- Joined
- Aug 1, 2011
I wish I could be confident that the popularity of figure skating in the United States will automatically recover when the next Michelle Kwan comes along.
The loud laments about skating losing its audience began in about 2000. The real Michelle Kwan was at her height. At the previous Olympics U.S. ladies went 1-2. Youngsters such as Sasha Cohen, Sarah Hughes, Jenny Kirk and Naomi Nari Nam seemed to guarantee a bright future. The Salt Lake City judging scandal was in the unimagined future. Still, everyone was tearing his hair about the decline in audience interest, the loss of television revenue, and all the rest. In those days the culprit was supposedly that people were turned off by all the cheesefests and silly pro competitions.
Personally, I think the villain is simply cultural drift. I have the sad feeling that Japan is about to drift in the same direction, which will bring on the next round wondering what went wrong.
JMO.
This. Times a zillion. I've always thought the boom in skating post Kerrigan/Harding until Salt Lake City was more of an aberration than A Sign Of Things To Come. But it doesn't help that the ISU seems to be determined to aid and abet the drift.