Witt and Thomas-between 86 and 88 2 of most overscored skaters ever?

I thought the big battle of the Carmens between Witt and Thomas was overplayed at the 88 Olympics - little did anyone suspect a dark horse by the name of Elizabeth Manley would have the skate of the night and steal the show from the two prima donnas. Liz was inspiring and brought the house down. Although Liz won the silver, it was like gold. Witt was in first place and only had to do a clean performance to win gold - which she did, but it was certainly not that inspiring. I thought Witt's Carmen was better than Thomas's who seemed off her game when she skated. The hype that was played between Witt and Thomas worked in Manley's favour. I really don't think anyone was expecting the turn of events that took place in Calgary in the ladies, but it sure made for one exciting skate. It was great.

I do agree that Witt was often overmarked and held up by the judges. She was one tough cookie and could easily intimidate her competitors - I think that was part of her key to success.

Mafke said:

Thomas was 4th in the LP (after Manley, Witt and Ito) very quick non-foolproof calculations show that the medal standings would have remained unchanged had she placed fifth after trenary or even if she were 6th behind Trenary and Leistner.
Looking at the placements at:

http://winter-olympic-memories.com/index.htm

I think Ito would have to have placed second in the lp and Thomas as low as 8th for Ito to place ahead of Thomas overall. (if you accept the rankings going into the lp). Thomas was leading going into the lp (with a hefty lead over the third and fourth ranked skaters. She'd have had to do somewhat worse than she actually did to get knocked off the podium.

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Ito should have placed 2nd in the long though(which would have given Manley the gold over Witt). She(Ito) was hammered too harshly on the presentation scores which were even lower then her short program.

As for Thomas? I am not sure she should have been as low as 8th but she should not have been 4th in the long that is for sure. Both Trenary and Leistner should have beaten her in the long program. I did not see Kondrashova and Koch skate so I am not sure on them. Ivanova was a complete mess in the long and still placed 9th right behind Kondrashova and Koch, so unless Kondrashova and Koch were somehow much better then her, Thomas probably did not do that bad in the long to be 8th as it turned out, but she sure as heck did not deserve 4th in the long and her scores were an outrageous gift. A 5.8 for technical merit with only 2 clean triples?!?! What a joke.

Add to that I happen to truly believe Ito, Kadavy, and Trenary all had better shorts then both Thomas and Witt but the judges were afraid to move from the heavily marketed status quo of those big 2 being in front of everyone else, without one of the two either sitting on the ice in the midst of their program, or being totally blown away somehow by another regarded contender(like Manley and to an extent Ito did in the long program). If the short program had seen greater reward given to Ito or/and Trenary then even more likely Ito or Trenary could have taken the bronze from Thomas by Thomas coming no higher then 6th in the free skate. That part of is more subjective though obviously.

So either way even if Thomas did deserve the bronze her long program was almost undeniably overscored.

Mafke said:

I think you're looking at an 1988 performance with 2006 standards.

I'm not an expert on judging criteria but I think high jumps and speed were not quite as important then. IIRC 'speed and power across the ice' was just developing as judging criterion but skaters were expected to not only have a slow section in their programs but skate more slowly to it (as opposed to changing body positions more slowly while skating as fast as possible like now). Go back a few years more, look at John Curry's 1976 LP and marvel at how _slow_ he is.

And I don't think heighth in jumps was especially rewarded then.

And ... (getting to dangerous ground here) ladies were expected to skate like ladies (and not adorable little girls). Ito's programs were in terms of choreography (and her persona itself) a little on the immature side, more juniorish than appropriate for seniors.

That said, in terms of skating history, Ito's performances were clearly the most important in all the competitions at Calgary as (like Janet Lynn in 1972) they directly and indirectly led to a fundamental re-thinking of the sport and long term change in competition format and judging standards so that similar performances would be able to win in the future.

