Sarah Hughes
- Thread starter princess9
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Please do not misquote me, I never said "big deal", maybe watching spirals w/o good extension is your big deal and your pleasure. Hey do whatever please you, if you want to make a survey about why ppl watch fs go for it.Because it is a big deal maybe we need a survey from the viewers/fans then.
I think most ppl watch fs for viewing pleasure what other reason? For national pride? For bragging rights? Back to topic, Sarah Hughes, is she in grad school now? BTW How is Emily doing? I think Emily is one of the skaters from the current generation who has a good falling leaf, and she has put tht in her programs a few yrs back. Sarah's falling leaf is not as good as Emily's
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No not in grad school, rtureck. Someone said she is considering law school. I don't know about Emily. Yes, good falling leaf and one of the few skaters who skate with great attack. Different body than her sister but those Hughes girls are real competitors.
I doubt we need a GS poll to find out how much fans LOVE a well done spiral with different positions. Ladies and men work on this for years. No, Kim's poorer positions did not hurt her did they. But as you tried to explain to Brownfox who may be relatively new to skating, or young, or a fan of just Ms. Kim, we are talking about beauty and classical positions. Not CoP point totals, overscoring, etc.
Sarah did not have a totally straight free leg either in back attitude spiral. It was bent a little like Kim's. So much prettier when srtaight. But Sarah did have an exquisite layback with correct, beautiful leg position. I agree rtureck, we enjoy beauty of line in every position. It gives us pleasure. While Irina and Ito and Bonaly could compete with the current champions jump wise and even outjump most everyone, they often lost out on the artistic mark. They had often very awkward spirals and stroking and body lines. These ladies primarily succeeded as great jumpers, strong athletes. All three worked very hard to get some higher artistic scores as the sport was never just figure jumping.
Watching these skaters from 20 years ago, I would say that while fads and rules change, we have pushed the envelope as far as it will go re jumps in the ladies events and in the mens. Skaters like Yagudin are very rare. I think we can compare skaters who skated across many generations. Thank goodness for youtube as my collection only goes back a decade.
For me, skaters like Sasha, Mirai, the young Oksana, Alissa, Sato, Kristi, Yuka and others (watch Sumners as a pro, watch Kadavy as a pro) or Katia at any point in her career give me the most pleasure even when they don't jump a lot. I enjoy beautiful lines, edges as much as a difficuly 3x3 that someone flies into. This is what CoP is working towards. They will continue to tweak it.
The sad part for us in the USA is that TV has very little quality anything left. No wonder they won't buy FS coverage. Much cheaper to show some silly D list Hollywood couple and like voyeurs we tune in. I don;t know what to say about the decline of our culture. We have one, only one PBS and we don't see much ballet even anymore. The common man/woman in USA is losing out on the arts coverage and to many FS is an art, not a sport. SOI only did 40 cities this year. So, you Asians are very lucky the top folks are Asian and you have shows, good TV coverage, tours etc.
I would say to Brownfox that there are many reasons people get Gold at competitions. In FS, there has always been so much else that goes into medals. Some scores reflect reality of the skate. Some scores are about things that happen off ice. That's how it is. We strive for fairness but in a judged sport, many things factor into scores and placements.
Since the mathguys/stats girls are on this board and there are several who love to analyze, I'm disappointed none has answered my original question. ????
I doubt we need a GS poll to find out how much fans LOVE a well done spiral with different positions. Ladies and men work on this for years. No, Kim's poorer positions did not hurt her did they. But as you tried to explain to Brownfox who may be relatively new to skating, or young, or a fan of just Ms. Kim, we are talking about beauty and classical positions. Not CoP point totals, overscoring, etc.
Sarah did not have a totally straight free leg either in back attitude spiral. It was bent a little like Kim's. So much prettier when srtaight. But Sarah did have an exquisite layback with correct, beautiful leg position. I agree rtureck, we enjoy beauty of line in every position. It gives us pleasure. While Irina and Ito and Bonaly could compete with the current champions jump wise and even outjump most everyone, they often lost out on the artistic mark. They had often very awkward spirals and stroking and body lines. These ladies primarily succeeded as great jumpers, strong athletes. All three worked very hard to get some higher artistic scores as the sport was never just figure jumping.
Watching these skaters from 20 years ago, I would say that while fads and rules change, we have pushed the envelope as far as it will go re jumps in the ladies events and in the mens. Skaters like Yagudin are very rare. I think we can compare skaters who skated across many generations. Thank goodness for youtube as my collection only goes back a decade.
For me, skaters like Sasha, Mirai, the young Oksana, Alissa, Sato, Kristi, Yuka and others (watch Sumners as a pro, watch Kadavy as a pro) or Katia at any point in her career give me the most pleasure even when they don't jump a lot. I enjoy beautiful lines, edges as much as a difficuly 3x3 that someone flies into. This is what CoP is working towards. They will continue to tweak it.
The sad part for us in the USA is that TV has very little quality anything left. No wonder they won't buy FS coverage. Much cheaper to show some silly D list Hollywood couple and like voyeurs we tune in. I don;t know what to say about the decline of our culture. We have one, only one PBS and we don't see much ballet even anymore. The common man/woman in USA is losing out on the arts coverage and to many FS is an art, not a sport. SOI only did 40 cities this year. So, you Asians are very lucky the top folks are Asian and you have shows, good TV coverage, tours etc.
