Sasha not going to 2007 Nats

[Mathman]

I don't think Kimmie is relieved or feels anything one way or the other about who skates and who doesn't.

If you have the heart of a champion, you are there to skate for the championship. If anyone else shows up, so much the worse for them!

 

[SeaniBu]

If you have the heart of a champion, you are there to skate for the championship. If anyone else shows up, so much the worse for them!

:agree: My thought is now irrelevant.

 

[R.D.]

The impact of Sasha not being there, or the fact Emily comes on strong if skating first applying "extra pressure" to Kimmie? That pressure might not be as great coming from Emily if Sasha was there to "possibly" add to it. ??? I see where you are coming from and think it fits both. JMO

Cohen has NOTHING to do with this. It's Emily skating lights out and putting pressure on everyone else, including Kimmie.

 

[R.D.]

I don't think Kimmie is relieved or feels anything one way or the other about who skates and who doesn't.

If you have the heart of a champion, you are there to skate for the championship. If anyone else shows up, so much the worse for them!

Also, the heart of a champion doesn't die easily. In other words, if Kimmie had (has) the heart of a champion she wouldn't be the least discouraged by a stellar skate from someone else. In fact, it may encourage her to elevate her own game. There are the ok competitors, there are the good competitors (this is where I have Kim now) and then there are the top-notch competitors.

 

[SeaniBu]

Cohen has NOTHING to do with this. It's Emily skating lights out and putting pressure on everyone else, including Kimmie.

Yah, MM already "mooted" me.

ETA, yes she does to me. She is not going to be there and I was curious about IF it might have any effect. Also this is the thread about Cohen so I incorporated her into it. I had a curiosity and I saw something in your post that made a connection for me. That is my opinion, it not having anything to do with her may have been your intent, BUT I saw something regardless of your intent.

 

[Fossi]

the hype discussion is interesting. I don't see Caroline Zhang as a hyped up skater. The attention she is getting is from a kick butt performance. Not only one, but consistently performing above her skating peers. If it's deserved it's not hype. There is a difference between praise and hype. Shouldn't she be praised and discussed for having a great program? Who was the last US lady to win Jr. GPF's? Nobody is saying she wants to be the first lady to land the triple axel/quad/triple axel combination. That is hype to get attention. People are only saying WOW! Look at this little girl that has so much potential, more than what we have seen in a long time!! I think Em got some hype at Turin to do what big sis Sarah did. That would be, IMO, hype because Em hasn't come close to beating the top dogs to date, while Sarah had previously beaten Michelle, Irina, Maria, and Sasha going into SLC. Em has yet to establish herself. Just names included, please no scolding

 

[R.D.]

That's a good point. But what is praise and what is hype? Or should it simply be "bold predictions?" I think people proclaiming her future Olympic champ goes beyond praise, but that's JMO. She may be "breathtaking" now, but no one knows what's going to happen next season let alone 4 years from now.

 

[dancindiva03]

the hype discussion is interesting. I don't see Caroline Zhang as a hyped up skater. The attention she is getting is from a kick butt performance. Not only one, but consistently performing above her skating peers. If it's deserved it's not hype. There is a difference between praise and hype. Shouldn't she be praised and discussed for having a great program? Who was the last US lady to win Jr. GPF's? Nobody is saying she wants to be the first lady to land the triple axel/quad/triple axel combination. That is hype to get attention. People are only saying WOW! Look at this little girl that has so much potential, more than what we have seen in a long time!!

Sure, Caroline should be praised for skating a great (well, I'd call it clean, she's not yet in the "great" category for me) program, but it has gone far beyond that. I see her as one of the most hyped up skaters since Tara Lipinski was a junior level skater. And I really do see it as hype. We have people saying "She would win seniors if she competed at that level at Nationals this year" and "She's the next Olympic Champion" which to me is pure hype. Has she skated clean programs so far? Yeah, they are clean but they are not masterpieces. They don't come close to comparing with the best programs that Kwan, Arakawa, Slutskaya, Lipinski, or even Cohen had to offer. She has a long way to go to live up to the hype she's gotten.

 

[R.D.]

We have people saying "She would win seniors if she competed at that level at Nationals this year" and "She's the next Olympic Champion" which to me is pure hype.

and *THAT'S* my point in a nutshell about hype.

Here's the more important part, though. If caroline turns out to be a flop, are people going to jump on her for not meeting their expectations? Or are they just going to continue on their merry way, marvelling at what she DOES do best? Then take your pick between how much of this talk is praise and how much of it is expectations (aka fan buzz/hype/whatever).

 

[Fossi]

Oh no! I havne't read the Olympic Champion predictions yet. IMO, that is hype and will only hurt her ( a la Cohen) in teh long run, especially if she fails to live up to it and Olympics is a long way away, anything can happen. I think she might give the current senior girls a run for their money at Nationals this year if she was able to go because IMO she really is that good. Look waht happened to the last prematurely crowned Olympic Champions though: Carolina Kostner, Cynthia Phanuf, Even Sasha. None have won OGM. Tara did. I remember so much hype about Tara too. She did live up to it htough.

 

[R.D.]

Yes. But you forgot the big one: Irina Slutskaya. And even Michele Kwan. The difference though is they won all the other major titles, just not the OGM.

IMO, any prediction that has a skater accomplishing something that she has yet to prove she can do is a form of hype. Call it whatever you want, but it's going beyond praising the skater and that's the point.

