Back to the future or the past

If you could magically get front row seats to any SP and LP skated ever, what would you choose?

I'm trying to narrow it down. From any discipline you can choose doesn't have to be same skater or team.

Enjoy!

Any event ever would be the whole Calgary Olympics in 1988! To pick one event from the event:

Men's LP, to see Boitano, Orser, Petrenko, Bowman, Wylie, and Browning all have good skates. (The SP was great too) And Midori ITO had 2 of the best programs ever by a lady. And G&G won their first gold. And the Duchesnay's made their debut in ice dance, Wilson & McCall had their great Elite Syncopations FD, K&P and A&S were great.

For specific events though:

1988 Men's Olympic LP
1988 Men's Olympic SP
1982 FD, to see Torvill and Dean skate to Mack and Mabel.
2010 Olympics OD

And I don't ever want the front row seats-I want about 6 rows up, center ice, on the judges side.

Sarajevo 1984 - Brian Orser's sp & free skate
Torvill & Dean's Bolero

Calgary Olympics - 1988 Men's SP and LP
G&G's free skate
Midori Ito's free skate

Albertville Olympics - 1992
Paul Wylie's sp & free skate
Midori Ito's "Rain" exhibition

Lillehammer Olympics -1994 - Kurt's Casablanca program
Elvis' free skate

1994 Worlds - Yuka's free skate
Elvis' free skate


1996 Worlds Todd's free skate, Elvis' free skate Michelle & Chen Lu's free skate

1998 Goodwill Games - Todd's sp & free skate, Michelle's Mulan program

The pro am in which Michelle skated to "East of Eden"

2001 Worlds Todd's short program & free skate

We were fortunate enough to be @ 1998 Nationals and 2003 Worlds (Shen & Zhao ), so I'm not including them here.

1992 Olympics free dance, with Usova/Zhulin, Klimova/Ponomarenko, and the Duchesnays at their best. Wylie's short and long program also.

1994 Olympics, Kurt Browning's Casablanca long program

1998 U.S. Nationals, the ladies' short and long programs, including Michelle's best renditions of Rachmaninoff and Lyra Angelica.

And at least a couple of years of Landover events! Yuka Sato, all the dancers, Underhill/Martini (especially their first performance of Unchained Love), one wonderful year where Midori Ito competed and did a triple Axel, anything by Browning and Wylie there.

I wish I attended the GPF in 2009 between Yu Na Kim and Mao Asada. Even watching it on Universalsports I could feel the energy and high intensity. It was like two gladiators going at it. To me, that was the most nail biting competition of all time. I would have also liked to have seen the showers of gifts Yu Na received from the crowd.

Sorry that was technically 2008, in the 2008-2009 season.

Michelle Kwan, 1998 Nationals SP and LP
1996 Worlds ladies event (mostly for Lu Chen vs. Michelle Kwan)
Stephane Lambiel, 2007 Worlds LP
Alexei Yagudin, 2001 Worlds SP
Daisuke Takahashi, 2011 NHK SP and LP
John Curry, 1976 LP
Berezhnaya/Sikharuldize, 2002 Olympics SP
The 1994 Olympics pairs event


And like dorispulaski, I don't want front row seats. I was fortunate to sit about 4-5 rows up, center ice, on the judges side once and that really was an excellent seat location.

I add to my list the entire final flight of ladies' long program skaters at the Vancouver Olympics. Can you imagine the tension when YuNa was about to skate, and the medal was virtually hers to lose? I could barely handle things sitting in my little room in front of the TV. I almost got up and walked out in case things went wrong--I couldn't have borne it--but thank goodness I made myself stay and watched one of the best winning programs ever. What would it have been like in the arena?

dorispulaski said:

Any event ever would be the whole Calgary Olympics in 1988! To pick one event from the event:

Men's LP, to see Boitano, Orser, Petrenko, Bowman, Wylie, and Browning all have good skates. (The SP was great too)

Click to expand...

who'dve thought then that 88 would be in many ways Browning's best showing at teh olys (even though he was farther down in the standings at the end than in 92 or 94.)