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The way I see it though is that Thomas's only real assets were were her speed, power, height of jumps, explosiveness of jumps. Ito had all that over her in free skating routines, and that was all Thomas had. Ito obviously had the jump difficulty over her too, even considering Thomas having hard ways of combing jumps. So comparing the two I see no reason Thomas should have ever beaten Ito when Ito skated clean in either a short or long program if it were judged on merit.

slutskayafan21 said:

The way I see it though is that Thomas's only real assets were were her speed, power, height of jumps, explosiveness of jumps. Ito had all that over her in free skating routines, and that was all Thomas had. Ito obviously had the jump difficulty over her too, even considering Thomas having hard ways of combing jumps. So comparing the two I see no reason Thomas should have ever beaten Ito when Ito skated clean in either a short or long program if it were judged on merit.

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Thomas' line, polish, and posture were superior to Ito's as well, she had clean positions in spins, and her spins were generally well centered.

Just because she wasn't a pwincess doesn't mean that Thomas didn't have a grace of her own on ice, as well as power and authority.

hockeyfan228 said:

Thomas' line, polish, and posture were superior to Ito's as well, she had clean positions in spins, and her spins were generally well centered.

Just because she wasn't a pwincess doesn't mean that Thomas didn't have a grace of her own on ice, as well as power and authority.

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As usual I dont agree with a single thing you say.

hockeyfan228 said:

Thomas' line, polish, and posture were superior to Ito's as well, she had clean positions in spins, and her spins were generally well centered.

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And she could skate some mean figures too (I've been looking for a video of ABC's coverage of figures in 1988, IIRC they show Thomas' entire paragraph loop which is just beautiful to watch.

And ... I think one aspect of the 3-part system (figures, SP, LP) in place in the 80's was that judges were looking (partly unconsciously) to reward skaters who could do well in all three parts. Once you gained a reputation as a skater who choked in area and you were liable to suffer in the other areas as well. It may not be entirely fair but it's understandable.

Ito in 1988 was essentially a green swan, she was so much better at jumping than any other woman (1988 Ito would competitive now) the judges were I think flummoxed, you could only get so much credit for jumping and I think they did as well by her as they thought they could but it also must have seemed a little like overkill. To make things harder for them, the things that held her free skating back (juvenile posture and presentation) were also very popular with audiences.

Mafke said:

And she could skate some mean figures too (I've been looking for a video of ABC's coverage of figures in 1988, IIRC they show Thomas' entire paragraph loop which is just beautiful to watch.

And ... I think one aspect of the 3-part system (figures, SP, LP) in place in the 80's was that judges were looking (partly unconsciously) to reward skaters who could do well in all three parts. Once you gained a reputation as a skater who choked in area and you were liable to suffer in the other areas as well. It may not be entirely fair but it's understandable.

Ito in 1988 was essentially a green swan, she was so much better at jumping than any other woman (1988 Ito would competitive now) the judges were I think flummoxed, you could only get so much credit for jumping and I think they did as well by her as they thought they could but it also must have seemed a little like overkill. To make things harder for them, the things that held her free skating back (juvenile posture and presentation) were also very popular with audiences.

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The events I saw Ito was VERY popular with audiences and they often called for higher scores. Then again Witt was as well. Thomas was only in North America but alot of events were in North America back then. Still I would say Ito was a big crowd favorite.

Mafke said:

Ito is one of my two or three favorite skaters ever, but no, she shouldn't have won the 88 olympics with the rules that were in place at the time (and I'm not just talking about her low placement in figures).
And saying now what we think the rules should have been then is more speculation about alternate histories than anything else.

But I fully agree that the total of her SP and LP (especially the latter) were the most fun to watch.

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What exactly would these "other" rules be?

She certainly deserved 1st place for the Short and Long programs for technical merit under the 6.0 system and the presentation mark was always totally subjective anyway.

~Z

Zuranthium said:

What exactly would these "other" rules be?

She certainly deserved 1st place for the Short and Long programs for technical merit under the 6.0 system and the presentation mark was always totally subjective anyway.

~Z

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Technical merit =/= jumps alone

I'm sure she got as full marks as the judges could give for jumps but the rest of her elements were solid but not oh-my-god spectacular as those were.
The standard for final group elite ladies at that time was about 5 triples. Doing 7 triples was a little like a skater who violates Zayak or COP jumping pass limits, the crowd may love it but the judges aren't going to reward it fully.

And, again, her presentation (and persona) was very juniorish in an era when elite ladies were supposed to be more womanly and sophisticated. As much as I love Ito's skating (very, very much) sophisticated she wasn't.

