Will Sarah be at Nationals?

I think Sarah is really smart in choosing school over skating. Skaters look so pitiful when they are skating past their prime. Some performances are so shameful that you forget all of their past great performances.

In terms of Sarah making a lot of money from the sport, I just don't think that she is the kind of skater who people would pay money to see. She's not a really good performer and looks kind of klutzy on the ice. Plus she struck me as kind of arrogant at the Olympics proclaiming her desire to score in the high 1500's on the SAT. Why talk about that? She backtracked later on saying that she didn't want to tell her score because people thought that was kind of arrogant but I think the damage was already done.

I am sorry that I will not be seeing Sarah at Nationals, but
as someone who has had all too much contact with the medical profession that last few years, first I want to thank those dedicated people. If Sarah Hughes works as hard to be a really good doctor as she did to be a really good skater, the world will be better for it.

But I would like to warn anyone who thinks doctors are interchangeable, that they are not. There is as much difference between doctors as there is between skaters. And if you need a doctor, you owe it to yourself to do some research first as to who is the best person in the field where you need help in your area.

You would not believe the number of people I have met who have had relatives die of the problems my husband had. And how many had relatives who survived who were much more severely maimed or disabled than he is. I can never thank the dedicated doctors, nurses and physical therapists at Yale New Haven hospital enough.

I hope Sarah will have some time to get involved with Yale's hospital on her way to becoming a doctor (not as a patient).
It is a great institution.

dpp

I think Sarah has chosen what makes her happy, and that makes me happy for her. To remain at the level she was skating when she won her Oly Gold, and World Bronze medals takes a tremendous investment of time, money and hard work. To do well at an Ivy League school, especially well enough to get into medical school, will also take a huge investment of time, money and hard work. I just can't imagine how anybody, no matter how talented, could give both of these goals the investment needed and still have time to eat, sleep, and perhaps even have a bit of social life.

I don't expect to see Sarah competing again at all, certainly not at the eligible level, but I hope we have the chance to see her skate in shows or exhibitions from time to time. Although not one of my favorite skaters, she brought a lot of joy to her skating that I really enjoyed.

As a side note, I noticed that her sister Emily is still skating as a junior. She was 5th in sectionals so did not make Nats this year.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031224/ap_on_sp_ot/fig_cohen_coach_3

Woops! There it is!

Wagner, who has a strong role in the New York City skating community, had no top-level skaters after Hughes stopped competing to attend Yale, where she is a freshman.

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Everyone is different. Personaly, if I were an OGM, I'd want to issue my own press statment about my retirement, not have it mentioned as a passing comment in a rival skater's feature article.

sarah

She and other OGM's before her remind me of one of those cowboy quotes which I've modified... Old heroes (skaters) never die...they just fade away...

Oksana faded away after her OGM. Only to resurface ten years later. At 26, I think Sarah will do the same... For some reason, at 24, I think Tara will do the same as well...

Re: sarah

thisthingcalledlove said:

Oksana faded away after her OGM. Only to resurface ten years later. At 26, I think Sarah will do the same... For some reason, at 24, I think Tara will do the same as well...

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Huh? You mean Sarah and Tara will resurface or fade away? I don't get it...

Anyway, I hope Sarah resurfaces at some point.

Re: Re: sarah

CMc said:

Huh? You mean Sarah and Tara will resurface or fade away? I don't get it...

Anyway, I hope Sarah resurfaces at some point.

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I meant that, like Oksana, it may take ten years for them to produce the kind of skate people remembered them for in their short amateur days...Oksana's Swan now is reminiscent of her Swan in 1994...speed, jumps, exciting...

But, hopefully, it doesn't take them that long. And Sarah never relinquished her eligibility, so who knows? Maybe she'll defend her OGM, or try for it again in 2010...

Hi, CMc, welcome to the forum!

I think that Tara is in a different situation. I think that her hip injury will prevent her ever from coming back, except maybe for some minor show appearances. I hope I'm wrong, but I think that this injury is more serious than she is letting on, and, like Alexei Yagudin, the emphasis should be on not sustaining any further injury. There is life after figure skating, and being able to walk without pain is a great blessing.

I do not think that Sarah will return to competitive skating, but she might go for some pro appearances somewhere down the line.

Mathman

Hi, Thanks for the welcome!

Well, I sort of felt that Sarah would see college through for a while and then make some kind of return to the world of skating even if she wouldn't compete again.
It's kind of hard to tell what she's going to do when she herself didn't have a clear idea of what she'd do in the particular timeframe in regards to competitive skating and the next couple of years leading up to 2006.
She DID indeed say that she was worried she wouldn't skate again if she stopped and then felt reassured of the idea of coming back when she saw Sokolova make a comeback, so I read into those statements that she definitely wanted to skate again.
When I read she reapplied for Nationals, it sounded promising, but I read that it was so she could remain elgible--At least that sounds like she's still interested in returning at some point.

Speaking of Tara Lipinski, click on the image to read the latest about her acting career in this week's PARADE magazine. After you've clicked on the link, click on her picture once again at the site.

[url]http://www.parade.com/current/columns/media/1228pers_photo.jpg[/URL]