Lysacek out of Grand Prix; at odds with USFS

[brightphoton]

Quite so. Digital data is the CoP of communication. Writing with a beautiful hand -- who cares about the second mark these days?

Well played, Mathman.

Is there enough time for a fundraising campaign? Would you champion it?

What ... no. I don't enjoy Evan's skating. I don't understand why he expects people to shower him with money just for showing up. He isn't Tiger Woods, or Michael Phelps, or Maria Sharapova, nor is he at some sort of performance or theater like Stars on Ice. I'm guessing he's become out of shape since the Olympics and didn't want people to find out.

Digital data is not forever. It requires a proper reading device which is often phased out in a short time and becomes obsolete. Much data is lost on the old floppy discs for example. Books, the really old ones without the paper acid, last almost forever.

While data being lost on floppy disks may be a problem for an individual, the opposite problem (data never going away) is much more ubiquitous. Furthermore, if the data is that important, it should be saved in a universal, non-proprietary format and regularly backed up.

I don't know what paper acid is, but acid-free sounds fancy and expensive. My books are probably acidy ...

[sorcerer]

...While data being lost on floppy disks may be a problem for an individual, the opposite problem (data never going away) is much more ubiquitous. ...I don't know what paper acid is, but acid-free sounds fancy and expensive. My books are probably acidy ...

!!
And however acid-free a book may be, most readers' hands are acidy so maybe not much differerence unless you wear gloves?

BTW I think I've found the answer Evan had given us beforehand:

http://espn.go.com/olympics/figuresk...set-sochi-2014
"You say things under pressure and I don't blame him for that.

Maybe he was feeling great pressure with the SA dates coming closer and closer.

[skatinginbc]

Social media has killed the English language, which is even deader than Latin......As the population is dumbed down, so goes the country....

Old English is dead, killed by Geoffrey Chaucer. Middle English is dead, killed by William Shakespeare. Modern English is dead, killed by Social Media. Or, we may call it "evolution" if you will.
Strictly speaking, to "dumb someone down" is not "standard English". The original meaning of the Old English word "dumb" pertains to the lack of power of speech. The adoption of the sense of stupidity is a result of borrowing from a foreign source. But you used it, I understood it, and the country hasn't gone yet.
Although most Indo-European languages are synthetic languages, English is becoming more and more analytic--a natural path of evolution for being a language of a "melting pot". The most oft-cited example of an analytic language is Mandarin, whose ancestor Old Chinese actually sounds somewhat like Latin, with pitch accents but no tones. Yet the country of China did not fall despite the drastic change in her language.

I might agree, however: As the audience is dumbed down by Evan's performance, so goes the skating.....

Evan's use of "myself" in his statement seems to entail an emphatic function: It was him--not his agent or somebody else--that failed to reach a suitable agreement with US Figure Skating by the event entry deadline.
USFSA and me (grammatically unmarked, regular) vs USFSA and myself (marked, emphasized).

[Bluebonnet]

How come suddenly I'm thinking about a three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum after being denied of the things he/she wants?! Cute, though.

[SkateFiguring]

How come suddenly I'm thinking about a three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum after being denied of the things he/she wants?! Cute, though.

Somehow I feel it's much more calculated than a toddler's tantrum. "Cute" has never occurred to me.

[KKonas]

Civility is apparently lost in this thread. To equate Evan as a 3-year old throwing a temper tantrum is ridiculous. Evan is an Olympic champion, a very hard worker, a talented skater and deserves respect for his achievements. No one really here really knows what the "negotiations" for his appearance at Skate America entailed or how it all came about. Most top skaters do ask for appearance fees, so it is not a rare occurrence.

[Jammers]

Evan needs to ride off in the sunset with is OGM and call it a day. Even with the US men rebuilding they are soon going to leave him in the dust especially with these young skaters coming up like Jason Brown and Joshua Farris. Heck Evan couldn't even beat Jeremy Abbott in the last two Nationals he competed in.

[Bluebonnet]

Somehow I feel it's much more calculated than a toddler's tantrum. "Cute" has never occurred to me.

If it was a calculated act, that could be called evil. Playing with public and give them hope that he'd show up and then finds any excuse to withdraw just to stire up the media? I hope not.

Both sides ought to be blamed but somehow I have sympathy on USFSA. I don't think they wanted to cut off Lysacek. There must have been a huge gap, too big to fill, between what USFSA was willing to give and what Lysacek demanded.

[SkateFiguring]

Civility is apparently lost in this thread. To equate Evan as a 3-year old throwing a temper tantrum is ridiculous. Evan is an Olympic champion, a very hard worker, a talented skater and deserves respect for his achievements. No one really here really knows what the "negotiations" for his appearance at Skate America entailed or how it all came about. Most top skaters do ask for appearance fees, so it is not a rare occurrence.

Many highly successful people are very capable of throwing temper tantrums, in private or in public. Some are cute, some not so much.

An example is Nicholai Krusshchev's alleged shoe-banging incident at the UN. Whether or not he banged his shoe, he did display an uncontrolled anger. One may even call Jesus' outrage at a place of worship a temper tantrum, as righteous as it was.

Metaphorical temper tantrums like what Bluebonnet alluded to are even more common.

eta. We have also seen enough pouting and rejection of honour at the podium by Worlds and Olympics medalistls in various sports including figure skating. These are tantrums by some of the best athletes in the world.

If it was a calculated act, that could be called evil. Playing with public and give them hope that he'd show up and then finds any excuse to withdraw just to stire up the media? I hope not.