But then she did change the course of figure skating, for all the high flying rationalizations that go on in the ISU the one thing that gets the rules changed are crowd favorites that don't win (because of the rules).
If Janet Lynn got figures reduced in importance and the SP added then Ito got rid of figures and paved the way for jumping beans who trade on youthful enthusiasm and/or peak early.

IIRC, Trixi Schuba never displayed very much at all in her short or long programs - aside from the fact that she was about as sexy, graceful and ladylike as a Cold War borderguard......
She didn't have to, she tended to be so unbelievably far ahead after the compulsory figures, that basically all she had to do to win was stand on the ice without falling over.
I never saw enough of Debi Thomas to really judge whether or not she was overscored, but if she was indeed being 'held up' by (some) judges, it may have had something to do with a kind of 'American underdog vs. The Big Bad Eastern Bloc Champion (Witt)' imagery, Rocky vs. Ivan Drago, if you will.......
Especially the US media LOVES that kind of stuff.
I personally never quite got what was all that great about Ms. Witt, either, her so-called 'flirtatious' style basically consisted of her making A LOT of eye contact with the audience, which most of the other skaters don't, they're too much into themselves (meaning their programs, of course...) to even notice there's anyone watching.
And in those days, once you won one event, you would probably also win the next 5 or 6, unless you messed up REALLY BAD, which Katarina Witt never did, so she won everything for like 10 years or something (at least it seemed that long).
And yes, based on the long program, Liz Manley should have run away with the gold in Calgary, with neither Carmen even close enough to see her exhaust.

Wolfgang said:

IIRC, Trixi Schuba never displayed very much at all in her short or long programs - aside from the fact that she was about as sexy, graceful and ladylike as a Cold War borderguard......
She didn't have to, she tended to be so unbelievably far ahead after the compulsory figures, that basically all she had to do to win was stand on the ice without falling over.

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The reason the judges couldn't lowball her on figures based on her lack of freeskating skills was because they were twice as big as everyone else's and extremely accurate.

Wolfgang said:

And yes, based on the long program, Liz Manley should have run away with the gold in Calgary, with neither Carmen even close enough to see her exhaust.

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Which might have happened under CoP. Ordinals standardize the differences between performances. Virtual tie in the LP gets 1, 2. Silver medallist choking in the exhaust of the gold medallist's LP gets 1, 2.

Mafke said:

Technical merit =/= jumps alone

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Her spins and footwork sequences were just as harder or harder than that of all the other ladies. She was the only person to do a flying sitspin and I specifically remember her footwork sequence in the long program having many difficult change of edges and toe work.

Mafke said:

I'm sure she got as full marks as the judges could give for jumps but the rest of her elements were solid but not oh-my-god spectacular as those were. The standard for final group elite ladies at that time was about 5 triples. Doing 7 triples was a little like a skater who violates Zayak or COP jumping pass limits, the crowd may love it but the judges aren't going to reward it fully.

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This makes no sense at all.

#1 - Debi Thomas had 6 planned Triples in her long program; it was hardly seen as bad to do lots of strong jumps.

#2 - Midori had 7 jumping passes in total....every other lady had at LEAST that many and most of them jumped more than that, simply doing doubles instead of Triples (Liz Manley had 9 jumping passes....5 triples, 2 double axles, 2 double flips).

Mafke said:

And, again, her presentation (and persona) was very juniorish in an era when elite ladies were supposed to be more womanly and sophisticated. As much as I love Ito's skating (very, very much) sophisticated she wasn't.

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So you're saying Liz Manley's raved performance was extremely sophisticated? She used a lot of cartoonish poses and "non-serious" music. Drama has always been > Comedy for these things (Serious > Fun), but it's not a law of gravity.

Saying "that wasn't their mindset at the time" is not a good argument either. We are looking back in history and trying to determine by today's standards if certain skaters were overscored or not. Certainly the views of the judges were not the views of all skating aficionados anyway. It's exactly the same in present day time...no single opinion is shared by everybody. Just because something is prevalent that doesn't make it completely accurate or correct.

~Z

Wolfgang said:

IIRC, Trixi Schuba never displayed very much at all in her short or long programs - aside from the fact that she was about as sexy, graceful and ladylike as a Cold War borderguard......

