- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
From the Columbus Dispatch:
Should figure skating follow suit? Should we be encouraging our kids to try a 1080 Lutz in a half pipe?
At 2006 U.S. Nationals Stephanie Rosenthal rescued a ladies event that had placed us at serious risk of terminal boredom, with her hip hop program to Rockit. (I don’t remember any other performance from that event.)
Is it time for figure skating to go over to the Dark Side?
This got me to thinking. Both figure skating and the Winter Olympics are at a low ebb in terms of audience appeal and viewer interest. The Winter Olympics in particular seems about to be taken over by new teen sports like moguls and snowboarding, as interest in the more traditional winter sports wanes.Sipping a cappuccino recently in the Chiller North lobby, Evan Lysacek likened men's figure skating to an extreme sport.
To the wiry U.S. champion, who will headline the Champions on Ice exhibition Saturday at Nationwide Arena, the athletic talents of the top performers these days allow them to skate figure eights around their graceful predecessors…
"The jumps and stunts we are doing nowadays are like an extreme sport," said Lysacek, 21. "The days of doing five doubles and just skating to pretty music are over…"
Q: You describe men's figure skating as an "extreme sport," but do you see its image as still a work in progress?
A: People tell me sometimes that it's a girlie sport. Well, in my fifth hour of training, when my lungs are burning and I have a gash on my knee and I've hit my head on the ice, I don't think it's a girlie sport.
I'd rather be running up and down a football field and being tackled by a linebacker. That seems easier than what we're doing.
Should figure skating follow suit? Should we be encouraging our kids to try a 1080 Lutz in a half pipe?
At 2006 U.S. Nationals Stephanie Rosenthal rescued a ladies event that had placed us at serious risk of terminal boredom, with her hip hop program to Rockit. (I don’t remember any other performance from that event.)
Is it time for figure skating to go over to the Dark Side?