Irinia comments on Mao and Michelle!

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-olycol25dec25,1,3874660.story?coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true

Very interesting. I think if she doesn't win in Turino she will be a sore loser. I especially like:

"She is a good jumper, but she is still young, a young girl, and she is skating like a young girl."

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and

"It's really hard to put us together," Slutskaya said. "She is jumping, just a junior skater. You can be a good jumper, but you must be a woman, too. She really is not."

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and

Slutskaya said she missed Kwan's friendship and competitive push this season. "I was waiting for her in China but she was injured. I was so sad," Slutskaya said. "She is a great competitor and I look forward to seeing her soon."

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Sounds very much like a Maria Butyrskaya comment to me!

Sorry I don't see it as a "sore looser" comments (from the quotes provided in the original post). I see nothing offensive or anything new to warrant a new thread. I think most of us would agree that while Mao's jumps are fantastic, Mao's presentation is still very juniorish, especially when she skates to Carmen. Had she chosed a different piece of music, then perhaps, junior style would not be so apparent. Young Clara was more appropriate.

Please give it a rest! As "is Irina a nice person thread" wasn't enough or cover every quote that irina had ever muttered???


Yana

I was just going to post this here, but with a different emphasis.

I happen to think she's right on, actually. Mao is too young, and she DOES skate like a girl.

I think people read into Irina's comments because while Mao obviously could refine her skating, she is still a force to be reckoned with. A lof of times, people see young talent and say they are someone to follow. Mao is making bigger waves than people expected...NOW, not later on down the road.

I don't think Irina's comments were that of a sore loser. However, Irina's comments were honest. She was simply stating what she has observed, and what she felt.

"She is a good jumper, but she is still young, a young girl, and she is skating like a young girl."

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Sorry, but Mao DOES skate like a young girl. Mao is 15 years old, Irina is 26 years old.There is a big difference between 15 and 26. Plain and simple facts within that comment.

"It's really hard to put us together," Slutskaya said. "She is jumping, just a junior skater. You can be a good jumper, but you must be a woman, too. She really is not."

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Whenever I have seen Mao skate, all I have seen was jumps here, jumps there. All Mao does is jump, jump and jump some more. Mao does skate like a junior skater. Irina is right, good jumping is an essential skill, but you must also skate like a woman. It does seem hard to skate like a woman when you are not a woman. A 15 year old teenage girl is not a woman. Doesn't sound like a typical sore loser comment to me. Just honest.

I watch *LADIES* Figure Skating to watch *ladies* compete, not children. I don't know about the original poster, but I have no intrest in watching children compete against each other in a *ladies* competition

"Slutskaya said she missed Kwan's friendship and competitive push this season. "I was waiting for her in China but she was injured. I was so sad," Slutskaya said. "She is a great competitor and I look forward to seeing her soon."

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Don't see anything here to support the suggesstion of Irina acting like a "sore loser". To me, it just sounds like a skater who was hoping to meet up with one of her friends at a competition, and could not come to the competition due to injury. It is possible for Irina and Michelle to you know actually, be friends off the ice?

I have seen nothing to suggest Irina is a "sore loser". And if Irina is a "sore loser" then at least she's an honest one. Irina is NOT a sore loser, rather a mature and beautiful lady who happens to be *honest*.

flutterby1145 said:

Whenever I have seen Mao skate, all I have seen was jumps here, jumps there. All Mao does is jump, jump and jump some more. Mao does skate like a junior skater.

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Well Irina lost to this junior skater who just jumps, didn't she?

Good skating is not decided by it's a girl's skating or it's a woman's skating. It should be judged by edges, spins, and jumps. It's not necessarily woman's skating is always better than girl's skating, or the other way around. It's also not right that Mao has to be judged by a woman skating style. Mao may not looks like very mature woman until her 40s, just like most east Asian women do.

jesslily said:

Good skating is not decided by it's a girl's skating or it's a woman's skating. It should be judged by edges, spins, and jumps. It's not necessarily woman's skating is always better than girl's skating, or the other way around.

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I agree with this. Plus, under the New Judging System, it doesn't really matter what our preferences are (this isn't the Marshall's Invitational, where the fans get to vote).

At Japanese Nationals Mao did two triple Axels in her free skate. That's 15 points, girl or woman. Shizuka beat Mao by 5 points in PCS, presumably in part because of her mature presentation skills. But in TES, Shizuka lost to Mao by 8 points.

