least favorite winning performances | Golden Skate

least favorite winning performances

fuido

Rinkside
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Everyone talks about winning performances and whose stuck out and touched them, so I was curious to know what everyone's least favorite gold-winning performances from the past Olympics, Worlds, and national championships.
 

sk8er1964

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I would say Michelle Kwan's performance at this last Nationals. I do think she deserved to win, but her performance did nothing for me until the last 20 seconds or so, when she really put her heart into that footwork sequence. The rest was kind of blah, IMO.
 

soogar

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2003
Sarah's Olympic performance was a downer for me. I couldn't believe that bore was crowned OGM. I thought Michelle would have worn the crown well.

Alexei Urmanov's performance in 1994 was a bummer. I've seen him skate many times before and that was the worse choreography: esp the the chicken dance leg wiggle he did in the middle of his program. I thought he deserved gold but he is such a good looking man and a great skater and that is not a program to remember.

Viktor Petrenko in 1992: talk about overrusing the same piece of music... 3 years in a row. Again, I was happy he won b/c I thought he was robbed at worlds twice but his performance was lackluster and the program was STALE.

The Duschenays winning Worlds in 1991. Usova and Zhulin were ROBBED!!! They went from first going into the freedance and fell to third with a brilliant dance. I bet the French made some deals for them. Also the Duschenays beating out Usova and Zhulin for the silver medal in 1992 was flat wrong. Even Sandra Bezic commented that Usova and Zhulin were worth so much more than bronze.

Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992, but I can't single her out b/c the whole ladies comp was a splatfest.

Gordeeva and Grinkov in 1994. That program was boring and I though Mishkutonek and Dmitriev were exciting and should have won. Plus G&G made a mistake on their side by side jumps.
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Mine has to be B&B of Russia - 1988 Olympics - ice Dance - that was the ugliest choreography I have ever seen. Rob Mc Call and Tracy Wilson had the best program - talk about being robbed.
 

soogar

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2003
Ladskater, I can't agree with you on that one. Tracy and Rob had this lift where he held his arms out and she was balancing on them as if they were parallel bars and Rob was just straining to hold her. Tracy was a little thicker than the stick thin Russians and that lift didn't make her look light as a feather. Klimova and Ponamenko did skate an nice Beatles Medley program.
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Soogar:

I don't agree with your statements about the Ducheneys and this statement: "Tracy was a little thicker than the stick thin Russians and that lift didn't make her look light as a feather. " On Tracy's behalf, I resent that statement.

I don't know what Olympics you were watching, but Tracy and Rob were brilliant. Here is a quote about their program:" Their 1988 free dance "Elite Syncopations" was set to a Scott Joplin medley and was well received by judges and fans alike for its both its difficulty and fun."

I should have known better than to add my two cents worth about something that happened over sixteen years ago.

This was just a post to state which gold medal programs we did not particularly enjoy - B&Bs program was such a program for me.
 

imanta

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 9, 2003
For me I think my least favorite winning performance was Sarah's OGM in 2002----she has wonderful aspects to her skating and she excelled that night and was super consistent. However, her skating and choreography have never been particularly appealing to me.
 

SusanBeth

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Katerina Witt 1988 Olys- Carmen

In all honesty, I never understood the fuss made about her at all. At her best, I found her skating boring. Carmen was just awful. The standing around and over-emoting drove me nuts.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Lad, Just so you don't feel totally alone, I did not like B&B's 1988 Polovetsian Dances routine either, and the footwork in W&M's Ragtime was amazing. B&B 1988 definitely makes my list.

L&A's World championship 2002 WTC Turn/Turn/Turn Ecclesiastes piece hits my top blech winner list, particularly though for its bad taste and not how it was skated. Like there is a good season for flying planes into buildings????. Unfortunately, the good skating made the performance even worse, because it made it more clear what it was about.

dpp
 

thvudragon

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
DORISPULASKI said:
L&A's World championship 2002 WTC Turn/Turn/Turn Ecclesiastes piece hits my top blech winner list, particularly though for its bad taste and not how it was skated. Like there is a good season for flying planes into buildings????. Unfortunately, the good skating made the performance even worse, because it made it more clear what it was about.
Turn Turn Turn? That's not what the song is at all. It's called A Time for Peace by Rita, an Israeli singer. There may be similiarities in the constructions of the songs, but the message is not the same at all. Personally, I loved that Free Dance.

Anyway, my least favorite winning performance was definitely B&K's Adagio for the Twenty-first Century. The derived lifts (and easy), the inane posing that serves NO purpose (and no one poses like Navka), and of course, the hydroblading. I know it's their signature move, but incorperating it into so many programs, especially when it doesn't fit the music at all, is just boring. (odd though, I liked their Sadness Ex which was nothing but hydroblading).

