The most popular/beloved skater/s worldwide recently?

RIskatingfan said:

I could ask the other way around - why is ladies skating popular in the USA (and not men's skating)?

Click to expand...

That is a very interesting question to me. From the American side, I think I know the answer. Girls are pretty, boys are tough. Any sport in which you are judged, not by what you can do, but by how pretty you look doing it ("presentation"), is going to wind up (in the U.S.) on the feminine side of the ledger. If you still have all your teeth, you aren’t a “real” athlete.

The American masculine ideal is a NASCAR guy smashing his car into the wall at 200 miles per hour. Now that's a sport!

The American feminine ideal is -- well, Michelle Kwan.

Maybe the well-publicized injury to Tatiana Totmianina will increase the interest in pairs skating in the U.S. If you can kill yourself doing it, maybe it's not so sissy after all!

Mathman

Mathman said:

That is a very interesting question to me. From the American side, I think I know the answer. Girls are pretty, boys are tough. Any sport in which you are judged, not by what you can do, but by how pretty you look doing it ("presentation"), is going to wind up (in the U.S.) on the feminine side of the ledger. If you still have all your teeth, you aren’t a “real” athlete.

The American masculine ideal is a NASCAR guy smashing his car into the wall at 200 miles per hour. Now that's a sport!

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that is the main question because here, Men's skating is probably the most popular. But still, non skating fans find sissy all the guys in costumes twirling around and trying to act all arteeeste LOL Here, a real guy plays football (I guess you call it soccer). Guys that skate get no respect, obviously have to be gay and that's more important than what they're doing on the ice... LOL Skating is not seen as a sport, it's more like art or dance or something.

I don't know where I read it, but once, during a discussion where people talked about European vs. American views on men's skating (and their sexual choices), someone said that in Russia, Yagudin and Plushenko were respected because they were tough athletes and their rivalry and how they always tried to beat each other was "real man's stuff" LOL But in general, they would still think they were gay.

I think the popularity of a discipline in a country has to do with tradition and the champions they have. US ladies win Olympics and they're always among the best in the world, so it's likely that the tradition continues. Sometimes, one skater can become an icon and influence many children. I bet Midori Ito and her well known jumping abilities inspired many Japanese young skaters and that's one of the reasons why so many Japanese ladies are pushing the envelope in jumps.

http://www.international.espn.com/intltv/calendar.jsp

Not sure what all of this means. If you go to the Paris time zone you will find that the Grand Prix is broadcast to that time zone in November. I did not check out each event and each European time zone. This site gives the impression that ESPN broadcasts are available to parts of Europe. What about satellite dish reception? I know that we can get stuff from all over the world with them.

edited to add:
You can go to the sport wizard and put in your time zone and sport and it will give you the listings. Here are the figure skating broadcasts for the Paris time zone for the month of November on ESPN.


11-09-2004 03:00 am 06:00 am ISU Grand Prix Of Figure Skating Presented By Olay: Skate Canada International
at Halifax Metro Centre Halifax, Ns Canada


11-16-2004 03:00 am 06:00 am ISU Grand Prix Of Figure Skating Presented By Olay: NHK Trophy
at Nagoya Nagoya City, Japan


11-23-2004 03:00 am 06:00 am ISU Grand Of Figure Skating Presented By Olay: Cup Of China
at Beijing, China


11-30-2004 03:00 am 06:00 am ISU Grand Prix Of Figure Skating Presented By Olay: Grand Prix Paris
at Paris, France

Piel, trust me LOL, we know where we can get our skating. Or you think we sit complaining and we don't search what our options are? Anyway, if you're still not convinced, from the site you indicated, on the FAQ:

CAN I SEE ESPN IN EUROPE?
At this time, ESPN (as seen in the U.S.) is not available as an individual network in Europe. However, certain local broadcasters in various European territories utilize ESPN programming. Please contact the local broadcaster in your area to determine if they access ESPN programming. ESPN Classic Sport Europe, France and Italy are recent additions to our programming available in Europe. Please contact your local provider to receive information on these channels in these territories or access their website at:

Click to expand...

No ESPN in Europe, as you can read.

As for the local brodcasters, I don't get any of those, but by looking at the programming, clearly no skating is available. There are skating boards with many European die-hard skating fans and not once I have heard mentions of these networks broadcasting skating. We always wait for files to download, or ask other NA fans to make us copies of their own coverage. Or we sit and wait for Euros LOL Even if by some chance any of these local broadcasters happened to show skating and a lucky person would have the channel, I still think we could hardly qualify this as a good coverage that could be seen by lots of people, wouldn't you agree?

Ok. But why do they list these shows according to Paris, London, and Athens time if they are not shown there? Not arguing just curious.

Piel who is feeling like Jessica Simpson

I have no idea!

I voted for The Man!
Alexei baby, you're the one!