I personally never quite got what was all that great about Ms. Witt, either, her so-called 'flirtatious' style basically consisted of her making A LOT of eye contact with the audience, which most of the other skaters don't, they're too much into themselves (meaning their programs, of course...) to even notice there's anyone watching.

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The SP wasn't introduced until 1973, Schuba retired in 1972.
The only video of Schuba's freeskating I've seen recently was 1968 worlds, where she was third in figures, fourth overall.

She wasn't terrible, there was just nothing unique and wonderful about her free skating, that is it was neither especially graceful or powerful for the time. But it was watchable. The modern era skaters she would remind me of are Jennifer Robinson, maybe Sarah Meier.
Her biggest problem was that she didn't do _anything_ with her arms but held them almost straight out parallel to the ice.

Witt's strength was that she could cut the mustard competitively. She never looked to skate the 'program of her life' (1987 worlds I think) but to do just enough to win. Her strategy in 1984 and 1988 was to lay down a solid if not brilliant performance.

OK. I've been giving this some thought and would like to share my take on this. Some of this has been mentioned by previous posters on this thread, but I have no problem backing up their points.

First, one must take the "It" factor into consideration. Both Debi and Katarina had, in their own ways, the "It" factor that set them apart from most of their competitors (on whom I'll elaborate in my second point). One personally may not understand, get, or respond to the "It" factor in a certain skater, but most judges always do. (For example, I don't deny that both Oksana Bauil and Tara Lipinski had the "It" factor as well, but they both personally drove me up the nearest wall). [For that matter, so did Katarina Witt, long about 1988 onwards] Debi and Katarina were both very original, unique talents.

Secondly, let's look at their relative competition. Manley -- not good in figures until about '87 (And yes, we do have to take a bit of a leap here and assume that figures judging was more or less accurate). She was 3rd in the long program at the 86 Worlds, but was in 10th place at the time. Had much better position going into the long at the 87 Worlds, BUT the 1987 Worlds, in Ladies, was an INCREDIBLY well skated competition, IMHO, by just about the entire top 10 so her program kind of got lost in the shuffle. Ito -- even WORSE at figures than Manley and had even more catching up to do. Cadavy -- part of the problem here was the fact that international judges at that time in singles were reluctant to give a lot of support from 2 skaters from the same country, and Thomas was the Chosen One for the US. Karyn is one of my all-time favorites, but even I will allow that Thomas was more DYNAMIC a skater, and the judges responded to that better. Had Kadavy won a NATIONAL title, the international judges may have been more willing to put her more in contention. Trenary -- when you really think about it, she didn't skate well internationally in either 87 or 88. She came in in 87 as the upstart US National champion, bombed the figures, and couldn't come out of the hole created by that in a competiton where, as I mentioned, all the top ladies were pretty much ON. In 88, at both Olys and Worlds, she just didn't skate especially well. Not badly, just not well. (Bear in mind, she was NEVER the strongest competitor, from a mental perspective, that the US has ever seen. Way too prone to nerves.) Ivanova -- just a flat out mediocre, at best, free skater. Ironically, tho, in her later seasons, when she wasn't pulling great marks in free skating, I actually thought she was BETTER than her earlier seasons, when she was pulling pretty good marks. But she was never one to set the place on fire. Leistner -- IMHO, Leistner's best years were behind her by the time 86-88 rolled around; she was much better in 82 and 83. By the time the Witt-Thomas rivalry emerged, she was just kinda dull. Kondrashova -- I could never understand why SHE wasn't the Soviet skater being pushed over Ivanova; I personally found her to be a much better free skater. However, I have read many posts on this board over the years that totally disagree and found her skating dull and wooden.

I think, however, the main factor that could be taken into consideration is the SKATING GROUP factor. Debi and Katarina were ALWAYS in the last group skating the long program; many times, strong free skaters like Manley and Ito were NOT. Under 6.0, standard procedure was to more or less save the best marks for the 6 skaters in the final group; one or two from the second to last group might finish in the top 6, but not often because the best marks were always saved for the last group, and someone had to skate VERY VERY BADLY for a judge to give them marks too far out of that "final 6" scoring group. Then when you add the figures into this equation -- well, grouping for the short program would be based on figures results. So when you consider that Ito, Manley, and often Kadavy, would have to skate in an EARLIER group in the short program than Thomas or Witt, they probably got undermarked simply because they skated too early and the judges had to leave room in the marks for the skaters coming later. So this would have kept them down in a lower place after the short than they probably should have been.