I saw this thread early this morning and ever since I've been contemplating which one would it be:

a.) the 1931 World Championships wherein Sonja Henie almost lost her fifth World Title to a young 13 yr. old upstart by the name of Hilde Holovsky from Austria. In her own words Sonja admired Hilde's skating above all, and therefore felt the most threatened by her, especially when Hilde leapfrogged over three far more experienced competitors in order to capture silver, close on the heels of Sonja.

b.) the 1935 World Championships, which Sonja savored the most, stating "no other gave me such elation!". The reason being is because she was painted as a washed-up has-been by the press a month earlier due to an unexpected & rare fall she took during an exhibition prior to the European Championships. As a result, by the time Worlds rolled around a month later the crowd/press/et al expected the young 12 yr. old from Austria, Hedy Stenuf, to wrest the title away from the 22 yr. old Sonja. But as fate would have it, the young 12 yr. old phenom fell right at the climax of her performance, having been given a program far too ambitious for the youngster, and therefore Sonja (the elder stateswoman) prevailed once again.

c.) the 1936 Olympics, Sonja's last, where she didn't have her usual huge lead from figures, thus the gauntlet was thrown down and it would be a head-on competition between her, Cecilia Colledge, and Maribel Vinson in the free-skating finale. She later described it as "the longest four minutes of my life". Though she had trained all her life for this, she felt at the moment as if it was the first time she had ever entered an ice rink. She knew it would be her last, thus she had 3 things on her mind 1.) I led in points, 2.) the ice was not too good, 3.) I had to be careful.


Taking into account I *love* close competitions, and after much hard & long thought, I've finally decided I would choose C.

That was one for the ages, truly, judging by all accounts I have read of that competition, including Sonja's, and I would loved to have been there.

Sonja only recalls having skated onto the ice, then everything else a blank, finally there was a hush, alas the official announcement, along with history, that she was the unprecedented champion for the third time.


I've never had the fortune of seeing into the past, this is one time I would sincerely like to ~ to be a spectator in 1936, to feel what it was like to sit/stand outside in the cold winter snow, to watch up close and personal the greatest female figure skater in history ~ take to Olympic ice for the very last time...


ps: this is why I savor any chance I get to see Evgeni Plushenko skate on amateur ice, and why I attended the 2010 Olympics, knowing that any moment can be his last. Crossing my fingers for Sochi. *insert angel icon*

^I d love to watch figure skating outside also

I would like to see live mostly Olympics 1998 in ladies and men, I ve also heard Lillehammer had great opening ceremony like a fairytale, and I always wished I could see all four disciplines in 2001 Worlds and SLC Olympics! I would also like to see Worlds 2005, with Irina 's great performance and Stephane winning his very first medal!!Gothenburg worlds also seemed a great arena and the audience must be the best I ve seen from tv.
Forgot Torino 2006, men and ice dance

1988 Olympic, Midori LP. That was the best LP by a female skater. Just look at the reaction from the crowd. I don't recall seeing anything close to that ever. Not a single performance from the 2010 Olympic was that electrifying.
People don't often stand up for an unknown skater and they did for her. I don't care where I sit, because the entire stadium went nuts and you can feel the energy even in the last row.

For men, I would say the year Rudy Galindo won the US National. I would love to be caught in a frenzy like that.

That is great! (The frenzy for a great skate). I have seen 2 live: 1984 Worlds, Ottawa, Torvill & Dean, CD's, Paso Doble OD, and FD. The best was the OD! The second was Shen & Zhao's 2003 worlds, when who knew even if they would be able to skate, and they were perfect and won! The crowd went wild, even before they finished. Perhaps it was even better, since the rink in Washington DC is in the middle of DC's China town, and there are signs in Chinese there! They didn't say, but I wondered whether it made them feel more in a home away from home.

the Frenzy can be great only if you feed into it... 2005 when MK got all of those 6.0s for that horrid LP to Bolero. I didn't get it and I was one of maybe three people in my section who didn't just FREAK about it... then a lot of ranting from those that did happened because I dishonored the Kween (what was I thinking?!)

