Sarah Hughes | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Sarah Hughes

Nadia01

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
As to '06 or 2010 - or just go ahead and pick almost any Olympics and few have ever skated with the freedom we saw from Sarah in SLC. Ironic that possibly Tara comes to mind :)

I thought Sarah seized the day in SLC & outskated everyone there, but of course she skated w/ the freedom! She wasn't favored to win anything, and she was the 4th after the short program, which meant she didn't really control her own destiny. She needed somebody (Irina) to beat Michelle to win the gold, and since Irina & Michelle hadn't skated yet, Sarah had no idea how it was gonna go.

So she wasn't skating under the kind of pressure that OGM favorites were skating under. So yeah....she was "free" compared to the other ladies. :)
 

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I think it puts into perspective how extraordinary the Vancouver ladies competition was. For someone like Yuna to deliver like that under the kind of pressure she must have been under is almost unprecedented. Now, it wasn't even close to my personal favorite but i still wonder whether we'll ever see another clutch performance like that.
 

wonbinfan86

Match Penalty
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
I thought Sarah seized the day in SLC & outskated everyone there, but of course she skated w/ the freedom! She wasn't favored to win anything, and she was the 4th after the short program, which meant she didn't really control her own destiny. She needed somebody (Irina) to beat Michelle to win the gold, and since Irina & Michelle hadn't skated yet, Sarah had no idea how it was gonna go.

So she wasn't skating under the kind of pressure that OGM favorites were skating under. So yeah....she was "free" compared to the other ladies. :)

Adding to this comment I think it's also important to keep in mind that Sarah was in 4th after the short program, she obviously knew that a lot of things had to fall into place for her to win OGM so really there wasn't too much pressure on her. With the COP system if say 20 skaters all skated spectacularly and were within one point of each other it would be a battle royale for the gold with equal amounts of pressure on everyyone. The thing I absolutely detested about the 6.0 system was the fact that only a few skaters could be realistically in contention for the gold (not that there were a ton at the most recent olympics, but the potential is built into the COP system). Anyway I think it's fortunate for Sarah that she skated under the 6.0 system, under COP I don't think her free program would have broken the 100 mark.
 

wonbinfan86

Match Penalty
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
I agree especially with your last point, MKFSfan. Whatever YuNa does or doesn't do in the future--even if she continues to skate and becomes "underwhelming," what she's done in the last two years or so has made her one for the ages. I don't know how one can quantify skating enough to compare her Olympics with that of Tara or Sarah. But the size of YuNa's jumps, and especially the size of the second jumps in her combinations--that's beyond compare, at least for now. All of the ladies you mentioned, along with Michelle, Mao, and of course Shizuka, are spectacular and memorable skaters. I guess they could all be ordered into some sort of ranking, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it. I'm just happy we have them all at their best.

Midori Ito's Triple Axel - Triple Toe combo blows any of Yuna's combos out of the water :)
 

Layfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
I think it puts into perspective how extraordinary the Vancouver ladies competition was. For someone like Yuna to deliver like that under the kind of pressure she must have been under is almost unprecedented. Now, it wasn't even close to my personal favorite but i still wonder whether we'll ever see another clutch performance like that.

That's what I just thinking! True Yuna may not have had the freedom that Sarah had in 02 but considering the pressure on Yuna ... woah. And I wouldn't exactly call Yuna's skate reserved or tight. I was pretty free considering. I'm in awe of the way Yuna won. It's true that Sarah gave one of the freeest Olympic gold medal performances ever. But Yuna gave the most perfect OGM performance I have ever seen, especially from a favorite. Kudos to both of them and they were both the true winners on their night.

BTW, Tara IMMEDIATELY comes to mind when it comes to joyful, free OGM performances. More so than Sarah. And Tara's win was more remarkable because she beat a nearly perfect Kwan while Sarah beat a flawed Michelle and Irina. But still. Sarah rose to the occassion that night. Her win saved what was otherwise one of the more disappointing women's Olympic free skates.
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
It must have been very nice to be the defending Worlds bronze medalist, a strong Olympic medal contender, the only skater to have beaten both Michelle and Irina that season, to be 16 years old and skating on home ice and not be nervous or feeling much PRESSURE ;)

I think every US coach should be required to spend some time with Olympic Champion Sarah Hughes and learn her secret of skating at the biggest event in her sport on home ice without feeling pressure :laugh:

I recall reading comments Yuna made after Mao beat her at the GPF in Korea two years ago.
Yuna said the pressure of skating on home ice was greater than anything she had experienced.

I guess Yuna can feel pressure but not Sarah. Geez, why didn't I understand that before? :think:
 

lavender

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Sorry but I just don't feel that Sarah was skating under the pressure that Michelle or Irina were under in the long program. This is just my feeling.

Yuna has always been a favorite so the expectations were greater and even greater on home ice for someone like Yuna.