So do I feel that Debi and Katarina were overmarked? Yes, on occasion, maybe A LITTLE BIT. Not, IMHO, too excessively. But they'd hardly be the only ones who were ever overmarked. What I always did find interesting, tho, was Katarina's figures rankings. She had to struggle and come from behind at Worlds just about every year, but gee, MIRACULOUSLY, when the Olys rolled around (at both Sarajevo and Calgary) -- top 3, no problem. I always found THAT more than a bit odd.......

Zuranthium said:

We are looking back in history and trying to determine by today's standards if certain skaters were overscored or not. Certainly the views of the judges were not the views of all skating aficionados anyway. It's exactly the same in present day time...no single opinion is shared by everybody. Just because something is prevalent that doesn't make it completely accurate or correct.

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There are two kinds of questions I'm interested in:

Speculating on whether by the standards of the time they skated, certain skaters were overscored (held up).

Trying to imagine how the same skaters/performances would do if the standards of today were applied to their performances then.

I have no interest in speculating whether certain skaters were overscored then by the standards prevailing now. That assumes that the standards currently are in force are somehow better or more accurate than the standards operating then. I don't believe that's true.

For the record, I think the judges were being as kind as they dared in scoring her Calgary LP but as noted, she could have placed a few places lower without altering the finishing order.

And if Ito won both the SP and LP (assuming all other placements the same) she still would have finished off the podium (which would remain unchanged)

if the LP was
Ito
Manley
Witt
Trenary
Thomas

Oops, I hit post too soon. Ignore the last bit of previous post.

Zuranthium said:

So you're saying Liz Manley's raved performance was extremely sophisticated? She used a lot of cartoonish poses and "non-serious" music. Drama has always been > Comedy for these things (Serious > Fun), but it's not a law of gravity.

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Mafke mentioned Ito, not Manley, in the post you quoted.

"Non-sophisticated" is not the equivalent of "juniorish." Your description of Manley could have described Oksana Bauil in her Olympic LP, and I'm the only one who thought she looked "juniorish" in it. "Unsophisticated" could be said of Tara Lipinski -- although nothing was cartoonish in it -- but I'm not the only one who thought she looked "juniorish" in it.

Manley looked quite womanly and powerful in her Calgary LP, in my opinion. Ito did not look womanly until later in her career, when she improved her posture. I think she was sunk early by her musical choices, all of those romantic piano concerti in which she looked out of place. She would have appeared less juniorish if she wasn't using music that made her look like a kid trying on her mother's clothing.

hockeyfan228 said:

Manley looked quite womanly and powerful in her Calgary LP, in my opinion. Ito did not look womanly until later in her career, when she improved her posture. I think she was sunk early by her musical choices, all of those romantic piano concerti in which she looked out of place. She would have appeared less juniorish if she wasn't using music that made her look like a kid trying on her mother's clothing.

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Yes, Manley looked and skated like an adult with great choreography and delivery (the timing into and out of the salchow is soooo wonderful).

IIRC Calgary was the first senior competition that Ito displayed anything like mature presentation skills (that's another about judging then, your first breakthrough performance wouldn't necessarily be rewarded as highly as would later performances of the same caliber).

I wish she'd kept that style which emphasized her pure, clean power and just cleaned up a thing or two about posture and timing things to music and let herself naturally mature (as she did in 1989). Instead she began choosing unlikely music (Sheherezade was the first wrong step in that direction IMHO) and adopted frantic arm movements in an attempt to look 'artistic' which really didn't pay off.

If I recall correctly, there was a documentary about U.S Ladies called Fire and Ice featuring a really good quote from Jirena Ribbens.

She said something along the lines that there were better skaters than Katarina, but there was no better competitor.

Watch the 1985 worlds and you'll see what I mean. Witt is standing by the sidelines after her skate, staring down Tiffany Chin like there is no tomorrow.

