Janet's Second List of Exciting Skaters You've Never Heard of Before

As promised, I'm back with a ladies' singles version of the last post I made. In "Exciting Skaters You've Never Heard of Before," I talked about some men I didn't know much about before the start of the season, but by the end I found myself rooting for them to do better. I could have included many more, but I kept it at my top six.

I'm currently not as invested in the ladies as I am the men. The men are just so exciting right now with all their quads and the crazy battles for spots on the podium. I love my men's singles skaters more than I'll ever love these ladies, but I'm still interested in where they'll go in the next season.

Without further ado, let's get on to looking at some interesting female skaters who might be worth watching next season.

To start off the list, I'd like to look at Maria Sotskova. She's an 18-year-old Russian skater. Actually, she just turned 18 on April 12th, so happy belated birthday to her. She has a very pretty, soft style of skating which I prefer over the styles of some of the other Russian ladies currently. I can't stand her tanos (a variation on jumps where one arm goes over the head, named after Brian Boitano), which look a little bit like fish out of water flopping around. I do see some good potential if she can just refine her skating a little bit and maybe get some slightly more interesting programs in the next season.

Next up is Wakaba Higuchi, a 17-year-old skater from Japan. Wakaba was the Japanese lady who was not sent to the Olympics, much to many fans' consternation. She came in second at Worlds this year after a phenomenal free skate. She's not quite consistent yet, but I love her style of skating and I'm interested to see where she goes this next season.

The third skater I want to draw attention to is another Japanese lady. Marin Honda is just 16 years old. She has nice flow and good jumps, but she's been underperforming in her last competitions, likely from the stress of Japanese Nationals. She recently switched coaches to Rafael Arutunian, who is well known for being an excellent technical coach. My hope is that she does well with Raf and he's able to help her improve her technical issues. I'm excited to see where their partnership goes next season.

The next skater is, once again, Japanese. Rika Hongo is 21 years old. The biggest problem I see with her is her posture. If she can fix that, she's got some very strong jumps and a wonderful presense when she's skating. She draws you into her programs and always keeps them interesting. I'd like to see her improve this season, because she's actually one of my favorite Japanese ladies at the moment.

The final skater in this list is Loena Hendrickx, an 18-year-old from Belgium. Her brother is actually Jorik Hendrickx, whose skating I enjoy a lot. Loena had an all-around terrible short program at the Olympics, but managed to redeem herself in the free. She made three personal best scores at Worlds this year, which was her redemptive event after the Olympics. I actually really enjoy watching her programs when she does them well. She has lovely lines and if she could just get consistent, she would be very pleasing to watch.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoy my list of ladies' singles skaters who are somewhat underrated in my opinion, and definitely check out their skating if you're interested. I won't be doing this for either pairs or dance, just because I don't follow those closely enough to have many favorites. I'll try to write about something that's not skating in the future, but don't count on it, because it's the off-season and I really just want to talk about skating.

As always, if you would prefer some nice, solid ladies' singles to watch, here are the top five from the Olympics. I'm sure you'll be able to find at least one program you like.

1. Alina Zagitova
2. Evgenia Medvedeva
3. Kaetlyn Osmond
4. Satoko Miyahara
5. Carolina Kostner

Have a nice day/night!