Pj's all-time top 10: Men | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Pj's all-time top 10: Men

bestskate8

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
I ve talked to him quite a few times by now to have my own opinion and I believe people cannot carry a 24h smile especially in the middle of competition with a camera on their face so if you go to him before a competition like a jumping monkey he would probably tell you off but I m always curious since I ve seen you have written it many items in various place, but since you dont say what I ll speculate he didnt say bonjour to you too.:)
And Jouby is a sweetheart too.

I see this way, to kick Plushenko for someone is a doping. (no offend, just couldn't resist):laugh:
I am really surprise Plushenko even made this NA list.
 

ImaginaryPogue

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
Of course, this list has more Canadians on it - 4 to 3 for the ladies, but the Canadian men are so much better than the women that this feels less slanted.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
has to be by regions of old -5 each

American Men

Dick Button
Hayes Jenkins
Scott Hamilton
Brian Boitano
Evan Lysacek

Europeans
John Curry
Robin Cousins
Stephane Lambiel
Jan Hoffman
Brian Joubert

Canada -hardest ranking
Kurt Browning
Toller Cranston
Brian Orser
Patrick Chan
Elvis
Jeff Buttle

Russia/USSR
Alexei Yagudin
Evgeny Plushenko
Ilia Kulik
Victor Petrenko
Alexander Abt

Asia

Daisuke Takahashi
Takahiko Kozuka
Nobinari Oda
Takeshi Honda
and Asia can claim Patrick, too. tied with takahashi. the best rivalry today!

I could do 20 but never just 10! too hard!
 

Nadine

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 3, 2003
I'm only posting to say that if this was an official ISU list, or something along those lines, like in a highly respected encyclopedia of figure skating book about the history of the sport, et al, then I would say only a couple of those names listed would make the grade, period.

But since this isn't, rather a figure skating fan's own personal list, I see nothing wrong with her list. I actually enjoyed reading her list(s), and was rather amused that we both agree on Sarah Hughes, who in my mind had the best FS ever, bar none, man or woman. It was one for the ages, magical, a once-in-a-lifetme event wherein she skated the best she has ever skated in her life, something not only figure skaters, but all athletes can only dream about, to skate the best ever at the Olympics.

Now if I were to do a list, I would categorize it from A to D. Lol, kinda like what they have in Hollywood ~ there's the A-list, then everybody else. :biggrin:

And on my A-list would be the following:

Gillis Grafstrom -- holds the record for the most ever medals won at the Olympics (4 = 3 gold, 1 silver); most successful figure skater in Olympic history, 3-time World Champion, 3-time National Champion, inventor of the Grafstrom Pirouette and the Flying Sit Spin.

Evgeni Plushenko -- second only to Gillis Grafstrom for most medals ever won at the Olympics (3 = 1 gold, 2 silver); most successful Russian figure skater in history (man or woman), 3-time World Champion, 6-time European Champion, 8-time National Champion, first skater to land a 4/3/2 in competition, first skater to land a 4/3/3 in competition, has consistently landed over 100+ quads in competition, youngest male skater to receive a 6.0. And those are only some of his accomplishments, he's not done yet...

I'll stop for now, not enough time to list all the stupendous accomplishments of Ulrich, Karl, and Richard, whom also make my A-list, and that's it. Only 5. The rest are either on my B, C, or D list, depending on several circumstances, one being which event they medalled at, as the oldest of the four annual figure skating competitions is Europeans, which began in 1891, thus has far more prestige than the others. Next would be Worlds, which began in 1896 (btw Jr. Worlds began in 1976). After that the Winter Olympics, which began in 1908. And finally 4CC, which is the newest amongst them all (began in 1999), thus hasn't gained the prestige and respect of the others just yet.

Anyhow, my personal list takes into account factors such as I listed above, for what it's worth. :)
 

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
I would put Scott on the list. As much as I really like Patrick's skating, I would wait for him to finish his Olympic eligible career before I would put him on a list of all time greats.
 

Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
I've seen Plushenko treat other skaters disrespectfully at competitions and fans as well. Then they turn the TV cameras on him and he's all smiles.
AFAIK, Brian Joubert has said the opposite - something to the effect that Plushenko is a great guy behind the scenes but can be annoying when the cameras are on. I'm inclined to believe his assessment, considering he's known Plushy for many years.

