- Joined
- Sep 24, 2003
With Sasha leaving her coach, and discussions on Katarina Witt's competitiveness, I decided to post this question. Is figure skating a head game? We all saw this in action, at both the 1994 and 1998 Olympics, when Tamara Moskvina's pairs were missing elements in practice and warm ups, and she literally reached into Natalia and Oksana's heads and gave them this will to complete the element they were having trouble with. Katarina Witt would win practices by performing her program while other skaters were performing their program, thus showing them that she's not afraid of anyone. I think she would also purposely miss jumps in practice to make people relax and think she wasn't going to be too tough to beat at that particular competition, only to come back and perform flawlessly (at the warmups for the 1988 Worlds, she was practicing the triple loop, which wasn't even in her program). Mind games also occur in ice dance- during the warmups at the 1998 Europeans, Krylova and Ovsiannikov would purposely skate close to Pasha Grischuk, once Anzhelika almost hit Pasha with her skates during a lift! I also think that the bump heard round the world (B/S and Jamie Sale) was part of a head game...
what do you guys think? Strong mind over strong skater?
what do you guys think? Strong mind over strong skater?