By the same token I would get a kick out of seeing some of today's skaters doing school figures.
To learn this discipline would greatly reduce the practice time for 3x3's and 3A's quite a bit.
What we might see instead is better edges, and better control and posture as they changed positions in the freeskate. Maybe more and better multi- directional skating.
It always feels a little shortsighted to call out skaters from earlier eras about edges or urs. And don't forget if they fell there was no rule that gave them credit or points for such obvious mistakes.
Sometimes it is easy to forget that the Ladies in the late 80's and 90's were the first to do all of the triple jumps. I still have not seen a better 3A than Midori - or Tonya for that matter - and this was 20 years ago.
But no doubt the skaters today are training harder, they do more off-ice training, are more conscious about nutrition and many have 3-4 or more coaches/trainers.
They also have the benefit through technolgy of studying the skaters that came before them in a way skaters from the past never had. Coaches can easily tape practices for better feedback and although I don't know much about it - skaters like Patrick Chan are using software for analysis of their jumps.
Persoanlly I cherish so many skaters from the past and the contributions they made to skating.
Peggy was so graceful, Janet not only made evey move meaningful with a flow never seen before, but had a way of connecting with an audience that has rarely been matched.
Other fans can mention other skaters who were the great pioneers of the sport so many of us love to watch today. Carol Heiss, the great champion was the first Lady to do a 2A in competition. Everyone remembers Biellman for her spin but she also was doing a triple lutz back in 1980. Kati is remembered for her theatrical contributions but she also was the first Lady to do the triple flip.
As to these edge calls and UR calls - sometimes they are called very inconsisitently. One expert has said every 3x3 done by Ladies is basically short. Some tech callers are lenient (like in Vancouver where even without replay I saw many urs that were not called) including jumps from the medalists.
Here is a fun clip showing some of the greats from the past:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ThXz...eature=related
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