MM

flutterby1145 said:

ISorry, but Mao DOES skate like a young girl. Mao is 15 years old, Irina is 26 years old.There is a big difference between 15 and 26. Plain and simple facts within that comment.



Whenever I have seen Mao skate, all I have seen was jumps here, jumps there. All Mao does is jump, jump and jump some more. Mao does skate like a junior skater. Irina is right, good jumping is an essential skill, but you must also skate like a woman. It does seem hard to skate like a woman when you are not a woman. A 15 year old teenage girl is not a woman. Doesn't sound like a typical sore loser comment to me. Just honest.

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And when I watch Irina, all I see is a skater who jumps, jumps, jumps. When Irina won in Moscow, no one was saying how Irina was so graceful etc. Everyone made a big deal about Irina's massive triple jumps. So why are we going to downgrade Mao's achievement just b/c she landed a lot of triples? It's not as if Irina is not doing the same. Personally, triple jumps are triple jumps. It doesn't matter who is doing them. As for not watching little girls, Irina was a teenager too and I'm pretty sure a lot of people liked her skating then as they do now.

Mao is a superior skater to Irina in many way. She doesn't have the sloppy fallouts out of spins like Irina tends to have in many of her performances. She related to her music better and she has wonderful ice coverage and stroking. She can hold her positions better, but Irina at 26 years old needs to watch her positions as well. As for Irina skating like a lady.. well ladies skate in all different styles. The implication that ladies automatically have better presentation is laughable. And there are a lot of people who don't think that Irina's sloppy skating exemplifies how a lady's skating should look like.

Mao is a lovely skater. I'm just wondering how she'll do when her body grows (although there's a smaller concern when compared to non-Asian skaters) and wear and tear takes their toll.

Skating really needs enduring champions as opposed to one hit wonders. The last 3 Olympic Ladies Gold Medalists have their fans, but have pretty much left the sport.

I can't remember where I read or heard this, but I think Kurt Browning said that part of the decrease in pro skating is the lack of personalities going pro and staying pro for an extended time. The champions of the late 80's and early 90's in North America have had long illustrious careers - Boitano, Hamilton, Yamaguchi, Witt, Kerrigan, etc have each had post Oly skating careers that have spanned 10+ years each - now, they are all pretty much leaving the ice to continue their lives. 1998: Tara-retired, Kulik somehow missed the Oly train, Kazakova/Dmitriev - retired, Grishuk/Platov - split. The 2002 Olympians: S/P, B/S - still skating, but smaller media spotlight due to lack of competition, Hughes - essentially off ice, Yagudin - skating skills declined due to injury, Anissina/Peizerat - retired?

heyang said:

Skating really needs enduring champions as opposed to one hit wonders. The last 3 Olympic Ladies Gold Medalists have their fans, but have pretty much left the sport.

I can't remember where I read or heard this, but I think Kurt Browning said that part of the decrease in pro skating is the lack of personalities going pro and staying pro for an extended time.

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Well I say this all the time and I'm glad that Browning agrees . In a sense the real winners (as opposed to gold medalists) in the last two olympics were skaters like Stojko, Kwan or Slutskaya who stayed high profile for years and didn't fade rapidly after the olympics (for whatever reason).

On the other hand, that's not the only reaons for a decrease in pro skating, there used to be an amateur / pro division that was absolute (despite a little bit of reinstatement wriggling in the early 90's). Now the division is eligible and ??? Technically lots of skaters who no longer compete are still eligible to, they just don't. I'm not sure what a good model would be. Keeping in shape for eligible skating is difficult and time consuming and dangerous (which contributes to skaters winning big and then disappearing altogether). But there's no clearly defined next step which is another reason skaters are staying in eligible competition longer.
Ideally I'd like to see two tracks, I just don't know what they are yet.

Does professional skating need a lot of national, world, and Olympic champions? Maybe not. Now there are fewer made-for-TV professional competitions or shows, SOI and COI are doing shorter tours, where do the money come from to pay all the skaters who have the titles and are willing to do the shows? So many of them left. Tara pursues acting, LuLu went back to China working as a skating director, many others either coaching, or doing business...

There's some truth in what Irina said, but I still prefer Michelle's practice of not making derogatory remarks about the skating of her competitors, true or not.