Skaters Retiring in the US? | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Skaters Retiring in the US?

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Kiri Baga, in essence, has retired from competition. She will be heading to the University of Pennsylvania to study neuroscience. In her journal entry, she says she's open to doing shows/collegiate competitions: http://figureskatersonline.com/kiribaga/site/post-skating-plans/

Though Kiri didn't have some of the technical goods to compete, I always though she had good basics and decent musicality. I also admire her willingness to give pairs a try. Speaking of which, is Taylor Toth still looking for a partner?
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
I don't know if I'd say Ice Dance is the best bet for USA right now. That's only assuming D/W return (unlikely, imo). I don't see the Shibutanis or C/B going anywhere at this point.

I totally agree about Jeremy. Artistry is great, but it needs good technicality to balance the artistry and give it a place to be in the program. If you are having to skate all of the jumps in a row to finish on time after a devastating fall, you don't have time for footwork sequences, moves in the field, and other elements of choreography like we saw in the SP in Sochi. If the jumps are clean and the levels are there on spins and required elements, then you have a forum to connect to the music and bring in the audience. That is why I am such a Kwan fan. She always had a balance of artistry and technical prowess. Sasha was a great artist, but was always good for a fall or two in the long which is why she never won Worlds but ended up in silver or bronze. It didn't matter how stretched she was or how deep she could lean into her edges because the other girls had more clean jumps and would beat her out in the end.
Absolutely. The reason Michelle Kwan dominated--and was so compelling to watch--is because she had the technical goods to back up her artistry. It really annoys me when people compare her routines to Yuna/Mao's best and dismiss her as playing it safe. Really misses how revolutionary her artistic 7-triple routines were--considering the Olympics before her emergence (1994 Lillehammer) came down to a balletic artist with only 3-4 triples (Baiul) versus someone who landed five triples but had the musicality of a log (Kerrigan--deepest apologies to Kerrigan fans, I do admit that musicality is, of course, very subjective. ;)). (Midori Ito has done 7-triple routines, but Ito was such a freak of nature that she didn't inspire imitation until some 20 years later.) Michelle was also one of the fiercest competitors the sport ever had. I always trusted her, whereas with many others, the routine always seemed on the verge of going off the rails.

Urgh, Sasha. I do have a soft spot for her because I find her performances quite beautiful even with the falls (whereas Jeremy's programs tend to just fizzle out if he falls). But there's a reason she couldn't even win Nationals until Michelle was gone, and never managed to win Worlds. I really wish Sasha could've had a better run than she did, but I had to roll my eyes whenever her fans tried to argue her superiority over Michelle.
 

concorde

Medalist
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Don't get me wrong, I have a special place in my heart for Caroline...but if I had a child who was learning to skate, I wouldn't want her teaching my kid anything other than spins and a COE spiral.

Caroline's basic skating was weak, her technique on every jump except the loop was bad (and even that she cranked around using her entire upper body for more than half of her career), she never learned any difficult transitions, shallow edges...

Is that mean to say? Am I wrong to say I wouldn't want Caroline teaching my kid basics?

I have found that the best teachers (maybe not at the elite level) are the mediocre students that had to really work hard to learn their skills. The really understand the "whys" of the right and wrong way to do things. They also have to patience to work with a person over as their student develops their skills. Based on this, I understand your comment about Caroline because she was a "natural skater."

But finding a coach that stressing good technique is really tough.
 
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