After
Mariah Bell finished her free skate at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2019 in Anaheim, California, last month, she acknowledged the crowd, put her hands on her hips and skated, a bit reluctantly, toward the kiss-and-cry. She knew she was in for some sharp words.
"That was not enough speed, you understand?" a mildly exasperated Rafael Arutunian said as he handed over her skate guards. "For that Lutz, from that spiral, you have to go into it from steps."
Arutunian, her coach of nearly three seasons, continued analyzing her performance until her marks came up. Doubling the intended triple Lutz cost Bell big, as did a fall on a triple loop: third after a stellar short program, her free skate performance dropped her to sixth place overall.
"The mistakes I made were simple losses of focus and silly mistakes, honestly," Bell said on a media call a few days before leaving her training site in Southern California for the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2019 in Saitama, Japan.
"I know the mistakes I made were me losing my focus for a second," she added. "Just being able to stay in the moment when I'm competing is something I'm taking away from that experience [as] what I need to do in the future."
Refining her focus may be the final hurdle for Bell to clear on the way to full-fledged stardom. After moving to California to train with Arutunian in August 2016, the 22-year-old Oklahoma native had flashes of brilliance, winning a Skate America silver medal and U.S. bronze. But last season, she dropped to fifth in the U.S. and missed out on the 2018 Olympics. She placed 12th at the 2017 and 2018 World Championships.
The skater regained her footing this season, putting in solid performances at her Grand Prix events and placing third at U.S. Championships, where a fall on a triple Lutz combination in her free skate may have cost her the title.
"There is more consistency, but there is still a lot of work to do," Arutunian told NBC Sports in January. "I think it's about her head. She has to believe what we're doing. September has been two years she's working with us. She's at a point where she can peak more now."
In other words, after nearly three years of perfecting her technique under Arutunian's guidance, it's time for her to put it all together.
"Raf is extremely hard, he's not for the faint of heart, I would say," Bell said. "But if I went to him and I said, I don't know, 'I lost my phone,' or 'A tire came off my car,' he would do whatever he needed to do to help me in that situation. He truly cares for his athletes and the people that they are."
Will Saitama, where the ladies take the ice for their short program on Wednesday afternoon (Japanese time), be the competition where Bell puts out two strong programs? She makes no predictions, but told reporters her training was "awesome" in the month since Four Continents.
"The way I've been able to become stronger in my head or more confident this year is knowing I've had more time with Rafael and have a much better understanding of what he wants and expects from me," she said. "Just having that repetition of doing something correctly over the two years has given me a lot of confidence."
The years in California have brought Bell happiness off ice. She and long-time love, Frenchman Romain Ponsart, recently moved to Irvine, close to the new Great Park Ice and FivePoint Arena. After the World Championships, Arutunian will move to Great Park with his skaters, including Ponsart; Michal Brezina of Czech Republic; Japan's Marin Honda; South Korea's Lim Eun-soo; and, when he's not attending classes at Yale University,
Nathan Chen.
"(Romain) trains with me, he understands what I'm feeling," Bell said. "For example, as I get closer to Worlds, he understands the excitement and maybe the nerves I have. I can talk to him and he truly understands it."
Off-ice, the couple indulged their addiction to ABC's
The Bachelor this winter, rushing home from the rink to fix dinner in time to enjoy the show's romance and over-the-top drama. Outdoors, they go on bike rides and walk their bunny rabbit, Gizmo.
"I'm trying to learn French -- I say this now, but I haven't actually spoken French with Romain in a while," Bell said. "I FaceTime with my mom for hours at a time. I FaceTime my sister, I call my dad …. I'm lucky to have so many people in my life that bring so much joy."
It all sounds rather adult, something that's not the fashion in ladies' figure skating these days, with
Alysa Liu hitting triple Axels and claiming the U.S. title at age 13 and Russian teenagers winning Olympic and World titles. At the U.S. Championships, media asked Bell how it felt to be one of the "senior citizens" of the sport.
"It's so funny to me, just because last year there were girls that were older than me in the U.S. competing, I didn't get any of these questions, and I was almost the same age as I am now," Bell said. "I'm only one year older, I'm not all of a sudden 50 years old."
"I've said it before, I don't see my age and even Rafael doesn't see my age as any problem at all," she added. "If anything, I am at a position in my life where I truly understand my body. I'm not growing any more, I can continue to gain strength and work on maintaining my health. As long as I'm healthy and strong, I don't see an age limit on how long I can compete."
But Saitama is go time, and Bell knows it. She has all the tools she needs to make her mark: on-ice charisma, speed and power, and – when they're on – big, attractive jumps. Now she needs to shut out the noise and take each element one at a time to capitalize on her strengths.
"Staying focused – that's something I'm still learning how to do," she admitted. "There's not a magic pill you can take. Sometimes in the past I would try to avoid the things that would maybe be distractions to me at competitions. Now I understand there's no reason to do that, because it's going to happen anyways. I should just acknowledge it and bring the attention back to myself."
Reporter's notebook
- Ponsart, a four-time French medalist, missed the French Championships this season due to an injured back. He placed 16th in the world last season.
- The skater's older sister, Morgan, is a three-time U.S. Championships competitor who now performs professionally, touring in the role of Anna in "Disney on Ice presents Frozen."
- Bell declined to offer any placement goals for worlds, but said, "It's another event I'm doing to lead up to my ultimate goal, which is the Olympics in 2022. At Worlds, I want to continue to skate consistent and solid like I've been skating this year and improve on the little mistakes I made at Four Continents. I think ultimately if I can go and put out two programs I'm proud of and that I have no regrets about, I will walk away from Worlds really happy."
