Should ISU take a stance on Yagudin's insults against other athletes?
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It's news and it could have lead to an interesting discussion about the role of broadcasters in skating. That it did not and that it so often goes this way fills me with despair.
and the reason I said what I did about the video was in the hopes that the user would remove it. I was wearing my "GS user" hat and not my moderator hat.
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The Golden Skate moderating crew just hates like anything to close a thread, as long as people are interested in expressing thier opinions on the topic (and as long as the topic is related to figure skating).
The rules must be enforced, of course, which is why posts that are in violation of the GS posting guidelines sometimes disappear.
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Well this thread is a dumpster fire.
All the ISU can really do is take a stance on supporting all athletes and denouncing discrimination. The only one with power over the situation is the station he works for and as long as they don't care nothing will happen. That said I personally have no respect for him and find the things he says appalling. If you have to talk so negatively about other people that says more about you than that person.
Also, I love how threatened these people are by Jason Brown's skating. If they didn't feel threatened they wouldn't say comments like these, they just can't stand that a skater who isn't doing a quad can possibly be successful so like a first grader their only response is being mean. If I don't like something I ignore it.
All the ISU can really do is take a stance on supporting all athletes and denouncing discrimination. The only one with power over the situation is the station he works for and as long as they don't care nothing will happen. That said I personally have no respect for him and find the things he says appalling. If you have to talk so negatively about other people that says more about you than that person.
Also, I love how threatened these people are by Jason Brown's skating. If they didn't feel threatened they wouldn't say comments like these, they just can't stand that a skater who isn't doing a quad can possibly be successful so like a first grader their only response is being mean. If I don't like something I ignore it.
What people are 'these people' threatened are by Jason Brown's skating? Yagudin? He is not competing anymore, and he is OC and 4 times WC. Brown didn't win anything.
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It's awfully easy for decorated champions like that to develop snobbish and elitist attitude towards the sport and put down athletes who aren't - according to them - representing the sport properly, whatever this means. Add in some homophobia and toxic masculinity and there you have Yagudin.
He's probably still stuck in the era of the almighty manly Russian men like him and Plushenko dominating the sport and resents anything that isn't an almighty dominant champion with manly quads.
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I think that being a public person Alexei has to be very careful regarding what he says. Some of his remarks are unacceptable for a public person.
At the same, it is hard for me to accept that values and attitudes are universal. This will never happen as long as religion plays role in human lives. Islam. Shall I go further?
There was a huge outcry against Sochi with LGBT topic picked as the main trump. At the same time, it went virtually unnoticed by general western public that in India there was a Supreme court ruling making homosexual relations illegal. It happenned in 1.5 billion people India the same 2014.
I am sad that Russia is continuously cherry-picked here for having different set of values. These values are not built in stone - they migrate and develop. But yes, they are still different from Western values in some substantial aspects. Religion plays role, history plays role, mentality plays role, etc. It is too primitive to boil it down to us Russians being "brain-washed" and living "under repressive regime".
I don't share everything which is the current norm in the West. I am tired of necessary political correctness in mainstream Hollywood movies. But I accept that it is a free choice of people living there and I should not question it. Moreover, I don't feel that I have the right to stick labels.
Anyway, a toxic thread - too much politics. It would be good if it were closed.
At the same, it is hard for me to accept that values and attitudes are universal. This will never happen as long as religion plays role in human lives. Islam. Shall I go further?
There was a huge outcry against Sochi with LGBT topic picked as the main trump. At the same time, it went virtually unnoticed by general western public that in India there was a Supreme court ruling making homosexual relations illegal. It happenned in 1.5 billion people India the same 2014.
I am sad that Russia is continuously cherry-picked here for having different set of values. These values are not built in stone - they migrate and develop. But yes, they are still different from Western values in some substantial aspects. Religion plays role, history plays role, mentality plays role, etc. It is too primitive to boil it down to us Russians being "brain-washed" and living "under repressive regime".
I don't share everything which is the current norm in the West. I am tired of necessary political correctness in mainstream Hollywood movies. But I accept that it is a free choice of people living there and I should not question it. Moreover, I don't feel that I have the right to stick labels.
Anyway, a toxic thread - too much politics. It would be good if it were closed.
Maybe Jason didn't win anything, but regularly wins over at least two Russians. And poor Yagudin has to comment it...
