any of it, here's a quick preview...
Also, we have a new layout up! :) I hope everyone likes it. If not, it can always be changed. If there are any glitches or problems, please let me know. :)
Johnny Weir talks Lady Gaga, 'Carmen,' road ahead
Jan 28 | By Michelle Smith
SAN JOSE -- Johnny Weir was in the building Friday night, talking about creativity and competition, Lady Gaga and "Carmen," marriage and friendships, but mostly about the comeback he's about to make in competitive figure skating.
Weir, the three-time national champion, announced his comeback earlier this month, saying he intends to return to the ice and prepare to compete for a spot in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
He showed up here on the same day as the men's short program was being contested in the U.S. Championships, a night that ended up being dominated by a couple of training partners from Detroit, the current heart of U.S. Figure Skating.
Two-time national champion Jeremy Abbott set the bar high with a charming and clean performance, scoring a 90.23 and taking a sizeable lead heading into Sunday's free skate. Right below him on the scoreboard was training partner Adam Rippon (82.94), and Armin Mahbanoozadeh was third (80.66). Defending U.S. silver medalist Richard Dornbush had a disastrous program, falling on his first jump and popping out of two others to tumble to 16th place.
After a "pretty crushing" fourth-place finish at last year's nationals, Abbott said he felt "fantastic" Friday night, snapping his suspenders and skating with spirit and speed.
"I've just building confidence with each competition and slowly kind of chugging forwards and upwards," Abbott said. "I just kind of feel like the 'Little Engine That Could' at this point. To see a score of 90, it's huge."
Rippon has never finished higher than fifth at nationals and had a history of struggling with his short program in this event.
"I think it's really affected my whole skating in a really positive way," said Rippon, who began training with Abbott last summer with coaches Jason Dungjen and Yuka Sato. "I feel like we are kind of coming in here as a team."
Weir, meanwhile, was in town to get reacquainted with the sport he walked away from after finishing sixth in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
"I have found, especially in the last few months, that I really like performing, that I love figure skating in front of people," Weir said. "It's easy to forget that when you are competing and have the pressure of all that. I love skating and sparkling and flying around the ice and people clap for you. It's an amazing feeling."
Weir will return and once again become one of the most interesting figures in the sport. On Friday, he showed up carrying a fur coat, wearing a pinkish streak in the front of his hair and painted nails. He said it is his intent to skate with more freedom at this stage in his career, and to worry less about scores and required elements.
"I do hope that I will win something," Weir said. "I would love to become a four-time national champion and, leading up to Sochi, a five-time champion. And world medals ... all those things are beautiful and sacred and something that I hope for. But they are not something that I can control. So I'm going to skate exactly the way I want to, create programs that I like and everything will fall into place where it is supposed to."
Weir said he has been working on dropping weight (another 6 to 8 pounds) so he can get back to his full complement of jumps, including the quad. He said he has been on the ice since the fall, ramping up to every-day skates over the past few weeks. He intends to skate events beginning in the summer leading into the next season.
"I can do all of my triples and my triple-triple combinations," Weir said. "We are working on fresh spins, fresh positions, working on my edge work ... The biggest thing for me has been relearning how to skate.
"I've already said to my fans and the press of the world that this is going to be a slow comeback, I'm not going to come back and be No. 1 right away. There's some comfort that I can come back and fall down and I can move forward."
He is working to talk his coach, Galina Zmievskaya, into letting him mix Lady Gaga and "Carmen" for his long program.
"I don't know if it will happen. Galina is very anti-mixing," Weir said. "But we are definitely coming up with creative ideas ... I showed her and played them back to back and she said 'Hmm,' and that's a positive thing for me."
He said he came back with the support of his husband Victor Voronov. The two were married in New York on New Year's Eve.
"Victor is very supportive of my comeback," Weir said. "It's important to me to have a strong and happy marriage, especially being a young gay couple and it being a very new thing for the world for gay people to actually be married. I wouldn't have come back if Victor had told me no."
Weir will find himself again competing against 2010 Olympic champion Evan Lysacek, who is set to resume his competitive career in the next few months. The two have had a tumultuous relationship through the years.
"He and I have had a rocky relationship. We were very competitive with each other, from the same country, competing for the same titles," Weir said. "As testy as he and I have been, he was literally one of the first three people to congratulate me on my engagement and my marriage. So, despite all of our rivalry, we do have mutual respect."
Weir had plenty of praise for Abbott, even before Abbott's performance Friday night.
