2019-20 U.S. Ladies Figure Skating

[theharleyquinn]

There are a thousand ways to build stamina, exercise at a gym, run laps around your rink, train for mini marathons, spend time on a stationary bike, jump rope, swim laps, things serious athletes should be doing, in addition to run throughs.

At the end of the day, all those things help your fitness, but the thing that makes you able to skate the whole program through is running the program regularly. It needs to be in your muscles. The physicality of skating is hard to replicate off ice.

 

[Tavi...]

At the end of the day, all those things help your fitness, but the thing that makes you able to skate the whole program through is running the program regularly. It needs to be in your muscles. The physicality of skating is hard to replicate off ice.

Thank you for that succinct reply!

 

[Mishaminion]

Actually it isn't. Often female basketball recruits used to be forced to 'bulk up' in college. This resulted in many career ending injuries, because women tend to gain in the hips, and the twisting and pounding caused ACL's to blow out. This is more specific to women, and the alignment of their hips, and how the weight is distributed.

She's not even that much larger, certainly not nearly enough to be unable to perform triples (safely or otherwise).

Women in general are more susceptible to hip injury, that happened to Tara Lipinski and look how tiny she was.

 

[Shani]

There is a lot of nonsense from posters in this thread. Body size and only 80lb people skate sucessfully? This lasts for 1-2 years in Russia maybe until they are last years thing. So Carolina Kostner took time off and came back big time at the Olympics with a bronze at 25 years not lbs. Sasha Cohen took a year off also and came back fourth at Nationals USA and missed Olympic squad by a fraction of a score.

 

[natsulian]

Working certain parts of the program in isolation versus doing full run-throughs would be akin to being able to sing ONE part of a song perfectly, but then completely bombing it when you have to sing that part with the transitions, connections, words, etc. No matter how comfortable you are with "something", when you have to tack on a million different things alongside that ONE thing you know so well, that one THING becomes just as confusing.

 

[Amei]

So Carolina Kostner took time off and came back big time at the Olympics with a bronze at 25 years not lbs. Sasha Cohen took a year off also and came back fourth at Nationals USA and missed Olympic squad by a fraction of a score.

Kostner and Cohen also came back at much different times in figure skating than the current times that Gold is trying to compete in - the current senior field for international competitions has I think 2 skaters that are landing multiple triple axels in competition and 2 skaters that are landing quads in competition (1 doing as many as the men). Looking at the Junior circuit there are 2 more skaters doing quads and triple axels that are likely to be in the mix for the next Olympics. Kostner and Cohen also were the best in the business at the artistic portion of skating.

 

[frida80]

Every time Gracie skates, people rush to either criticize her or nitpick. Can’t we just be happy that someone that couldn’t do triples just two years ago is able to complete a SP and 1/2 of a FS? I’m amazed at her progress and hope that she continues as long as she wants.

 

[ec00834]

Every time Gracie skates, people rush to either criticize her or nitpick. Can’t we just be happy that someone that couldn’t do triples just two years ago is able to complete a SP and 1/2 of a FS? I’m amazed at her progress and hope that she continues as long as she wants.

I think people are a little surprised because of Vincent's Instagram posts.

 

[Sugar Coated]

Actually it isn't. Often female basketball recruits used to be forced to 'bulk up' in college. This resulted in many career ending injuries, because women tend to gain in the hips, and the twisting and pounding caused ACL's to blow out. This is more specific to women, and the alignment of their hips, and how the weight is distributed.

This isn’t true at all. Women are more likely to have ACL injuries but it has nothing to do with weight - it’s thought to be due to hip angles or leg muscular imbalances. And the ACL injuries usually occur from cutting (quickly changing directions laterally) not from jumping. I’ve seen no research implying weight has anything to do with it and in my experience it’s the guards (who are relatively smaller and lower weight) who have more frequent ACL injuries.

There are plenty of female basketball players who are over 200 lbs who remain perfectly healthy throughout their careers. And this includes athletes who gain weight in college as most do due to a degree is due to increased weight training. If anything, being heavier is harder on your joints but that’s more of a long term concern and not usually a problem for athletes competing for a limited time. Being heavier may impact an athletes speed or how high she can jump but sometimes that’s less important if being bigger/stronger improves post play.

Maybe it’s different for skating as hitting the ice after jumps does seem to be harder on the body than jumping on a wood floor in shoes. But as far as I can tell, being heavier is going to make you less successful at fully rotating jumps and impacts stamina. But there is no evidence it’s correlated with injury.

 

[skatergurl7]

I think people are a little surprised because of Vincent's Instagram posts.

Agreed, we thought she was at the very least national-level. Now she likely won’t even meet the 75 TES requirements to make it to US nationals of all countries, which is not competitive comparatively (aside from Alysa). If her goal is to skate for enjoyment and for herself, she’s definitely achieved improvement. But I see no happiness or enjoyment when she goes out there. If her goal is to make it to the Olympics, I think she and her fans are in for a rude awakening if she continues on this path with the coach who clearly isn’t competent enough.

 

[frida80]

I think people are a little surprised because of Vincent's Instagram posts.

You mean people got unrealistic expectations based on short videos of stand alone jumps that cut out all the failed jumps in between. Come on people, we’ve seen kids post jumps online for years only to see them punch out 3 fall FS the next week. It just isn’t realistic for Gracie to not have competed for two years and not have some significant challenges at first. Give her time and she’ll get back her stamina and jump consistency.