It's okay if some feel differently.
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
Sorry but I just don't feel that Sarah was skating under the pressure that Michelle or Irina were under in the long program. This is just my feeling.

Yuna has always been a favorite so the expectations were greater and even greater on home ice for someone like Yuna.

It's okay if some feel differently.

You are right and your comments about your "feelings" are fair enough.

Part of me wonders how fans are so sure about how these skaters feel before taking Olympic Ice.
Maybe we need some type of meter on each skater's ankle so we can measure their degree of nervousness. ;) Then such discusions could actually be based on some facts. :)

Maybe the CoP could even give some GOE for the skater with the highest meter reading making the least mistakes. :)

One could say Yuna skated so well at Vancouver that she might not have felt much pressure. She appeared calm and her skating did not look nervous at all.

My statement could cause a few Yuna fans to get upset. How dare I say Yuna felt no pressure?

I said it and I believe it is possible. I think for those four minutes Yuna might have been able to successfully block everything out and skate without pressure. Sarah may have been able to do the same thing in SLC. Some athletes are better at this than others and Katerina comes to mind.
 
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R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Oh, I think you can be under pressure without actually FEELING it. I think Yuna said later in an interview that she didn't feel much pressure. But you know that the minute she slipped up, an entire country would gasp. It's to her credit that she was able to forget about it and compete. But I would have liked to see what would have happened if the Olympics were in Korea...
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
Oh, I think you can be under pressure without actually FEELING it. I think Yuna said later in an interview that she didn't feel much pressure. But you know that the minute she slipped up, an entire country would gasp. It's to her credit that she was able to forget about it and compete. But I would have liked to see what would have happened if the Olympics were in Korea...

Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. So it was not Yuna who felt so much pressure when she skated - it was her fans. ;)

Let's give Orser some credit. He was very aware of what Yuna needed to do and I think he did alot to keep pressure away from her. Mao did not have a mentor like Orser at her side leading into Vancouver.

From reading various posts and Yuna's own words can we conclude that Yuna did NOT feel much pressure when she skated in Vancouver but that her fans felt tremendous pressure?
So much in fact they assuredly can declare Yuna felt more pressure than say ...Sarah did?

Just kidding here and as fans we do not know and can only guess at how much pressure different skaters feel when they take the ice.
 
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Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I think it puts into perspective how extraordinary the Vancouver ladies competition was. For someone like Yuna to deliver like that under the kind of pressure she must have been under is almost unprecedented. Now, it wasn't even close to my personal favorite but i still wonder whether we'll ever see another clutch performance like that.

I agree. Other skaters have been under pressure from their countries to win, but generally those skaters have been part of a dynasty: Witt for East Germany, all the various Russians/Soviets, American girls. For example, while Michelle was under pressure to win at both the '98 and '02 Olympics, there was someone else in the wings from her country--who in both cases in fact won. Similarly, Mao could have messed up royally, and Japan was still sitting on an existing OGM from the '06 Olympics. By contrast, YuNa was her country's one and only, in this Olympics and in all previous Games as well. Add to that the traditional decades-old rivalry with Japan, and the pressure must have been beyond our capacity to imagine. A Korean friend of mine said that practically everyone in Korea was watching. Whether YuNa felt every ounce of the pressure that night is not the issue. It was in all ways unprecedented. Kudos to Orser for somehow helping her rise above the tension when it counted the most. Her demeanor that night was as noteworthy as the size of her jumps.
 

Ptichka

Forum translator
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Olympia, that's an interesting point of view. I think the exact opposite - if Kim won silver, she'd still make Korean history, bringing it its first Figure Skating Olympic medal. When one comes from a dynasty, OTOH, silver is irrelevant - in essence Asada "lost" Japan its silver. When Gedevanishvili made it into top 10 at Worlds, it was a big deal in Georgia, precisely because it's never happened before; for a skater from Russia, this wouldn't even be considered an achievement at all.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Generally I'd agree with you, Ptichka. But in this case, everything seemed to point the opposite way. Maybe it's the fact that Korea is on the rise as an economic power and felt as China does that a sport victory is a sign of the country's increasing prestige in the world. I also get the feeling that in Korea and in Japan, skating is followed with a near-religious intensity, the way Americans view football (American style football) or some other countries grind to a halt for the World Cup playoffs. Whatever the reason, I think this was a huge moment, and this girl was standing under a hanging rock the size of which we don't often see. Remember that by all evidence, YuNa is considered the best-known person in Korea--and a Korean is the current Secretary General of the U.N.!

I do agree that Mao was under tremendous pressure from Japan, because people there are just as devoted to skating as Koreans are. If there was ever a time I could have wished for a tie for gold, this was it! But huge as the stakes were for Mao, I think they were a bit bigger for YuNa. Or maybe that's where the tie was--both ladies were under equal pressure! I know my heart was in my mouth for both of them, and I was equally proud of the drive and coolness that both showed that night. Weren't we lucky to see it?
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
I think Olympia's post is eloquent and full of many nice thoughts. I agree with most of it.