 

[Fossi]

IMO, Irina and Michelle weren't hyped as much as the others. Mainly because most of us watched them grow up and probably because we grew into all the hype too Really though: maybe it was lack of internet when Irina and Michelle were moving up in teh ranks. I remember Kwan at '94 Olympics and how she got some attention. I guess being that young and being the alternate was a hype worthy cause, but most of the hype belonged to none other than Tonya shoe string Harding that year. Later Irina started to get some hype. Hype? Is that the right word for Irina? She is the most decorated Russian skater to the US's Kwan. Don't know if I would qualify that as hype as much as champions getting attention. Hype at Olympics in '02 was Irina, Michelle and Sasha. No room for Miss Hughes off at a rink with no press hounding her and she won it bigtime. I mean sometimes hype is deserved for doing somehitg good. When did Irina or Michelle ever claim they would do something, get hype, and not do it? I don't remember htem saying they would win OGM. I do remember them saying they wanted it but only one can win. I remember being at a competiton a few years back and after Kwan skated a lady seated next to me proclaimed "There is the next Olympic Champion." Same happened when I saw Lipinski in 1996. I'm rambling. Bedtime for Fossi.

 

[R.D.]

you might want to take a look at that last paragraph in my post again. Expectations that come from already-made accomplishments, IMO, is NOT hype. But expectations that arise out of POTENTIAL that one may have, that IMO is hype.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I think people proclaiming her future Olympic champ goes beyond praise, but that's JMO. She may be "breathtaking" now, but no one knows what's going to happen next season let alone 4 years from now.

Good grief. We don't want to over praise a skater when we have a master of negativity here.
I enjoy the phrases like: She may win but then again she may not. She could have a meltdown and maybe not. She could win a championship but she could have an injury before the competition. etc., etc.

Such revelations!!

Joe

you might want to take a look at that last paragraph in my post again. Expectations that come from already-made accomplishments, IMO, is NOT hype. But expectations that arise out of POTENTIAL that one may have, that IMO is hype.

Is Emily hyped?

 

[chuckm]

Emily sure IS hyped---by the USFS, and by fans who see her as the second coming of Sarah. So far, Emily hasn't done much that justifies the hype, other than win bronze at Junior Worlds almost two years ago. But in that competition, with Asada and Kim going 1-2, Emily was merely the best of the rest.

Despite her poor jump technique, Sarah was consistent, and performed well under pressure. She wasn't the most exciting skater out there, except for that one night at SLC. Emily, OTOH, skates with the enthusiasm Sarah rarely displayed, but Emily is not a consistent jumper and she has yet to deliver under pressure.

 

[SeaniBu]

But what is praise and what is hype?

I believe the definition of Hype and Praise have been totally ratified without question of what is what.

Praise - for something that happened.
Hype - for something one thinks will happen. Usually based on past praise.

Hype it's self is NOT negative. That is interpretation and / or the way the hype is presented.

Now, is Sasha not going to 2007 Nats having anything to do with hype?

 

[Mathman]

I wish we could have a moratorium on the word "hype."

I don't see anything wrong with gushing over your favorite -- either in glowing praise of that person's accomplishments or in enthusiastic anticipation of furture glory -- without someone coming along behind to throw a wet blanket over the party.

 

[Tonichelle]

I agree most hype is good... over hype is bad. I have ALWAYS heard hype used outside of media endeavors, and it's used as such in all of my journalism text as something that is not specifically media, but the more 'public hype' the more media attention. but I don't expect any argument to be quashed by one statement. I will continue to use hype the way I've been taught.

I don't think it's negative or positive. While it's great to see it (early hype this year of Gregory and Petukhov's Free Dance has been awesome) it can bite the skaters in the butt later when they don't live up to hype that the media OR fans put upon them. Somehow it's the skaters fault that we the fans made them into something they're not. Which is stupid...

 

[R.D.]

To clarify my stance on hype let me repeat that paragraph in my post above, this time with emphasis added:

IMO, any prediction that has a skater accomplishing something that she has yet to prove she can do is a form of hype. Call it whatever you want, but it's going beyond praising the skater and that's the point.

As for Emily, I feel she does get some hype for being Sarah's sister. However, she did go to the Olympics so in a way you can say she lived up to the initial hype. Kwan was the real attention getter...and here in Baltimore Kimmie was a close second. (I don't know about the rest of the country.)

And the following is EXACTLY what I'm talking about when I refer to 'hype':

Praise - for something that happened.
Hype - for something one thinks will happen. Usually based on past praise.

Read that again. You praise someone for something that *ALREADY HAPPENED*. When you start using what already happened to predict big things for the future, that's when we cross the line. I happen to think the extreme of that is a form of hype. A good example is looking at Caroline Zhang and predicting her the next Olympic champion. Or looking at Alyssa last year and predicting that she'll go to the Olympics.

 

[euterpe]

Emily had done nothing in the GP events to show that she belonged in Torino. She scored a total of about 125 points in each of her GP events, and she had at least one big sloppy fall in each one. Emily went to the Olympics in part because the USFS wanted her to go (should Kwan have to withdraw) because the comparison to her sister would create major publicity for the USFS (and of course, it did). Therefore, Emily was majorly held up in the PCS scores at 2006 Nationals. Her FS was a mess with a fall and a doubled jump yet she got unreasonably high PCS scores to keep her ahead of Taylor and Liang.

I think that no matter how poorly Emily skates at 2007 Nationals, she will be held up once again, and her presence on the World team is assured. The hype will continue even if it's undeserved, regardless of how unfair it is to the other skaters.