 

[skatinggold]

Can people just let the girl skate? She likes skating and she does not need to win any competition to enjoy.

 

[skatergurl7]

Can people just let the girl skate? She likes skating and she does not need to win any competition to enjoy.

Just being realistic, which fans currently are far from. We’re all rooting for her but if she has another outing similar to Russia or doesn’t make it out of sectionals which is highly likely at this point I can’t see much enjoyment coming from those results. And I don’t think Vincent is capable of helping her reach her comeback goal of making it to Beijing. If she just wants to skate for fun though that’s great, we will support her

 

[Hyena]

It should be a realistic discussion bc weight goes hand in hand with 1. Safety 2. Stamina which is likely why she can’t get through a long program at the moment and skates like she’s going through molasses. I just hope her team has a better plan to address this bc ramping up training to nationals, I hope she stays injury free.

It is not “fat-shaming” to state the obvious truth that there is a difference between what is fine for off-ice life and what is optimal for triple-jumping through a four-minute program. It sadly may be that very few skaters can perform post-puberty at the same elite level without resorting to some form of disordered eating. in Gracie’s case, she now has an adult body that appears to be at a healthy weight. But it is not even close to the same body she had in her peak years. What I’m hoping for her is that she can find a way to be happy/healthy in her sport without trying to “look 16” again.

Nope. No. Nuh-uh. Absolutely not. NO.

What medical research tells us now is that weight and fitness are not related. Just aren't. Sorry. You can be quite slim but be terribly unhealthy. You can be quite heavy and be strong, agile, graceful, and fit. And vice versa. We are not Gracie, her coach, or her doctor, so we have no idea what a competitive weight for her actually is. She doesn't quite seem to have the stamina for a long program in competition yet but THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HER WEIGHT.

 

[theharleyquinn]

Can people just let the girl skate? She likes skating and she does not need to win any competition to enjoy.

This, to me, is such a change in tone from how many people were acting when the cascade of videos from Vincent were coming out. Back then, when I and others cautioned that this didn't necessarily mean she was mounting a competitive comeback and that these snapshots didn't tell the whole story, those comments were swallowed up by others saying they hope she skates at Nationals.

Now that the full skates are on the table, there's a lot of walking back in this thread, which I find interesting. Gracie has been a high-caliber athlete. She wasn't happy when she didn't skate well at Rostelecom. Her coach is clearly trying to signal ambitious goals. I assume she wants to win competitions if she can. If she had won this competition or did all of her planned content, I imagine the reception would be different about what her goals are.

 

[el henry]

I see no major “walking back” in this thread. There were plenty of folks, including me, who only wished Gracie the best, hoped she had the best skates she could have, and hoped she accomplished what she needed to accomplish. Our posts are consistent.:thumbsup:

Why shouldn’t her fans hope she skates at Nats? They want to see her skate.

Personally, I could give two hoots what is needed to make the world podium, or be “competitive” on the world stage, and I would disagree with any posts that stress those factors. For me, it’s completely irrelevant to any discussion of Gracie. My happiness at seeing her return was on her terms and her goals, no more, no less.

And I hope that still works for her.:yes:

 

[skatergurl7]

This, to me, is such a change in tone from how many people were acting when the cascade of videos from Vincent were coming out. Back then, when I and others cautioned that this didn't necessarily mean she was mounting a competitive comeback and that these snapshots didn't tell the whole story, those comments were swallowed up by others saying they hope she skates at Nationals.

Exactly there’s some revisionist history going on here. I don’t think a former US champion is going to be happy or content with barely making it out of regionals. If she’s going to reach her said goal, people including fans and her coaching team need to get realistic about things. Albeit better than Russia, regionals was not a good outing and they need to re-strategize if she plans on making nationals next year.

 

[brightphoton]

:noshake:
The reason that Gracie left the sport the first time was because of depression, partially caused by everyone calling her a fat cow, so maybe this time around we could not do that.

 

[theharleyquinn]

I see no major “walking back” in this thread. There were plenty of folks, including me, who only wished Gracie the best, hoped she had the best skates she could have, and hoped she accomplished what she needed to accomplish. Our posts are consistent.:thumbsup:

Why shouldn’t her fans hope she skates at Nats? They want to see her skate.

Personally, I could give two hoots what is needed to make the world podium, or be “competitive” on the world stage, and I would disagree with any posts that stress those factors. For me, it’s completely irrelevant to any discussion of Gracie. My happiness at seeing her return was on her terms and her goals, no more, no less.

And I hope that still works for her.:yes:

I understand what you mean, but she doesn't have to skate at Nationals to skate and enjoy it. That in itself has an expectation built in about her level and goals.

 

[el henry]

Exactly there’s some revisionist history going on here. I don’t think a former US champion is going to be happy or content with barely making it out of regionals. If she’s going to reach her said goal, people including fans and her coaching team need to get realistic about things. Albeit better than Russia, regionals was not a good outing and they need to re-strategize if she plans on making nationals next year.

As I said in my previous post, no revisionist history. Most fans just want Gracie to be happy. And they will take her word for what she wants to be happy (and I have not seen any recent interviews or statements, so I don’t know what that is. But neither does anyone else )

Wherever that takes her on he journey.