Arakawa was boring and dull in her performance, although it was beautiful. Sasha was also beautiful but was firey and captivating in her performance.
Lets look at her career as I remember it:
At the Olympics she skates a wonderful short program and finishes 3rd behind Kwan and Slutskaya, but takes 3 2nd place votes. In the long she has a fall and the judges dump her to 4th place. This was wrong. She landed 6 triples cleanly, and the jump she fell on was the back end of the extremely hard triple lutz-triple toe, she finished with 2 triple lutzes, a triple flip, triple loop, triple sal, and triple toe so all triples clean except 1.
Also what about Arakawa and Cohen and Slutskaya all almost tieing in the short. Like I said all 3 skated cleanly in the short with the same jumps. Sasha is such an unbelievably exquiste skater with such beautiful refined positions and such elegant movement that no skater should be almost tied with her with both skating cleanly and the same jumps.
Sasha landed the same number of triples as Arakawa. Arakawa had only 6 planned once she decided not to do any triple-triples. Cohen had 7 planned once she decided to do a triple-triple sequence. Arakawa landed 5 and Cohen 5, same number.
Michelle is a great champion, but when Sasha came on the scene it only took her a couple years of development in her skating to acquire all the skills to better or match anything Michelle had. The only thing Michelle had over Sasha by 2003, or maybe even 2002, was reputation, and consistency in competition. Sasha could do everything else Michelle had as good or better. The quality of Sasha's skating should have won her more U.S titles, but 1 or 2 mistakes was enough of an excuse for judges to give to the tired and true favorite Kwan.
If her edges, stroking, speed and ice coverage are a problem why are her skating skills scores in line with all her other categories in the PC marks? That suggests to me they arent.
Like I said if that area of her skating is a problem why are her skating skill scores in the same range as her other scores? That suggest to me the "below the ankles" area of her skating, the "blade to ice" areas of her skating are just as strong as the others.
Also why does Dick Button or Peggy Fleming never point them out? They say except for inconsistency Sasha has no weakness. They say that many times. Why dont they point out what you say she is lacking in then?
Arakawa was boring and dull in her performance, although it was beautiful. Sasha was also beautiful but was firey and captivating in her performance.
... Also why does Dick Button or Peggy Fleming never point them out? They say except for inconsistency Sasha has no weakness. They say that many times. Why dont they point out what you say she is lacking in then?
While her SP at the SLC Olympics was beautiful, her LP was skate, skate jump...skate, skate jump. There was nothign in there choregoraphically of any interest.
She should've also been the OGM in '06 because she did a very nice press conference.
This is a sport. If you can't win based on your ability to deliver, then you shouldn't win. Its very simple.
:sheesh: