Changing The Image Of Men's Figure Skating

[Nadine]

I'm behind Elvis Stojko. He's never been afraid to state what's on his mind. Just like his skating, they are one - bold, risky, upfront, a joy to watch! To this day, his 1994 Olympic LP to Bruce Lee's "Dragon" soundtrack is my all-time favorite Olympic performance by a man; I just got through watching it again last week & cried from pure emotion, especially when he went for & nailed the second triple axel, which he had missed earlier on, and which had Scott saying in reply to Verne Lundquist you have to be great, and Elvis is great!

OT: regarding costumes, I say "why not"?! I mean if I'm going to a Ball I sure as heck want to look my best.

[Mathman]

A little off topic - did anyone else get the email from Skate Canada with the Harley Davidson pictures? I know many people were laughing when they heard about this and thought it was a ridiculous idea but the pictures are amazing!

Here's the poster Michelle Kwan made once for Maxxis tires. I assume the point was for auto mechanics to tape it to their lockers, right beside Miss February.

http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/6...em153204wm.jpg

[hongligl]

I for one am totally for costumes. I don't think that I would like figure skating without the costumes. Watching practices without costumes, and you know what I mean. That being said, I prefer elegant costumes to overly flamboyant ones in general. There is no clear cut when it's just enough when it's too much, all depending on if it is appropriate to the music. Uniform for figure skating is a big NO NO for me for sure. Elvis and Sandu were two extremes that out of my range of prefered male skaters' spectrum for different reasons

Bring on the quads, 4/3 3A for man to show the competitive side of the sport, not plain costumes or worse, uniforms. JMHO

I do want to see 3/3 for girls, quads and 3As for man!!! No matter how well executed, a 3/2 is still a 3/2 .

[wishmaker]

And may I add, the costumes/attires of the figure skater is just a part of how they deliver their programs, which may be elaborate, simple, overdone, exquisite, and whatever the skater would desire but doesn't make figure skating less macho or more macho ; or gives the right of any one to say how/what the figure skater should do with his/her program. Of course, the costumes are not rated because it is there to enhance the program, and the core of judging is with the technicalities,choreography,etc.

[i love to skate]

Here's the poster Michelle Kwan made once for Maxxis tires. I assume the point was for auto mechanics to tape it to their lockers, right beside Miss February.

http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/6...em153204wm.jpg

Yes the Skate Canada pictures are quite pin up worthy! The girls look flat out hot...Cynthia and Jessica look quite "modely"

[kyla2]

Excellent posts about artistry etc. You are absolutely right. To try to quantify artistry is the height of absurdity. What people in figure skating, and around figure skating forget, is that it is the general public that pays for the sport and they have to be able to understand it. For those of you who feel the 6.0 system was more difficult to grasp, well I don't know quite what to say, except that we must not live on the same planet. For the person that said the announcers should state why the skater is being given a higher "level" as they do a lift etc., you have made my point for me. The general public wants a simpler system. They don't want to have to factor in a "level," which is a nebulous thing to them and has no meaning unless they get the rule book out. This isn't chess, which is a viewer sport only to those who play chess. But it will become like chess, if we continue down this road. As for those who think skating was on a decline before CoP, there is no comaprison to what we are seeing now. When you can't get a network anywhere to carry major skating competitions, it's because it isn't profitable, and that is because there is limited viewership. Sponsors won't pay to support a sport in decline.The reason skating is popular in Korea and Japan is because of two people-Yu Na Kim and Mao Asada. It's the thrill of a rivalry bewtween two great skaters. They are lovely girls but they do not connect with American audiences like Michelle did or even Irina Slutskaya.

[R.D.]

Yes the Skate Canada pictures are quite pin up worthy! The girls look flat out hot...Cynthia and Jessica look quite "modely"

What pictures?

[evangeline]

I think it is very possible to judge artistry objectively base on most catagories given(not all). And most of the flaws that people give about COP is not flaws with the system but flaws based of personal opinions and flaws do to human error forced or unforced. It depends on what you really want. Do you want the artistic score to define the most entertaing program, the most unique program, or the most artistic. Artistry can be define as lines,extensions, balance, flow ,contrasting or matching the music, sychronization and symmatry. Rather not it entertain or move you(which can be affect by bias or cultrual differnce) is not the most important aspect. I believe COP goal was to be a system that give all skaters an equal platform to score or win based on their own performance alone. In that believe it is very successful.All the other problems are really dealing with ISU, feds, judges.

I completely agree.

I don't know why people are blaming CoP for the decline for skating's popularity in the US. After all, the complicated system hasn't deterred skating's popularity in Japan and Korea at all.

Instead, the culprit for skating's unpopularity in the US (as other people have pointed out) is probably the lack of a dominant, instantly recognizable skating star like Michelle Kwan. Look how the success of Yu-Na Kim has made skating an immensely popular sport in Korea. Or maybe a scandal will do the trick.
But unless we get Michelle Kwan 2.0 or have Rachael Flatt go bonkers and has her best friend club Caroline Zhang's knee, I don't think skating will be popular even if 6.0 is magically reinstated.

