I just watched the video of Yags Farewell at Skate Canada and it got me to thinking about his and Plushy's rivalry. In a time where they pushed each other to be great, I see Yags as the atheltic artist and Plush as the artistic athlete. When you compare styles (and if you do, it is often "apples to oranges") I beleive that Yags is one the overall better "presenters" of modern skating , while Plushy seems to have it all over almost everyone on jump technique.
I begin to ask myself, who do I prefer. The answer surprised me...both! At different times I've prefered one style over the other. Though I adore Kristi, I was so hoping that Midori Ito would win the Olympic Gold. I knew there was a good chance that Kristi would have skated in Lillihammer and still won over all the participants there,IMHO. I think you begin to get my drift. I'm not attempting to say that Midori should have won, but rather that in that head to head, my preference was the artistic athlete over the athletic artist, that being Ito over Yamaguchi.
Oppositionally, there have been many times when I prefered the athletic artist over the artistic athlete, such as Kwan vs. Lapinski. Now don't get me wrong, in many of the cases I really liked both skaters (such as MK and TL) it's just at a competition I really prefered one style over the other.
Which category do you fit into, or are you like me and are plagued with indecision? Hope this makes for a good topic, I always love when posters can talk about a skater's strengths in relation to others without tearing the other skaters down.
I begin to ask myself, who do I prefer. The answer surprised me...both! At different times I've prefered one style over the other. Though I adore Kristi, I was so hoping that Midori Ito would win the Olympic Gold. I knew there was a good chance that Kristi would have skated in Lillihammer and still won over all the participants there,IMHO. I think you begin to get my drift. I'm not attempting to say that Midori should have won, but rather that in that head to head, my preference was the artistic athlete over the athletic artist, that being Ito over Yamaguchi.
Oppositionally, there have been many times when I prefered the athletic artist over the artistic athlete, such as Kwan vs. Lapinski. Now don't get me wrong, in many of the cases I really liked both skaters (such as MK and TL) it's just at a competition I really prefered one style over the other.
Which category do you fit into, or are you like me and are plagued with indecision? Hope this makes for a good topic, I always love when posters can talk about a skater's strengths in relation to others without tearing the other skaters down.