"Jeremy Abbott beat me and Evan in the last two years that we were competing against him in the national championships and I think he's a great skater," Weir said. "I would much rather watch Jeremy Abbott than [Canadian] Patrick Chan [the 2011 World Champion]. He is beautiful on the ice. He's very smooth. The way he connects his elements is very interesting. Much like me, he's had a very up-and-down career. My hope was that after me and Evan were out that he would be the face of men's figure skating."
Source
Two-time Olympian Johnny Weir speaks about his skating comeback
By Elliott Almond
The always flamboyant Johnny Weir never lacks in entertainment value.
The two-time Olympian was at it again Friday at the U.S. Figure Skating championships at HP Pavilion speaking to a handful of reporters in an all-black get-up that he said hid six extra pounds around his waist. Weir, 27, spoke from the hip about his comeback after a two-year layoff that has exciting skating fans.
He has rejoined coaches Galina Zmievskaya and Viktor Petrenko to prepare for next season and a run toward the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Weir's decision could make the road to the next Winter Games interesting as 2006 Olympic Evgeni Plushenko has mounted a comeback and 2010 gold medalist Evan Lysacek said he also is returning.
They might own gold medals but neither skater can match Weir at the microphone.
"I realized figure skating is huge and the biggest part to my life but it isn't everything," he said. "So I can come back to competition without my future resting on one performance.
"Whether I'm first or not it doesn't matter. This is a vanity project. I want to be thin and beautiful and skating in amazing costumes."
The three-time U.S. champion didn't hesitate to discredit the international judging system employed after the scoring scandal in the pairs competition at the Salt Lake Games 10 years ago.
"Right now Canada is politically strong," Weir said. (World champion) Patrick Chan can fall down four times and win by 40 points. It is quite evident a lot is going on behind the scenes that we are not privy to.
"The system is a lot of hot air. They try to make it as complicated as possible so you can't see what goes on behind closed doors. The system is just smoke and mirrors."
Weir still is miffed by getting sixth at the Vancouver Games despite a strong free skate. He felt he deserved to finish third or fourth.
"One year I was winning my Grand Prix (competitions) and then at the Olympics people beat me who fell down. The way I was skating wasn't interesting to the judges."
He called the free skate the moment of his life. "I accomplished it all in those four minutes in front of the world," he said. "Then my marks came up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see who is liked and who isn't."
Weir said a high-level skating official told his coach, "I wish we knew he was going do that."
Said the New York skater: "Why should it matter if they had known I was going to skate a certain way? It should have a fair sport judged on what you do that day."
He called Chan's quadruple jump beautiful. "But I just always learned if you fall down you shouldn't win a competition," he added. "It's the politics around Patrick that I don't like. There are certain things that aren't my favorite to watch. His hands and feet are sluggish at times to how quickly he skates."
After such comments Weir hasn't endeared himself to the judging community. But he isn't returning to make nice.
"My time for an Olympic medal might have passed in 2006," Weir said of the Turin Games. "It's not for medals or judges that I would come back. The comeback is for me. Now I can come back and completely enjoy it. I don't have the pressure of 'You either win the Olympics or you work at Home Depot.'"
That attitude has allowed Weir to consider creating a program mixing the raw power of Lady Gaga and the elegance of Carmen. He said it suits him because "on the ice I'm supposed to be elegant and off the ice I'm this train wreck of a fashion person."
Weir is discussing the arrangements for next season in San Jose with U.S. officials. He hopes his resume is enough to earn a spot in a Grand Prix competition. That would allow Weir to avoid going through regional and sectional qualifiers to earn a trip to the 2013 U.S. championships.
He also understands being a two-time Olympian doesn't give him a hall pass straight to the nationals. He will have to earn his place.
Weir recently returned to the rink in Hackensack, N.J., after a honeymoon in the Dominican Republic with spouse Victor Voronov. (The couple got married a few weeks ago). Not surprisingly the trip turned into a Weir adventure. He recounted getting a bad rash after touching seaweed while taking a dip.
"I got stung by algae," he said. "It was man-eating seaweed. I am terrified of sharks, now I am terrified of plants."
The skating world might be terrified of Weir. He's one skater who knows how to command a stage.
Source
The Inside Edge: Stylish Weir, beloved Kwan
Ladwig does good deed, retired legends embrace time off ice
By Sarah S. Brannen and Drew Meekins, special to icenetwork.com
(01/27/2012) - Johnny Weir held a lengthy press conference Friday afternoon to talk about his comeback, dressed in celestial all-black, with a black feathery brooch with pearls and a crystal drop, and silver stripe in his hair.
"I'm channeling Cruella De Vil" he said, clutching a monstrous Chanel bag. But we didn't see any puppies.
