Brennan article: Kwan favored for still another U.S. title | Golden Skate

Brennan article: Kwan favored for still another U.S. title

Kuchana

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 25, 2004
Yep folks. Another article on MK :)
This time I'm posting up the link. Hope it works. There's also a couple of other articles as well.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2005-01-12-brennan_x.htm

Quotes:

Yet, playing by those rules, Kwan still has won seven national championships in a row, and eight overall, and should she win her ninth here Saturday, she will be tied with a legend from early in the previous century — Maribel Vinson from the '20s and '30s — for the most U.S titles ever won by a singles skater.

Kwan, 24, has accomplished this with hungry little jumpers gunning for her year after year. That she so far has been able to beat them all makes her the strongest U.S. competitor her sport has ever seen. Have there been better pure skaters? One or two. Better jumpers? A couple, perhaps. Better clutch performers in the era of the triple jump? No, except for one performance each by Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes, for a total of eight minutes over four years, albeit both coming on the grandest stage of all, the Olympic Games.

Who are the two pure skaters Brennan is addressing here? I know one is Cohen but who is the other?

Kwan's dominance is all the more remarkable considering the era in which she competes. You've heard of compulsory school figures, the painstaking tracings of figure eights that judges sometimes used to prop up skaters they favored? They're long gone now, but back in the old days they counted for up to 60% of the overall score in skating. Often, top skaters built huge leads in the school figures and had to do little more than show up for the long program to win the title. These were coronations rather than competitions and became the reason skating received such a bad name.

But Kwan has received no such help. School figures were eliminated in 1990; Kwan showed up on the national Olympic-level scene in 1993 and won her first national title in 1996. The national championships have become Kwan's stage the way the World Series was the Yankees'. Early on, her former coach Frank Carroll (who was coached by Maribel Vinson Owen, of all people) drilled into her just how important the national championships were. They were everything to him, and thus they became everything to his respectful little charge. She has said many times she lives to compete at the nationals.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Who are the two pure skaters Brennan is addressing here? I know one is Cohen but who is the other? -- Kuchana
I think she means, ever. So maybe she is thinking of skaters like Peggy Fleming or Janet Lynn. (?) Michelle is a better "pure skater" than Sasha, if that means basics such as edge control.

MM
 

Kuchana

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 25, 2004
Mathman said:
I think she means, ever. So maybe she is thinking of skaters like Peggy Fleming or Janet Lynn. (?) Michelle is a better "pure skater" than Sasha, if that means basics such as edge control.

MM

Oh. I took it to mean as in the actual competition she's faced. Hmm ok::)
 

kyla2

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 24, 2004
Janet Lynn

I think she is referring to Janet Lynn as the better "pure skater." I am not sure I agree with this. I would say they are equal.
 

Vash01

Medalist
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
What about Dorothy as a pure skater? I think Janet Lynn was perhaps the other one, or could it be Peggy?
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Who are the two pure skaters Brennan is addressing here? I know one is Cohen but who is the other? -- Kuchana

I don' t think the writer was being specific - "one or two" is just a general term.
 

Doggygirl

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2003
Interesting...

....that she lumped Sasha's name into the short list of "kids that come and go" along with Tara and Sarah. I guess that's Christine's prediction????? Hmmmm....

Great article about Michelle though - really puts her stellar career into perspective.

DG
 

lavender

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Sasha being lumped in with the 'come and gone' doesn't really make sense to me. She's still here. I know the expectation of her dominance has come and gone but that's about it.

Anyway great article about Michelle.
 

Piel

On Edge
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
lavender said:
Sasha being lumped in with the 'come and gone' doesn't really make sense to me. She's still here. I know the expectation of her dominance has come and gone but that's about it.

Call me optimistic but I like to think that Sasha just hasn't peaked yet. According to Rgirl, for the year after changing coaches one should not expect much because adjustment time is needed. If this is true in Sasha's case then it could well be that we won't see her at her best until next year.
 
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