The "Ice Queens"

OK, I'll re-enter the conversation. Tonya Harding really never was a candidate for "Ice Queen", even with her distinction of being the first American woman to land a triple axel in competition, her 1991 US title and 1991 World silver medal. Tonya was attractive, but she was too rough-edged to conform with the media and public's expectations. Nancy Kerrigan's background was lower middle-class, but she had a loving, very supportive family, and she was very attractive and looked like a princess when she skated.

SkateFan4Life said:

Nancy Kerrigan's background was lower middle-class, but she had a loving, very supportive family, and she was very attractive and looked like a princess when she skated.

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Yeah, Nancy was attractive once she got her teeth capped. I wonder what other skaters have had "work" done to be more media friendly. At first I wondered if Michelle would get her nose done, but I think she's grown into it nicely. LOL

"Tenley Albright, Carol Heiss, Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski. All were pretty girls from middle class backgrounds"

???

Yamaguchi was the only one that I know of that was middle class: Dentist's daughter from CA suburb.

Albright and Tara were definately upper class, Albright being the only Mayflower WASP among them, the Lipinski's being more Texas oil rich. Hughes is also from a boom money family.

Heiss, Fleming and Kwan were all from blue collar ethnic backgrounds (Heiss's parents were immagrants with accents, the complete opposite of Albright's).

Hamill I don't remember anything about.

I think if you look at Heiss, her personality and manerism, and then look at Albright and Vinson, you'll see the source of the comment and how Carol had to play the game and tone down her natural tom-boyishness to be accepted by the media. She definately had looks on her side: I remember a Jim McCabe interview at the 56 Olys where he made a big fuss about her being pretty and asked all her about her costumes, etc... rather than her skating. Totally what we would call sexist today.

I think that Nancy fell prey to the changing times in the way Gary Heart and/or Bill Clinton did. Tons of former presidents misbehaved, but the general public wasn't all up in their face and private business in the blow-by-blow way that the media is today. Hamill could have said a heck of a lot worse than "this is so corney" but we just didn't have it broadcast all over the news 24/7.

Tonya never even pretended to play the game. In fact, she seemed to go out of her way to show the skating world her contempt for thier stupid rules. Maybe she was a pioneer, or mayb she was just a typical person with fear of sucess, throwing obsticles in her own way.

Linda Fratianne grew up in a comfortable Southern California family, as the daugher of an attorney. And I believe that Linda, per the advice of coaches and others, had her nose fixed when she was a youngster. Guess she wanted to look like a princess when she skated.

Carol Heiss students

Wasn't Scott Davis a Carol Heiss student? He had tons of presentation but was inconsistent with his jumps.

As far as Timmy's posture improving: bah ha ha ha. If you rilly rilly look close, with a microscope and a magnifying glass, you might see perhaps a nanasecond where he stands up straight at the end after he's taken his bows...

Linny

Re: Carol Heiss students

No, Scott Davis was not a student of Carol Heiss. I don't remember who his coach was, but the late Brian Wright was his choregrapher for his excellent "West Side Story" long program that won him the 1993 and 1994 US titles. Davis had very strong presentation skills to compliment his strong technical skills.

Scott was coached by Kathy Casey for a long time then switched to Galina Z (sp?).

Back at the 1976 US Nationals, Linda Fratianne, then a 15-year-old up and coming skater, landed two triple jumps and skated what many considered to be the best long program of the competition. Dorothy Hamill, by contrast, had skated a very safe and comfortable long program, omitting several key jumps. The judges, however, placed Hamill ahead of Fratianne in the long program, and Hamill won her third consecutive US title. Dorothy later said she felt she had not deserved to win the competition, based upon her performance.

The media asked Fratianne what she thought about finishing second. Was she pleased with her marks? Did she feel she was marked unfairly? Linda showed a lot of class, I thought, in that she responded that she was just happy to make the Olympic team, and she felt her marks would improve as she gained more experience on the senior level. That's a classic "Ice Queen" response!