Five final thoughts on 2016 Worlds

As if I hadn't written enough (or Tweet-yelled enough) during the week of incredible skating at the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships, I have a bit more to say. Looking back, I can absolutely say that it was the best World Championships I've ever witnessed, and I've seen a good number of them. This Worlds had the toughest programs and the deepest fields, and to top that off, the crowds were absolutely electric all week long. I leave you with five more thoughts, in no particular order.

2016 Worlds: Full coverage

1. Rough one for comebacks
It was really not a great Worlds for skaters who were coming back after taking last season off. Patrick Chan (5th), Mao Asada (7th), and Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov (6th) were all considered podium contenders and left Boston without medals. Chan, at least, got a small medal after finishing second in the short. You wonder what their next steps are, and you also wonder how comebacks on the horizon, in the form of Carolina Kostner and Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir, will do next season.

Of course, the one return that had a happier ending was Aliona Savchenko, but she came back skating with a new partner, Bruno Massot, so I consider that more a debut than a comeback.

2. The Arutyunyan effect
Not all coach-student relationships work out, but when it does work, it's pretty incredible. Rafael Arutyunyan has had high profile pupils in the past - Michelle Kwan and Mao Asada among them - but the fit has never been better than with Adam Rippon and Ashley Wagner. I don't think I've ever seen a coach transform skaters quite the way that Arutyunyan did with Rippon and Wagner.

Rippon, who had loads of success as a junior and in his first seasons as a senior, looked to be on his way out after dropping to eighth at U.S. Nationals in 2014. Wagner, who experienced a resurgence in her career when she started training with John Nicks, looked to be plateauing after a seventh at the Olympics and Worlds in 2014.

But the past two seasons turned them from strong to incredible. You see it especially in their practices - there's a regimen and a diligence in training every jump in exact the same way that you didn't see two years ago. It's created this muscle memory that they can trust in competition, and it translated into career-best skating in Boston last week.

3. Pair women are amazing
Of all the athletes in figure skating, pair women are the ones that have to deal with the most punishing falls (Pogofalls™ notwithstanding). We saw over and over again how resilient they are - Wenjing Sui (in practice) and Cheng Peng (in competition) crashed into the boards on pretty jarring falls. They get tossed into twists nine feet in the air (see: Savchenko) and launched into throws 20 feet across the ice, not to mention they have to put their trust in their partners in lifts that are more intricate and difficult than they've ever been.

4. Pogorilaya turned a lot of heads
And not because of her back-breaking falls (though I did see a Pogofall™ in practice). She came into Worlds with quite the underdog status, especially since Evgenia Medvedeva and Elena Radionova were the two stars for Russia all season. There was a point after Europeans, where she skated two subpar programs, where you thought her berth to Worlds was in some jeopardy. But she came to Boston and conquered, taking the bronze, her first World medal, with two career-best performances. All of a sudden, Pogorilaya has broken through, and it was perhaps the most unexpected breakthrough of the season.

5. I'm Feelin Good
Those of you who followed me on Twitter during Worlds know all too well that my #FeelinGoodFreakout was pretty epic. Of all the music out there in the skating world, I really didn't expect Michael Buble's Feelin Good to be the most overused piece this season. Between practice sessions, pre-competition warmups, and the actual competitions, I must've heard that song at least 25 times over the course of last week. But hey, if I can watch skating like that, I will gladly subject myself to more.

That said, I'm almost certain that we won't be hearing Feelin Good next season. Watch me eat my words. You know how I feel.