For those of you interested, check out this site for some of Thomas' competitive performances:

www.docdebithomas.com

JonnyCoop said:

Ivanova -- just a flat out mediocre, at best, free skater. Ironically, tho, in her later seasons, when she wasn't pulling great marks in free skating, I actually thought she was BETTER than her earlier seasons, when she was pulling pretty good marks. But she was never one to set the place on fire. Leistner -- IMHO, Leistner's best years were behind her by the time 86-88 rolled around; she was much better in 82 and 83. By the time the Witt-Thomas rivalry emerged, she was just kinda dull. Kondrashova -- I could never understand why SHE wasn't the Soviet skater being pushed over Ivanova; I personally found her to be a much better free skater. However, I have read many posts on this board over the years that totally disagree and found her skating dull and wooden.......

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I so agree with you on Ivanova and Kondrashova. As flat and boring as Ivanova's whole skating was it is very obvious the Soviet federation were pushing her far more then Kondrashova. The only reason she did not win more medals in Olympic and Worlds competition, and win a gold at some point, is not because of her boring tedious skating, but because she always ended up screwing up her short or long, sometimes both badly enough the judges had no choice but to not give it to her.

I remember the 84 Olympics when Ivanova had not built up much reputation yet as had been barred from competiting outside of Russia for awhile. She was actually only 5th in figures, her strength usually. In the short she was 3rd, she had a technicaly sound performance but Kondrashova and Zayak had far more interesting performances, with better choreography, more flair, better spins I thought. Yet Ivanova still placed 3rd in the short over them, I had no idea why she beat Kondrashova in that short. They landed the same jumps and Kondrashova was far more elegant, more stylish, had a more sophisticated program, more detailed choreography, she actually expressed herself and emoted out there while Ivanova was a stone, pulling off some very strong jumps and good elements but nothing else. It was obvious Ivanova was the Russian who was going to make that Sarajevo podium, not Kondrashova, no matter what they did in the long.

Ivanova bombed at the 84 Worlds and Kondrashova medaled over her.

Still in the enusing years it is Ivanova was who was being pushed by the Russian federation and Kondrashova seemingly sold out on their attempt to push Ivanova. Ivanova could have won both the 85 Europeans and Worlds over Witt, she was in position to, and the judges scores for her performances indicated they were willing to, but she could not deliver a clean long program, something I have never seen her come close to doing in fact. She came 2nd in both events. In 86 she pretty much bombed out big time at Worlds. At the 87 Worlds she was actually leading going into the long, granted a large part due to compulsory figures results, still she turned in a multi-fall long program and some of the judges high scores for that kind of disaester makes you wonder what would have happened had she actually stayed on her skates. I would not be surprised if her win in the figures in Calgary were another attempt to set up for a potential podium finish, but she bombed out in the short and turned in a mess of a performance, then in the long didnt land a single jump cleanly.

Kondrashova on the other hand turned in many beautiful performances during that time that went underappreciated. She should have won the short program at the 86 Worlds but ended up tied for 2nd with Chin, and behind Thomas. She should have made the podium overall that year I felt but didnt. Her long program at Europeans 87 was underscored, and at the 88 Europeans she was beaten by Ivanova despite almost skating cleanly and Ivanova messing up many of her jumps. Her short program at Calgary was much undermarked IMO.

I do think it is clear the Russian federation tried to push Ivanova to bigger things and despite her unappealing skating style would have been successful in doing so if she could actually get through more of her performances staying on her skates. That is another reason I dont understand their pushing Ivanova over Kondrashova. Kondrashova was criticized for being inconsistent by some commentators alot of the time it seemed but she atleast turned in some clean performances, and very few of the total disaesters I saw from Ivanova. They went to all that effort pushing Ivanova at Kondrashova's expense yet Ivanova kept throwing away the chances they were giving him by messing up her jumps under the pressure of competition(all nerves I think since her jump technique seemed solid). Why would they have not rather spent their effort pushing a far more pleasing and flowing skater who was also probably the more likely to deliver in competition and not throw away the opportunites you were trying to push to get for her. I can only surmise it is since Ivanova was naturaly better at figures, so she is the one they tried to push even more for figure scores, and for free skating scores, and since Kondrashova wasnt as good at figures, given the time they felt it was more in their best interest to push the tedious, drab, and totally unreliable in competition Ivanova.