I didn't mean "calculated" like that. I meant it wasn't an impromptu reactive decision. Even if one were to interpret Evan's behaviour very negatively and call it egotistical or greedy, it would still be far from evil.

[demarinis5]

Civility is apparently lost in this thread. To equate Evan as a 3-year old throwing a temper tantrum is ridiculous. Evan is an Olympic champion, a very hard worker, a talented skater and deserves respect for his achievements. No one really here really knows what the "negotiations" for his appearance at Skate America entailed or how it all came about. Most top skaters do ask for appearance fees, so it is not a rare occurrence.

I have to agree with your post but then again you should know by now that on figure skating boards there are a lot of snarky remarks, out right rude comments, misstatements and speculation posted about skaters along with a wealth of information and facts posted by folks. Ya gotta take the good with the bad. lol

I just take it with a grain of salt and a chuckle because a lot of posts are pure speculation or an opinion regarding the facts as presented to the public and I know that.

[jcoates]

This has turned from a somewhat thoughtful discussion of Evan's withdrawal into a venomous "I hate everything about Evan and wish him nothing but harm" thread. It's pretty sad and a poor commentary on hall participants. I thought with the time that had passed since the last Olympics this sort of thing would have dissipated and the people would have grown up. I'm very disappointed to see how wrong I was.

[SkateFiguring]

^^^^ I don't see anybody wishing Evan any harm, or expressing a hatred for everything about Evan. Not yet anyway. Just speculations, interpretations, as well as criticisms and defenses. The usual. Not so venomous, yet.

[ImaginaryPogue]

Ruminating on this, it feels like a strange turn of events. Maybe I overanalyze everything, but the way this was handled is really circumspect, particularly since I viewed Lysacek as someone who went out of his way to work with his federation. When Wier’s persona was getting too difficult for the USFSA to handle, he was the alternative. So while withdrawing doesn’t particularly bother me, the digs – both in the Hersh article and the twitter comment, surprised me

“That’s bold,” Lysacek said of the promotion. “The reason I haven’t made any grand statements about coming back and being there is because I don’t want to be the one responsible for anyone’s disappointment. All I have said, even to them (the federation), is that I am training, and I would like to be in shape for it.

Uhh, no. It’s not bold for the hosts to use those who are slated to compete in their advertising. At all. Bold would be Trophee Eric Bompard, which is using past competitors who aren’t NECESSARILY slated to compete (Samuelson/Bates, Takahiko Kozuka) to advertise, and even that doesn’t bother me (Lysacek does not feature in the advertisement, though – he’s never competed at TEB and apparently isn’t viewed as a draw for the French crowd, which made me laugh a little).

Nor does it bother me for Evan to ask for an appearance fee of some sort and/or funding (if that is indeed what he did). Let’s be clear – I think having a home-nation Olympic champion show-up at your event will boost ticket sales. I think the Federation knows that, and furthermore, he does as well. The Federation stands to make more money if he says he’s going to show up. I won’t deny it, if I were him, I’d probably ask for an appearance fee too. We know Kwan did it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Chan got one for SC 2009.

But the tweet/twit/twitter comment (this is the way the world ends...) seems unnecessary and even somewhat arrogant. If he does intend to compete anymore, doesn’t it make sense to try to remain on good terms with the federation? They might have to help him regardless because of his stature (my understanding is that he has a slot at Nationals – if he wants it – up until 2014, due to his stature as reigning Olympic medalist), but isn’t it better than to just say “you have to help me anyway, so I’ll be dismissive of you in public” (which is exactly how the comment reads to me).

More than that, I’m curious what this does to his future GP/Worlds/Olympics aspirations. At the end of this season, he’ll very likely fall out of the top 24 WR. He’s already used his “retirement/comeback” option to get back onto the GP series in the first place. Now, he’ll get a host pick (if he wants) anyway, so this might be moot, but it does seem like he’s damaging his ability to compete in the future.

[Bluebonnet]

I'm sorry that my little light-hearted, at the time I thought was harmless, remark has offended some people.

Why should we be so serious on subjects about Lysacek while not serious on many other skaters? That's one thing I don't understand.

[CoyoteChris]

I think ImaginaryPogue made some very good points....from Evan's point of view, he's thinking about Sochi but is unsure. I assume but dont know that He is spending lots of his bucks on his coach and staff, Ice time, etc. keeping his edge. If he is offered the GP circuit and is unsure, he pretty much told us so, unlike what the USFSA told us. I dont know beans about the USFSA financing of athletes, but I do know that the cost of training, travel for you and your coach, etc etc, plus time away from other ways of making bucks would be natural considerations figuring into the decision. Evan could have well made the GP final so there would have been three events to attend. Its easy for me to say that doing at least SA might give him some insite whether or not he still has the fire, at very little inconvieeance to himself. But I am not a skater and I am not Evan.

The more I think about it, the more I am looking askance at the USFSA, an organization I financially support. All I want is for them to be open and honest. To heck with the politics with NBC, et al. They dont even have to mention figures. Just say that Mr. L has agreed to have us enter his name but has not committed as we are in nogotiations over a level of financial support to insure his comeback to the ice. And there's another thing that kind of sticks in my craw, al be et a small point. I fly with the skaters in cattle class....the head of the USFSA I have walked past flying in first class....thats kind of like the heads of GM flying their corporate jets to congress with their hands out. Its bad enough to sometimes be treated as fans like second class citizens at events...but I dont want my dontations to be spent on wine instead of young skaters.