The feelings she describes are her own though. The feelings of 60 million Koreans are also their own thoughts.

Yuna was very well trained, believed in herself when it came time to skate - and in her own words "did not feel so much pressure."

She did no interviews and was sequestered leading into the Olympics. Orser did everything possible to keep her in the right frame of mind.
Orser himself was impressively calm and his experience can never be overlooked.

Anyway - a contest about who felt the most pressure - when we will absolutley never know - is a definite sign that the off-season is here :)

I apologize if my posts on this upset any Yuna fans. I happen to be a Yuna fan myself and think she is a wonderful and historic Olympic champion.

And I think Sarah pulled off an upset in SLC that was also historic in it's own way. I don't believe a single word from any fan who tries to play it down by saying Sarah was not under pressure.
How silly to think Sarah grew up and DID NOT DREAM of becoming Olympic champion.

Like Yuna, Sarah had her monment and made the most of it.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
When Gedevanishvili made it into top 10 at Worlds, it was a big deal in Georgia, precisely because it's never happened before; for a skater from Russia, this wouldn't even be considered an achievement at all.

OT, but is Anton Sikharudlize Russian or Georgian?
 

Nadia01

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
It must have been very nice to be the defending Worlds bronze medalist, a strong Olympic medal contender, the only skater to have beaten both Michelle and Irina that season, to be 16 years old and skating on home ice and not be nervous or feeling much PRESSURE ;)

I think every US coach should be required to spend some time with Olympic Champion Sarah Hughes and learn her secret of skating at the biggest event in her sport on home ice without feeling pressure :laugh:

I recall reading comments Yuna made after Mao beat her at the GPF in Korea two years ago.
Yuna said the pressure of skating on home ice was greater than anything she had experienced.

I guess Yuna can feel pressure but not Sarah. Geez, why didn't I understand that before? :think:

Michelle was looking at possibly her last chance to win OGM. She's a multi-World champ PLUS multi-US champ. And home ice. And she was #1 after SP.

I don't think anybody said Yuna can feel pressure but not Sarah, but that Sarah was able to skate "free" compared to her competitors (like Irina & Michelle) because she wasn't under some crushing pressure or expectation to win OGM, esp. given that she didn't finish top 3 after SP.
 

Lightbulb

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
OT, but is Anton Sikharudlize Russian or Georgian?

I watched a fluff for '98 Nagano Olympics wherein Katia Gordeeva explained that Anton is actually from Georgia. That's why his surname is different from the usual Russian surnames such as Yagudin, Vasieleev, Grinkov. But back then, Anton started training for the USSR. When it broke up, he was based in St. Petersburg and represented Russia.
 

Ptichka

Forum translator
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
OT, but is Anton Sikharudlize Russian or Georgian?
Anton's father is part Georgian and part Ukrainian (hence the Georgian last name), whereas his mother is Russian. As of a few years ago, Anton has never been to Georgia and has no relatives there.
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
Michelle was looking at possibly her last chance to win OGM. She's a multi-World champ PLUS multi-US champ. And home ice. And she was #1 after SP.

I don't think anybody said Yuna can feel pressure but not Sarah, but that Sarah was able to skate "free" compared to her competitors (like Irina & Michelle) because she wasn't under some crushing pressure or expectation to win OGM, esp. given that she didn't finish top 3 after SP.

Michelle had also just fired Lori and her coach before SLC. She had no coach. :sheesh:
Many were skeptical that she would be at her best in SLC.

That season Sarah had already beaten Michelle and Irina. Her program easily help up or surpassed them on difficulty.

She was the world bronze medalist. She was among the favorites to medal in SLC.
To make it sound like she came out of nowhere to steal the Gold is not true.

She was a very competitive girl. As it turned out she was a little too competitive for Irina, Sahsa and Michelle.
 

miki88

Medalist
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Michelle had also just fired Lori and her coach before SLC. She had no coach. :sheesh:
Many were skeptical that she would be at her best in SLC.

That season Sarah had already beaten Michelle and Irina. Her program easily help up or surpassed them on difficulty.

She was the world bronze medalist. She was among the favorites to medal in SLC.
To make it sound like she came out of nowhere to steal the Gold is not true.

She was a very competitive girl. As it turned out she was a little too competitive for Irina, Sahsa and Michelle.

Yea, but I don't think anyone expected her to win the gold. I still remember when she won, my reaction was like "what?!!!" She skated well, but there was nothing special about it. Of course, seeing OGM slip pass Michelle a second time didn't help either. But I guess I was more tolerant when Tara won, because her performance was much more impressive than Sarah's.
 
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