Michelle's Tosca at 2004 Nationals, her Red Violin at 2000 Worlds and her Song of the Black Swan/Dumky Trio at 2001 Worlds. Shen and Zhao's Turandot at 2003 Worlds. Anything by Janet Lynn and Midori Ito in their heyday.

I would say "agree" rather than "feed"

You also would not want to be at Yankee stadium when Boston plays NY, if the Yankees win and you're a Red Sox fan. It's one of the bad parts of sports fandom, being on the other/losing side.

Sometimes in skating, you're just on the wrong side of the rink.

At 2003 worlds, when Plushenko won, people on the judge's side of the arena agreed with the judges, but quite a few people who sat on the other side of the rink thought Goebel should have won. Plushenko produced an entirely judge-centric program. It was quite interesting.

This is a magical thread, it makes one dream, thanks skateluvr for starting it.

Lol it actually makes one wonder, leastways me, if it is possible to go back into time, just as Christopher Reeve did in "Somewhere in Time". By the way, the movie was based upon the book Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson. Fascinating background, and makes one wonder if the author did in fact go back in time, if only for a little while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid_Time_Return

Back on topic, to add to my wish to go back to the 1936 Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to not only see Sonja skate on Olympic ice for the very last time, but also to see the stars twinkling in the blue sky that magical cold evening of Saturday, February 15th, 1936. And to see that magnificent diamond-like stadium glittering down below! Ahhhh, and to be one of those 200,000+ spectators watching from not only inside & outside the stadium, but also in the grandstands surrounding the stadium, or sitting snugly up above in the cold winter mountainside (hopefully with a hot cup of cocoa, lol).

And to add a bit of additional chill in the air, watching the Third Reich, including Adolf Hitler, watch Sonja (aka "the little rabbitt).

I want to know what it was like to see Sonja skate in person in such a setting because by all accounts she was thee most graceful balletic skater of her time, her nickname being "Pavlova On Ice", and her technique was so perfect that she transcended technique, she became a dancer on ice, with no one the wiser just how difficult the jumps, spins, et al were. Experts said she performed the hardest of feats with the utmost ease and that her phenomenal success was due to the fact that she her figure skating was essentially dancing on ice. That's what I want to see!

Here's hoping I can go back in time, if only in my dreams...

ps: and just imagine there will be figure skating fans in 100+ years most likely wishing they could go back in time, to the times in which we're living, I like that thought.

That's what I think, Nadine: in 100 years, people will envy us. We take for granted some of the skaters we're watching, especially if they're doing well against our favorite skaters. I remember, for instance, how dismissive many people were of Sasha Cohen in her heyday. Many of those people (especially if they're Americans) would give a lot to have Sasha competing right now.

People like Patrick Chan and Daisuke Takahashi will in the future be considered skating immortals, I feel sure, as will Mao and Miki. (And not all of those are favorites of mine. But I do value them all!) I do hope everyone appreciates them to their fullest while they're still skating.

Ah, from your lips to God's ear, Olympia...

Thus far, the only Immortal I know in figure skating is this one, almost 100 yrs. later, but not quite, 10 years + 5 mos. left to go:

http://www.amazon.com/OLYMPIAD-IMMORTALS-Sonja-Henie-Ulrich-Wehling-Billy/dp/B0011TNC9A

There are many but I have to say I wish I were in calgary to see G&G win their first gold, when katia was this tiny enchantress. Also the battle of the Brians.

Then in 1992, to see Wylie have the skates we knew he had in him, such a great artist, IMHO.

Also 1994, Oksana's SP that showed other skaters watching with dropped jaw. And Kerrigan's perfect skate to overcome her assault was inspiring.

1996 I wish I saw Rudy galindo's LP in San Jose as the bldg errupted. And then to see Lu Chen and MK battle for gold at World that year.

!998 to see Lyra Angelica at nationals and the Olympics and to watch Tara's scream dance of joy at her gold medal in Nagano.

I still remember watching T &D do Paso Doble in total awe, as I had seen a bullfight in spain, and I was amazed at their ingenuity as Jane became a cape. Ice dance had never mattered to me before then. There are so many, and everyone's experiences here are so fascinating.