Wow! Gorgeous style.

[pETEs (Sasha Fan)]

What a great finding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNFB4AD04Ak Fumio Igarashi to Tchaikovsky's "R+J".

 

[Spun Silver]

You are so right. That was beautiful! The skating, the program, the music -- gorgeous. I see igarashi was coached by Frank Carroll and was fourth at Worlds in 1981. I immediately thought of Uno and Machida and wondered if he had anything to do with them, even indirectly (as in a Japanese school of skating). Though TBH it was his low free leg coming out of jumps that reminded me of Shoma right off the bat.

 

[Prancer]

An article about Fumio Igarashi.

Apparently he now runs an owl cafe in Tokyo.

I remember him well .

 

[rosewood]

Igarashi worked at Dentsu for a while after his retirement. He also worked in JSF as well as a commentator on NHK. And then he ran the cute owl cafe in Tokyo. It's a hearsay but he got sick and sadly he had to close his owl cafe last year. Wish a quick recovery for him.

Loved the video. His skating is gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.

 

[aftershocks]

What a great finding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNFB4AD04Ak Fumio Igarashi to Tchaikovsky's "R+J".

Yes, I remember seeing this performance recently (as a result of Frank's retirement and discussion about some of his former skaters). I wondered why I'd never seen this exciting performance before nor knew anything about Igarashi. It's probably because back-in-the-day, fs coverage was so limited and so many skaters' performances were chacked from tv broadcasts.

So another Japanese skater performed to R&J before Hanyu. Of course, Igarashi skated to the classical version, not to the famous R&J movie soundtrack.

 

[pETEs (Sasha Fan)]

Igarashi worked at Dentsu for a while after his retirement. He also worked in JSF as well as a commentator on NHK. And then he ran the cute owl cafe in Tokyo. It's a hearsay but he got sick and sadly he had to close his owl cafe last year. Wish a quick recovery for him.

Loved the video. His skating is gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.

It is gorgeous, indeed.

 

[Seerek]

Good find!

Here's Fumio Igarashi defeating then reigning World champ Charles Tickner to win 1978 Skate Canada (coach Frank Carroll can be seen):

Fumio Igarashi - 1978 Skate Canada Long Program

 

[Spun Silver]

Thank you for posting that. He is incredible. I'm in awe.

I could hardly recognize Frank with all that hair!!