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I find many figure skating commentators in the world not knowledgable about current state of figure skating, including there both Pelletier and Yagudin. To be a good figure skating commentator, which words i personaly would take seriosly, you need to be somehow involved in the current figure skating world. From that perspective i would probably beleive in what Johny Weir was saying when he started to commentate, or what Radionova said when commentating, or TAT, if she is stiil involved in figure skating, or British Eurosport commentators, or that former (but from recently) Japanese judge etc The point is that you need to know things you are commentating about, and we see that things in figure skating are changing every olympic cycle. The commentator who is saying one thing, and results of the skater are saying another thing can't be a person which opinion should be valued a lot. From what i know, Ted Barton is the only official ISU commentator which words may and could have impact. Pelletier and Yagudin opinion is no more worthy to me than any random opinion of any other person on this forum.
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I would agree that in no way should Russia be singled out. The problem exists everywhere and with different degrees of severity. Yagudin is Russian though and when some people defend his right to say that Adam should die because he is Russian and therefore not subject to the values of the west there is going to be some push back.
Homophobia exists in my country too. We have tried to enshrine legal protections into our laws but LGBTQ people are more likely to be discriminated against than a straight person.
I get that some people are extremely uncomfortable with LGTBQ people. Especially trans people. However the fact that a person feels discomfort and fear is no reason to advocate for the death of such people. This should be an absolute for all of us. There should be a lines that are not crossed and wishing death on another human simply because we disagree with their "lifestyle" should be where that line is at a minimum. I wish people's knee jerk defensiveness didn't blind them to this.
There are people capable of having a rational and useful and informative conversation about this. I believe that we don't have to have the same opinions on every issue. Debate is healthy. Understanding the values and beliefs of others is important. However when those beliefs stray into advocating doing damage to others we need to take a stand.
There are places in this world where I am not valued as much as man. Many places. But my lack of value in one place doesn't mean the fact that I lack even more value in a different place okay for the first place. We should hold ourselves to the highest standards not just be happy that we do not swirl in the mire of the worst.
Homophobia exists in my country too. We have tried to enshrine legal protections into our laws but LGBTQ people are more likely to be discriminated against than a straight person.
I get that some people are extremely uncomfortable with LGTBQ people. Especially trans people. However the fact that a person feels discomfort and fear is no reason to advocate for the death of such people. This should be an absolute for all of us. There should be a lines that are not crossed and wishing death on another human simply because we disagree with their "lifestyle" should be where that line is at a minimum. I wish people's knee jerk defensiveness didn't blind them to this.
There are people capable of having a rational and useful and informative conversation about this. I believe that we don't have to have the same opinions on every issue. Debate is healthy. Understanding the values and beliefs of others is important. However when those beliefs stray into advocating doing damage to others we need to take a stand.
There are places in this world where I am not valued as much as man. Many places. But my lack of value in one place doesn't mean the fact that I lack even more value in a different place okay for the first place. We should hold ourselves to the highest standards not just be happy that we do not swirl in the mire of the worst.
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- Jan 11, 2014
Well.. I would trust both Yagudin and Pelletier to know more about skating than me as they are both skaters. I think it is the job of commentators to be informed about the current state of skating and the current rules. I think both Yagudin and Pelletier have the right to their opinions (and it's funny because both favour jumps over other elements) on the content of programs and Yagudin's criticism of Brown (for example) not having quads is valid. However it is also valid to point out that some skaters are better spinners and do better footwork and that too impacts the scoring.
I think there is a place for giving opinions and a place for educating and giving facts about why some skaters might score better than others. Tell us why skater A's spins are better than skater B's and why they deserve to be a level 3 and not a 4 and why they deserve a 0 GOE or a 5 GOE. I think a lot of fans are uninformed because a lot of commentators do not do a good job of informing us.
I agree that Russia shouldn't be cherry picked, and I even agree about the political correctness annoyances from Hollywood. I don't even care if Russia has a low opinion of LGBTQ - as long as they aren't ostracized. But when some try to defend Yagudin by saying it's just an opinion to say someone should die and it's the West that lives in a dictatorship, there's no reprieve from me.
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That is what is so hard to understand. Why does Yagudin -- or anyone -- feel that gay people are a threat?
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I think I would turn that around. It is precisely the goal of organized religions to make everyone think and act the same way, and to punish those who don't in the name of the gods.
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very important question!
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