TV
 

DivakawaFan

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 4, 2004
ITA about Sarah in SLC. All I could do after that program was yawn. She had great jumps yes but nothing else. And the music seemed to have been cut so it left absolutely no impression on you at all. Ugh, what a shame that an Olmypic games be won by such a performance.

Also, B/S from helsinki. They made mistakes and danced to awful music. S/Z should have won, love that Mulan program!

Others:

G/G 1994
Kwan 1996 (Not that this is a bad performance, I just thought Lulu should have won!)
 

berthes ghost

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
I'm so glad to read the comments here about Sarah's Daphnie and Chloe. After all the gushing of it being a stellar skate of a life time, I thought that I was the only one in the world who wasn't moved or even interested.

I thought that Tara's rainbow was kinda childish, and the fact that she never finished on the music once all season bugged the heck out of me.

Oksana's point-and-pose LP was awful, but she sold it. Her SP was great and she would have been better served with a similar LP IMHO.

Don't shoot me, but Ilia always seemed disinterested and distant to me, like his mind was somewhere else. I don't think that he "got" rapsody in blue at all. Zzzzz. JMHO.

A&P's Oly LP was thier worst ever IMHO. A shame really, cause they were so good. I loved R&J.

G&P's rock around the clock. Great exhibition number. Oly FD? Not in my book.

I agree with the above concerning Parenko and Urmanov.
 

Yazmeen

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
Definitely Tara's OGM performance, because I wanted Michelle to win (to be completely honest) and because I still think Tara was given too much credit for her flutz and her presentation, which was still quite juniorish.

Witt's Carmen, because it could have been so much more than all the slow moving and posing she did in it. She really lucked out when Debi fell apart. If Debi had hit everything, Katt would likely have been the Bronze medalist that year.
 

dizzydi

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
least favorite winning performance

Sarah Hughes' Olympic performance was the best of her life. Definitely not the best Olympic performance of all time. I've always felt she won the OGM because others didn't skate their best and she did. A flawless, motivated Kwan would beat her everytime but that was not to be at the Olympic games. Sarah has a comfortable style of skating that, IMO, has no pizzaz. I don't mean to take away from her elite skater status but, for me at least, she doesn't have a style that separates her from the pack.

I also agree with whomever stated their opinion of Katarina Witt's Carmen winning Olympic program. I, too, have never undestood the praise of her skating. Other than being consistent, as the case with Sarah Hughes, I have not been a fan of her skating or her for that matter.

Dizzy
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
DORISPULASKI:

Thanks! I am glad someone else feels the same. Ice dance has changed a lot since then. Rob McCall was very talented and would have been an amazing choreographer. Tracy always said he was the creative one and she was the technician. It was a sad loss to the world of ice dance when Rob passed away. I got the privilege of seeing Rob and Tracy dance many times. Wonderful.
 

euterpe

Medalist
Joined
Sep 4, 2003
I agree that Sarah Hughes' performance was the best THAT NIGHT, and it was HER best performance ever, but when you come right down to it, it really wasn't that great. Her style of skating was so inward that the audience never really got drawn into it. Her skating aways lacked impact!
 

Bosman401

Spectator
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
Oksana's OGM skate was, to me, simply too sloppy to be gold medal caliber.

Katarina Witt in Calgary was highly overrated. The posing and smirking made me nuts. I agree that if Debi had skated cleanly Witt would have gotten bronze that night.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
TV,
http://ww2.isu.org/news/europe5.html

The above news clip from the ISU refers to the program as Turn, Turn, Turn.

The music is Turn, Turn, Turn by Pete Seeger, which was later covered by the Byrds.

The lyrics are Ecclesiastes, over 2000 years old, and have been variously rearranged and translated and are very familiar as they are used at about 50% of the weddings and funerals.

The artist is indeed Rita.

The name of the program is variously reported as A Time of Peace and To Everything There Is a Season, depending on the website you select.

But in any case, the message is the same. There is a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die, a time for war, a time for peace.

I felt the taste in using these images in a country where in my county about 50% of the kids were experiencing lesser or greater traumatic stress symptoms, many seeing shrinks, and a moratorium on images on the TV was in effect, was in poor taste. But I don't mind your disagreeing.

What the heck? Why else discuss anything at all? Disagreement makes the world go round.
 
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Kathleen

Rinkside
Joined
Aug 18, 2003
1. Alexsei Urmanov in 1994 - YAWN

2. Viktor Petrenko in 1992 - was rewarded for a career of work, not for that performance. That night belonged to Paul Wylie, but the judges were afraid to give him the gold.

I agree with the comments about Tara in 1998....I never liked her skating, or her personality for that matter...and also Katerina.
 
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