- Joined
- Jan 17, 2014
Tonya Harding & Nicole Bobeck... bad girls? yes. Impactful? absolutely. why? 3 axel and spiral.
Bobek
Tonya Harding & Nicole Bobeck... bad girls? yes. Impactful? absolutely. why? 3 axel and spiral.
Tonya Harding & Nicole Bobeck... bad girls? yes. Impactful? absolutely. why? 3 axel and spiral.
@WeakAnkles
I understand what you're saying. Attempts at recreating magic with only the base elements often results in tediousness. I may not be an expert in ice dance, but it's the same in any art or performance. Just look at novels, movies, TV, storytelling in general...
I meant the question more like--even if I/K were competing under 6.0, wouldn't their routines be equally tedious to you? And they'll probably win more, which will create more drama! skates, which will probably make ice dance even more annoying for you. It seems like you simply prefer COP ice dance over 6.0 ice dance. (Apologies if I'm reading you wrong though). Of course, I'm one of those people who doesn't think the best COP-points-getter is necessary the best skate; if that were true, we wouldn't have tweaks to the judging system all the time.
I don't want to get into an argument over specific choices, but this thread is a great way to think of skaters, and I like that you go back practically to the start of competitive skating rather than concentrating just on the recent past. Definitely Toller Cranston and Janet Lynn need to be on this list, because though they never won an international gold medal, they helped to usher in the era of more expressive skating. Cranston shares that distinction with his almost exact contemporary, John Curry, and Lynn probably can be thought of in conjunction with Peggy Fleming.
For the ice dancers, I'll leave it to better informed people (or just more emphatic people!) to argue, except to say that Torvill and Dean most assuredly do belong on this list.
Absolutely right to those who have mentioned these three. Many of the skaters argued about here simply have not been skating long enough to "revolutionize the sport". That needs the long view.
Janet Lynn: how many of you have watched skaters tracing figure eights on the rink as part of Olympic competition? You haven't? I have, and you have Janet Lynn to thank for the fact that you do not. *That* is revolutionary, not a step sequence or a spin or a jump. Changing the way we watch figure skating.
Toller Cranston: every male figure skater who has skated since owes a debt to Cranston. Either they incorporated (or tried) artistry and wonder and innovation into their skating, or, as a backlash, they tried athleticism. Cranston was a skater who made you watch, and not because he was going to do a jump with a bunch of letters and initials. He was compelling.
Torvill and Dean: Also compelling. They tried a new concept, and they succeeded. Almost entirely due to Torvill and Dean, ice dancing became respected.
There is no way to say that about skaters who are still skating. They may revolutionize; they may not, time will tell. But if you don't know about Lynn, Cranston or Torvill and Dean, I am afraid to say you probably don't know enough to say.
Bobek
Michelle Kwan is one of the first Asian-American female athletes to be truly embraced by the American public (in a time when Asian-American media and cultural representation was far worse than it is today, and it's still severely lacking), and remains one of the most iconic female minority athletes in US history..she carried the torch that was passed on to her from Kristi Yamaguchi, and to a lesser extent, Tiffany Chin.
Ultimately, she became beloved by the skating community and general public in a way that her 2 predecessors never had been (although I think she definitely benefited from the inroads they made).
It speaks volumes that a woman of minority descent became the face of her sport (and during its golden age), especially when skating has had a distinguished legacy in the US going back almost a century.
Well said and add Tai and Randy !Absolutely right to those who have mentioned these three. Many of the skaters argued about here simply have not been skating long enough to "revolutionize the sport". That needs the long view.
Janet Lynn: how many of you have watched skaters tracing figure eights on the rink as part of Olympic competition? You haven't? I have, and you have Janet Lynn to thank for the fact that you do not. *That* is revolutionary, not a step sequence or a spin or a jump. Changing the way we watch figure skating.
Toller Cranston: every male figure skater who has skated since owes a debt to Cranston. Either they incorporated (or tried) artistry and wonder and innovation into their skating, or, as a backlash, they tried athleticism. Cranston was a skater who made you watch, and not because he was going to do a jump with a bunch of letters and initials. He was compelling.
Torvill and Dean: Also compelling. They tried a new concept, and they succeeded. Almost entirely due to Torvill and Dean, ice dancing became respected.
There is no way to say that about skaters who are still skating. They may revolutionize; they may not, time will tell. But if you don't know about Lynn, Cranston or Torvill and Dean, I am afraid to say you probably don't know enough to say.
That's right! She was the first skater ever to pose nude! And that is a HUGE historical breakthrough! lol
Nobody did it before and very very few after. Tanja Szewczenko was one of them. Actually she might be the only one...
gracie :yay:
I am sad Virtue & Moir are gone as no matter how much of a douche Scott Moir is they are one of the most beautiful and breathtaking teams ever, and I will miss them terribly. However I am thrilled with Davis & White's retirement. They are great and probably deserved their titles (were visibly overmarked compared to V&M at times the last 2 years but am not interested in getting into that) but they too were taking ice dance in a new direciton and not a good one IMO. They were turning it into an acrobatic circus act, more like a mini pairs routine. They were also taking away it from finesse and polish, which were never apparent in their dancing. I hope their style of dancing really does not have much or any influence on others in the years to come.
Harding wasnt really impactful for her 3axel as Ito was doing it years earlier and did about 10 times as many. Harding was mostly seen splatting on her 3axel in big competitions, which she did 9 times out of 10 she tried it, and she lost countless medals by it while winning very few because of it, so she was more of a precautionary tale if anything (in more ways than one it turned out). No American since has landed a real 3axel (Meissner's one was a joke and shouldnt have even been ratified) so I wouldnt say she had any impact on American ladies by her 3axel either.