But feel free to complain about CoP if you want! I myself hate the anonymous judging, the fact that skating skills is in the PCS score, etc. But I don't see the point of yearning for 6.0.

[antmanb]

I don't know why fans want to kill the sport and savor the pagaent?

In your opinion it's "the pageant" to the majority of people the costumes are part of the presentation, you don't agree, not much more can be said.

Why do you want to kill the performance aspect of skating and make it a barrell jumping contest?

Ant

[snowflake]

When you can't get a network anywhere to carry major skating competitions, it's because it isn't profitable, and that is because there is limited viewership. Sponsors won't pay to support a sport in decline.The reason skating is popular in Korea and Japan is because of two people-Yu Na Kim and Mao Asada. It's the thrill of a rivalry bewtween two great skaters. They are lovely girls but they do not connect with American audiences like Michelle did or even Irina Slutskaya.

Why is the sport in decline because US doesn't have female stars anymore?

Eurosport showed all GP-events last autumn for the first time. With competent commentators. Why, if they didn't think the sport is popular?

[skatingbc]

For those of you who feel the 6.0 system was more difficult to grasp, well I don't know quite what to say, except that we must not live on the same planet. For the person that said the announcers should state why the skater is being given a higher "level" as they do a lift etc., you have made my point for me. The general public wants a simpler system. They don't want to have to factor in a "level," which is a nebulous thing to them and has no meaning unless they get the rule book out.

Good commentators do a fantastic job at attempting to make the judging system easier to understand. To be honest, under 6.0, I found it hard sometimes to see why someone was given a 5.9 over a 5.7, etc. Commentators are there to comment on the performance and often on the score as well. They did this under 6.0 too, so I don't understand why this would be part of a anti-CoP argument. At first, it can be difficult to understand the scoring and see a good score vs a bad score. But it all it takes is one event to see what a high score is and what a low score is. The commentators are there to help you understand why. If they say "Skater A's spins were given a higher level or higher difficulty, than Skater B's spins", I don't understand why that's a bad thing.

ETA: It depends what broadcasts you're watching though. If you are watching Dick and Peggy, than I can understand why you would be frustrated with the commentating. Having listened to Eurosport through the past season, I've been a bit lucky. They do a fantastic job at trying to convey the intriacies of CoP to their viewers.

[antmanb]

Good commentators do a fantastic job at attempting to make the judging system easier to understand. To be honest, under 6.0, I found it hard sometimes to see why someone was given a 5.9 over a 5.7, etc. Commentators are there to comment on the performance and often on the score as well. They did this under 6.0 too, so I don't understand why this would be part of a anti-CoP argument. At first, it can be difficult to understand the scoring and see a good score vs a bad score. But it all it takes is one event to see what a high score is and what a low score is. The commentators are there to help you understand why. If they say "Skater A's spins were given a higher level or higher difficulty, than Skater B's spins", I don't understand why that's a bad thing.

ETA: It depends what broadcasts you're watching though. If you are watching Dick and Peggy, than I can understand why you would be frustrated with the commentating. Having listened to Eurosport through the past season, I've been a bit lucky. They do a fantastic job at trying to convey the intriacies of CoP to their viewers.

I agree with this but i would caveat that the British Eurosport commentators are excellent when they are in the arena at championships and have access to the protocols immediately and can say with certainty that a skater received level X for their spins or steps, or that jump A was downgraded.

During the GP season they were having to speculate and were left scratching their heads at times (like Meissner's SP at TEB) and advising people to look up the protocols on the ISU site.

The main issue, IMO, comes when the commentators are well informed and you do trust their judgment and they are left questioning the result (like the British eurosport commentators discussing the ladies SP at worlds).

Ant

[viv]

Well, the costume question is a tricky one for me - I'm all for sequins and all against frills (for ladies and men), but that's my personal taste.

I always thought that I would like very very simple costumes, but seeing V&M at Worlds this year I immediately realized that it doesn't work.
My first thought was, suitcase with costumes got lost on flight, they skate in their training stuff. My second thought was, had somebody died?? The whole thing looked kind of dead to me, and it certainly downtoned the presentation of the program. Yes, I know the presentation is not about costumes, but anyway, it didn't work. (And if they really had to skate in all black, why the heck didn't she use boot covers? Her white boots with that black costume topped the sloppyness and training-like looks of the costume for me.)

Same, but not that bad with Kozuka.

[PolymerBob]

What pictures?

There are apparently some pictures of the Canadian skaters that nobody seems to be able to locate right at the moment.

[Mathman]

^ According to I_love_to_skate (post #122) in this thread, the pictures have been sent out by email to subscribers to Skate Canada's publicity services. Evidently (like the pictures of Miss California) the plan is to publish them one by one as part of an advertising campaign for the Olympics.

I guess they are like the pictures you see in hot rod magazines, with beautiful ladies draped over Harleys.