As for the list, it's much better than the ladies' one.
 

let`s talk

Match Penalty
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
I ve talked to him quite a few times by now to have my own opinion and I believe people cannot carry a 24h smile especially in the middle of competition with a camera on their face so if you go to him before a competition like a jumping monkey he would probably tell you off but I m always curious since I ve seen you have written it many items in various place, but since you dont say what I ll speculate he didnt say bonjour to you too.:)
And Jouby is a sweetheart too.

You´ve said that many times. You didn´t tell us when and whom he disrespect.
Evgeni was very respectful to me when I´ve meet him, as well to many people I know.
I know fans who also felt disappointed when they met Yagudin, Joubert, and even Lambiel, who seems to be such a sweet guy.
You two guys still have patience on that? :bow::bow::bow:
 

jettasian

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
I find the top ten thing is a joke. I mean, how can you compare today's skaters vs yesterday's skaters? I didn't know who Dick Button nor John Curry were. So as I was watching some skates on Youtube, I mean seriously, their skates were "easy" compare to today's standard. Could they do what the men are doing today? Do you think John Curry's 1976 skate would win him gold in today's standard? No way. So how can you rank them who's better?
 

burntBREAD

Medalist
Joined
Mar 27, 2010
I find the top ten thing is a joke. I mean, how can you compare today's skaters vs yesterday's skaters? I didn't know who Dick Button nor John Curry were. So as I was watching some skates on Youtube, I mean seriously, their skates were "easy" compare to today's standard. Could they do what the men are doing today? Do you think John Curry's 1976 skate would win him gold in today's standard? No way. So how can you rank them who's better?

That's such a narrow-minded point of view, the world isn't all based on the present; you can't directly compare different eras in ANYTHING, much less sport as you just did. :rolleye: That's like saying, for example, in tennis, "oh all the players serve above 200 kilometers per hour and all those old people clearly can't do all that the players are doing today, so how could they be in the top 10 of all tennis players?" You can't cross-compare between drastically different times. Now, people are fitter, technology has made more things possible.


Button and Curry had arguably some of the biggest impact on figure skating. You have to look at it in context. Before Button, nobody had done a triple jump. Nobody had done a double axel. We take these things for granted now but it had never happened before him. :disapp:
 

prettykeys

Medalist
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
^ but that is jettasian's point, heh. How does one compare cross-generationally?

Edit: And to answer my own question, you just state what sorts of things you value in figure skating and then on those criteria you can list who the skaters are that you think are the best.
 

burntBREAD

Medalist
Joined
Mar 27, 2010
^ but that is jettasian's point, heh. How does one compare cross-generationally?

Edit: And to answer my own question, you just state what sorts of things you value in figure skating and then on those criteria you can list who the skaters are that you think are the best.

Maybe. It's just that I interpreted that post as dismissing people like Button and Curry (their skates were "easy"), stating that they don't deserve the spot because their accomplishments were not as impressive as what's done today. It didn't help that they admitted that they didn't even know these two skating legends (Dick Button only stopped commentating in 2009!)

I think in all sports no matter the generation the innovators, tradition-breakers, and leaders are at the top.
 

jcoates

Medalist
Joined
Mar 3, 2006
Please don't take this the wrong way, but based on your comment, I'm assuming you are fairly young ans that's why you had not heard of Dick Button or John Curry. They are gods in the skating world.

Do you really think that Yagudin or Chan would have been doing quads in the 40s or 70s simply because they are doing them in the 2000s? Anyway, there are more criteria than jumping or spinning difficulty to be considered when putting lists like this together. Other factors include innovation, impact on the sport, depth of competition, margin of victory, longevity of career etc.

No man has had more of an impact on figure skating than Dick Button. What he did was incredible and, given the circumstance he grew up in, astonishing. He was born and grew up during the Depression and his formative skating years took place during WWII. Skating was a luxury for most people, and given the national level of poverty and then the temporary absence of two generations of the country's men to fight a war, there were few resources available to allow him to train well. No video clips for inspiration. No harnesses for practicing jumps. No ISU regulations with pages and pages of notes defining correct positions, edges, etc. No army of coaches in rinks across the country. Luckily for him he lived in a part of NJ where the lakes and ponds froze, so ice was more readily available. The US had no great role models for Dick to model himself after among its male skaters. So he had to forge his own path and make it all up as he went along. He created a slew of new technical moves which are now standards in the sport (flying camel, double axel, triple loop, etc.). No one had ever even been been able to imagine doing those moves before him. Jumping technique was vastly different before WWII because the then dominant Europeans had very different technique. Dick, under the eye of Gus Lussi, radically updated and refined jumping technique, which allowed him to achieve multi-revolution jumps. Things like crossing one's arms over the chest to increase centrifugal force were not common in jumps before Dick's time. Dick's success led to a further decade of complete American dominance of the singles events. With only Jeannette Altweg preventing the US from sweeping the OGMs in men's and ladies single for three straight Olympics (the men won 4 straight). Virtually every male skater, American or otherwise, modeled himself after Button for more than 20 years. Dick's generation were also superb spinners (fast, centered, dynamic) who were much better at that skill than many of the great triple jumpers who would follow them.

