Congratulations, Julia (Solution No. 3,309)

Julia and Philipp

Look below for the solution to Puzzle No. 3,309

One of the more rewarding aspects of blogging is to be able to give a shout-out to friends for their successes in their officiating careers.  But I’ve been remiss in not mentioning one of those people: Julia Rey, Bangle’s and The Other Doctor Mitchell’s skating coach.  With her brother, Julia was an international-level ice dance competitor, and she’s making a career out of skating by officiating as well as coaching.

Julia gets back today from two weeks at Nationals, where she served as Technical Specialist or Assistant Technical Specialist for every ice dance event in the competition, of which there were five.  Besides working Nationals, Julia has officiated at Junior Grand Prix and other major international competitions. The Technical Specialist is part of the new and rather complicated scoring system for figure skating, put in after the Olympic judging scandal in 2002.  Sometime before the Olympics, I’ll give you a layman’s explanation of how it works.
The Technical Specialist watches the skater’s performance on video and confirms what jumps and other elements the skater completes.  If the skater does not do a planned element properly (such as if he or she doesn’t complete the full revolutions or takes off or lands on the wrong edge, the Technical Specialist calls it, and the skater’s score will be reduced accordingly.

One of the unique parts of a skating official’s job is to watch the competitors in practice, so they can familiarize themselves with each skater’s program (which rarely changes over the course of a season) and identify which parts of it are most likely to be done improperly.  Julia also goes to training camps with our future national and international competitors to analyze their performance and help them improve.  Later this week, she’ll be part of the team helping Meryl Davis and Charlie White make their final preparations for Sochi.

Solution to The Nation Puzzle No. 3,309

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/177809/puzzle-no-3309

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): fairly hard

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” first or last letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters; “§” heteronym, “¶“ letter bank

Across

1a	EXPECT ORATIONS	EXPECT (“be prepared for”) + ORATIONS (“speeches”)
9a	~LOCKSMITH	~LOX MYTH (“the story of salmon,” homonym indicated by “narrated”)
10a	ENV(O)Y	ENVY (“deadly sin”) containing (“hiding”) O (“love”)
11a	P *RESIDIO	^P^ulaski (first letter indicated by “chief”) + *DIES OR I (anagram indicated by “fail”)
12a	<_SECRET_<	<in_TERCES_sion< (reversal indicated by “when withdrawn,” hidden word indicated by “shows”)
14a	E L F I N	^E^xterrestrial ^L^ines ^F^irs ^I^n ^N^ankeen (initials indicated by “caps”) I don’t get the phrase choice here.
15a	A(LONGS)IDE	AIDE (“assistant”) containing (“wrapping”) LONGS (“pines”)
17a	~CELL PHONE	~SELF OWN (homonym indicated by “when talking”), exclamation point because the wordplay is the same as the definition
19a	*SATYR	*ARTSY (anagram indicated by “strangely”)
21a	*NEO(C)ON	*NO ONE (anagram indicated by “bamboozled”) containing (“capturing”) ^C^ommittee (first letter indicated by “leadership”)
23a	PANELIST	PANE LIST
25a	<PACER<	<RECAP< (“to go over,” reversal indicated by “backward”)
26a	*IMPULSIVE	*UMP IS EVIL Of course such thoughts about sports officials are depraved…
27a	LET ME SLEEP ON IT	¶SIMPLETON (letter bank indicated by “letters–sometimes more than once”)

Down

1d	ECLIPS E	E-CLIPS (“electronic excerpts) + w^E^b (middle letter indicated by “central”)
2d	<POC< K *ETFUL	<COP< (“policeman,” reversal indicated by “rising”) + wee^K^ (last letter indicated by “end”) +*FLUTE (anagram indicated by “playing”)
3d	CU (SH) ION	SH (“quiet”) contained in (“found in”) CU ION (“copper atom”)
4d	OR (I *GINAT) OR	I (“one”) + *GIANT (anagram indicated by “evil”) contained in (“caught between”) OR + OR (“alternatives”) Partly a rebus clue.
5d	*ACHE	*EACH (anagram indicated by “contorted”)
6d	_ICEBERG_	cand_ICE BERG_en (hidden word indicated by “concealed by”)
7d	N_(EVE)_R	EVE (“first lady”) contained in (“to appear within”) ^N^ewspape^R^ (first and last letter indicated by “covers”)
8d	MY R(T_L)E	MY (†) + RE (“note”) containing (“about”) ^T^rai^L^ (first and last letter indicated by “beginning and end”)
13d	FOR EXAMPLE	FOR (“in favor of”) + EX-AMPLE (“former liberal”)
16d	~INTUITION	~INTO WISHIN’ (“passionate about hopin’,” homonym indicated by “to be heard”)
17d	C(AN)OPY	COPY (“ape”) containing (“swallows”) AN (†)
18d	PROGRAM	§PRO-GRAM (“for the metric system”)
19d	S(WELL) UP	WELL (“properly”) contained in (“inside”) SUP (“eat”)
20d	R(ETRE)AT	RAT (“traitor”) containing (“is about”) ETRE (“to be in French”)
22d	*ON CUE	*OUNCE (anagram indicated by “fluid”)
24d	PI US	PI (“irrational”) + on US (rebus)