"I'm very excited to return to competition," he said. "I'm excited to get to work. I've been on the ice with Galina [Zmievskaya] since the fall, kind of secretly, at night, or in the morning before anyone had their mascara on, to see what my body's like as a 27-year-old gentleman. Now that I've taken two years off from competition and had time to eat and get fat, write a book, record a song, get married, I've realized that figure skating isn't everything. I realize I can come back without my entire future resting on one performance.
"My comeback is entirely for personal gain. This is kind of a vanity project. I want to get back on the ice and be thin and beautiful ... I don't know why but I have a quite high public profile for a figure skater. My time for an Olympic medal may have passed in 2006. This is kind of to put figure skating back on the map for pop culture."
Asked about the prospects for U.S. skating on the international scene, Weir said that the U.S. ladies, while incredible, will have a tough time beating the women from Russia and Asia. What about the men?
"In the men, we don't have anyone who will beat Patrick Chan or Evgeni Plushenko," he said. "Right now, Canada is obviously politically very strong. Patrick Chan can fall down four times and still win. There's obviously a lot going on behind the scenes that we're not privy to.
"I think Jeremy Abbott has done a good job of carrying on where Evan [Lysacek] and I left off. As far as the full package, we don't really have that in America right now."
Asked if he will compete even if he doesn't feel he can win events, Weir said, "I'm smart enough to know when my time is definitely over. If by the summer or fall I'm not where I need to be to compete, I'll hang up the skates. I'm not a dumb person. I'm not going to throw myself out in front of the cameras of the world if I'm not good enough to be there ... Of course I hope I can win something. I'll compete well. I'll try not to fall down."
Weir is considering a medley of Carmen and Lady Gaga for one of his programs, which he says Zmievskaya is skeptical about. He also says one of the main motivations for his comeback is that the Olympics are in Russia.
"It would be a beautiful way to end my career in a place that's inspired my whole career," he said. "U.S. Figure Skating has been quite open to my comeback. We've been talking about it for quite some time. They've been supportive, but they want me to understand that no one gets special treatment; I'd have to go through regionals and sectionals even to get to nationals in Omaha."
"I can do all my triples, and I'm going to go back and work on quads. If I get pregnant, then I can't do quads because I'll be too fat."
Source
WEIR'S WORLD: Time off hasn't tamed Johnny Weir
By Nancy Armour, Associated Press
Published: Friday, Jan. 27 2012
A week after announcing his comeback, Weir was at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Friday and no topic was off limits. The judging system, world champion Patrick Chan, "man-eating seaweed" - the three-time U.S. champ didn't shy away from any of it.
"It's not for winning an extra few gold medals in Grand Prixs and then a world medal. It's not about that. This comeback is for me," Weir said. "This comeback is for me to compete and feel great and feel I can do this and feel I can accomplish something. ... I can come back and completely enjoy it because I have a life. ... I don't have the pressure of being, 'You either win the Olympics or you work at Home Depot.' I'm not having that moment right now.
"I've built a life, I know what I'm capable of, I know what I can do. This figure skating thing won't define me."
Weir has always been delightfully refreshing, on and off the ice. He is one of the few skaters who speaks his mind, even when he knows it won't go over well with judges and federation officials, and he can be counted on for thoughtful answers on a variety of topics. His colorfulness is part of his massive appeal, and he's the rare athlete who's achieved crossover status, as likely to turn up on TMZ as on ESPN.
Weir embraces that celebrity, and hopes his return will help revive interest in skating.
"We've obviously been in a lull, as you all know. People don't really watch or come to events," he said. "I hope to ... bring attention to the amazing talents that are in this sport. That sounds pretty PC for me, but my time for an Olympic medal may have passed in 2006. ... This is to put figure skating back on the map with pop culture again. That's something I feel I'm in good position to do."
Make no mistake, though, Weir doesn't plan to be some sideshow. It will take time, but Weir thinks he can once again be a medal contender. He's already able to do all of his triple jumps again, as well as triple-triple combinations, and is hoping to be working on a quadruple jump by March. He would like to do at least one Grand Prix, but is open to going to lower-level international events to get face time with the judges.
And if it gets to be the end of the summer or early fall and he doesn't feel he can be competitive, than Weir said he will pull the plug on his comeback.
"I think it's definitely possible for me to get back to a place where people think of me as a threat," he said. "(But) I'm not a dumb person. I'm not going to throw myself out in front of the cameras of the world ... if I know in my heart I'm not good enough to be there."
Source
Johnny also did commentary for the men's SP on icenetwork, and although I haven't heard any of it, here's a quick preview...
Click to viewAlso, we have a new layout up! :) I hope everyone likes it. If not, it can always be changed. If there are any glitches or problems, please let me know. :)