John Curry, as I've written many times, was the father of modern artistic skating. But aside from his choreographic vision, John had absolutely pure technique. His positions in his spins could be used as textbook examples. His posture was excellent; legs and feet had superb turn-out; line and stretch to die for; and his edges were sublime. Also, just because he only did three triples, does not mean he could not have done others. He jumped to the standard of his time. Had the standard been higher, I feel certain he could have done harder jumps. So could Cranston. The standard of the field often raises performance levels of whatever athletes are competing at the time.

I'd give anything to see what he or Button would have done with the benefit modern training techniques and video software like dartfish. I think both would be phenomenal.
 

prettykeys

Medalist
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
...and that's an amazing post that gives perspective in defense of Dick Button and John Curry.
 

Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
What jcoates said - all of it.

Also, how does one compare cross-generationally? I think what you do is look at skaters compared to their contemporaries (achievement) and consider what kind of impact they have had on skating (contribution). The latter is why someone like Janet Lynn, whose record in major events wasn't great, should always be on skating top ten lists. When you look at the Yags-Plush rivalry, they were well ahead of the field and helped push skating forward (not to mention they won loads of medals). As for John Curry and Dick Button, if someone looks at their performances and can only complain that they couldn't beat today's CoP-driven skates so they're clearly not that special, that's very sad for that person. Just like Cecilia Colledge should be admired for her contributions to skating despite not having hard jumps by today's standards, and why T/D's Bolero is important even though it probably wouldn't score as high as whatever D/W are using these days.
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
I didn't know who Dick Button nor John Curry were. So as I was watching some skates on Youtube, I mean seriously, their skates were "easy" compare to today's standard. Could they do what the men are doing today? Do you think John Curry's 1976 skate would win him gold in today's standard? No way. So how can you rank them who's better?

The crucial piece of equation you are missing is context. Just watch John Curry's and Dick Button's (and Toller Cranston's, for that matter) contemporaries and you will understand why Curry and Button were so groundbreaking and rightfully deserve a spot on top 10 lists. What you appreciate as the gold standard in skating today is directly built upon the innovations of skaters like Curry and Button. Think about it this way: you could say that every single one of today's commercial airplanes puts the Wright brothers' first airplane to utter shame. The Wright brothers' airplane could not go very high at all, and it only flew for a few minutes. But put into proper context, that first airplane was an enormous breakthrough and has a significance that no commercial airplane existing today can ever touch. Sure, any Airbus today can fly farther, higher and faster than the Wright brothers' plane. But only a fool will say that the Wright brothers had an easier time getting their plane to fly than any engineer working on today's planes, given the vast differences in context and the generations of modifying and building upon the Wright brothers' innovations that today's engineers benefit from.

ETA: just read jcoates' excellent post....basically, everything I wanted to say. And more. I should definitely read the entire thread before I post.

Also: John Curry, I can perhaps understand, but how can you not know who Dick Button is?
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
01. Alexei Yagudin
02. Kurt Browning
03. Dick Button
04. John Curry
05. Gillis Grafstrom
06. Stephane Lambiel
07. Daisuke Takahashi
08. Evgeni Plushenko
09. David Jenkins
10. Ulrich Salchow
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I'm curious, Blades. Why David Jenkins instead of Hayes? I'm not really knowledgeable about either of the Jenkins brothers. I only know (from what Dick Button has sometimes said) that the man they shared the 1956 American-sweep Olympics podium with, Ronnie Robertson, was a great spinner.

Of course I love your list. Any list with Yagudin, Browning, Curry, Takahashi, and Lambiel on it is grand in my book. I'd put Cranston in there somewhere, but I have no idea where.
 
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Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
I'm curious, Blades. Why David Jenkins instead of Hayes? I'm not really knowledgeable about either of the Jenkins brothers.

In the footage I've seen, David Jenkins was a little stronger of a freeskater. He was also landing Triple Axels in exhibitions during the 1950's, which is quite remarkable.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Thanks for the info. Wow, triple Axels in the 1950s? That's pretty impressive, way before Vern Taylor.
 
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