The Charm of Ice

The Charm of Ice tells the stories we don’t see

Pain, connection, justice.  These are some of the eight themes The Charm of Ice team spoke about with eighty star ice skaters around the world.  The Finnish trio, bestselling fiction-author Leena Lehtolainen, long-time figure skating journalist and editor-in-chief of the Finnish Figure skating magazine Kaisa Viitanen and globally renowned figure skating photographer and Sports Journalist of the Year 2016, Elina Paasonen interviewed and photographed Olympic- and World Champions and other skaters with interesting stories to tell across three different continents.

They met skaters in different conditions: off-season practices, during the ISU competitions, before and after glamorous ice shows.  The hard, daily life, the nerve-wracking championship battles and the glittery glamour of the shows were revealed to us by the intimate interviews and the masterful and captivating photos taken exclusively for this book.  Many of the skaters were surprised about the depth of the questions, many never asked of them before. A wide international community of figure skaters and coaches forms a kaleidoscopic view to the world of figure skating.

In The Charm of Ice the reader learns what kind of relationship the skater has with the ice; how you build a connection with your partner; and how one learns to endure the constant pain.  It tells how a competitor accepts being constantly judged, and the specifics a figure skater has to fight.  The Charm of Ice reveals the amount of physical strength the skaters have to achieve and the pressures they endure.  But all in all, the sport is about the charm, and the reader can experience it through their favourite skaters’ stories.

Elina Paasonen’s photographs form a unique collection, differing significantly from basic newspaper feature photos.  Paasonen, a former synchro-skating world medallist herself, can capture ’the’ moment of the program or off-ice setting in a unique and moving way, and many skaters are fans of her work.

Interviewees in the book include: Mao Asada, Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, Kiira Korpi, Daisuke Takahashi, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, and Ashley Wagner.