I would say to Brownfox that there are many reasons people get Gold at competitions. In FS, there has always been so much else that goes into medals. Some scores reflect reality of the skate. Some scores are about things that happen off ice. That's how it is. We strive for fairness but in a judged sport, many things factor into scores and placements.
Since the mathguys/stats girls are on this board and there are several who love to analyze, I'm disappointed none has answered my original question. ????
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Unfortunately for me extension is important so that's one of the reason that I don't fully enjoy Yu na's programs. She doesn't have to have crazy extension like Mirai and Sasha. Sasha especially since I just realize she doesn't seem to be able to do a spiral on an edge. That's crazy how I never noticed this. Anyhoo if only Yu na could have a spiral at least like Michelle. Love Michelle's extension and the edges she uses for her spirals. No one does it better. I would love if Yu na drops the spiral period. The rest of her skating is enough.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
That is a good point. Sasha has the most eye-pleasing spirals in the history of the sport. But the spiral is supposed to be an edge move. I think Yu-na gets a bad rap.
Here are Sasha's edges:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Sasha_Cohen_Biellmann.jpg Biellmann
http://www.windweaver.com/sasha/sasharj119321wa.jpg inside
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Sasha_Cohen_spiral.jpg outside
Here is Yu-na:
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs42/f/2009/135/5/3/Yu_Na_Kim_by_eisenjimmy.jpg outside edge catch-foot
http://spn.chosun.com/site/data/img_dir/2007/03/23/2007032300707_1.jpg inside edge
http://blog.teenvogue.com/style__fashion/images/2008/10/15/michelle_kwan.jpg
inside edge
http://sports.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/michelle-kwan-6.jpg outside edge
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Thanks for the photos, MM. I think it's worth noting that Yuna's spirals have improved greatly from her junior days to now. I watched some old school programs (think 2006 Jr. Worlds and 2007 Worlds) and yeah those spirals are pretty horrible from the visual side (it did do the job edge wise, as MM pointed out). But I think before her weird snap in 2010 worlds it looked liked her spiral visually was showing signs of improvement. She'll never be a Sasha or Mirai or Mao in this area, but I think she has worked hard to improve it.
Sorry to be OT.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2007
Thank you, MM, for reminding us that YES the spiral is an EDGE move. However one may get excited over a pretty position said position should be subordinate to the basic requirement of the EDGE move. Loved Michelle's deep edge in the photo in what is I'm pretty sure her Lyra Angelica dress -- lovely!
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Sasha, of course, got great marks on her spirals. Proving once again that the CoP rewards artistry and audience appeal more than correct technique.
- Joined
- May 15, 2009
Sasha, of course, got great marks on her spirals. Proving once again that the CoP rewards artistry and audience appeal more than correct technique.
Did you ever try skating in a curve on a supposedly flatt edge with your body in that position?
I hurt myself just thinking about it
How Sasha did it so smoothly suggests more edge than a certain group of fans might be willing to admit.
I would imagine that Sasha would still garnered great scores for her spiral. Although I recently realized her lack of edging on them I still enjoyed them. COP made me miss spirals by Michelle and Sasha even more. When I'm seeing a spiral like that I don't think of COP unless they give someone like Mirai a level 2 on them.
- Joined
- May 15, 2009
I would imagine that Sasha would still garnered great scores for her spiral. Although I recently realized her lack of edging on them I still enjoyed them. COP made me miss spirals by Michelle and Sasha even more. When I'm seeing a spiral like that I don't think of COP unless they give someone like Mirai a level 2 on them.
Judges are human too (I can't believe I said that
) and like most fans they prefer to watch Sasha's spirals too. They are so beautiful and despite her slight size Sasha also had such lovely lines to go with her extraordinary positions.
A once in a generation skater who left quite a legacy.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Did you ever try skating in a curve on a supposedly flatt edge with your body in that position? I hurt myself just thinking about it
How Sasha did it so smoothly suggests more edge than a certain group of fans might be willing to admit.
But seriously...
This is what good edges can be in spiral sequences and one-foot skating unterspersed throughout a program. This art has disappeared utterly from figure skating today.
Michelle at fifteen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oywJebgYE_4
Michelle at almost eighteen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS3FntkFAyU&NR=1
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Me? Oh goodness no. I fool people by having memorized a lot of numbers from the ISU Communications. In actual fact, I cannot tell the difference between one jump and another in real time, and when it comes to PCSs, all I can say is, "I know what I like."
Everyone says that Sarah's triple-triples were under-rotated and her Lutz is a flutz, but I can't really see it myself. I have no idea how her Olympic skate might have scored out. She gave the skate of her life and the other top ladies faltered -- that is about the extent of what I can contribute to the debate.
I would imagine that Sasha would still garnered great scores for her spiral. Although I recently realized her lack of edging on them I still enjoyed them. COP made me miss spirals by Michelle and Sasha even more. When I'm seeing a spiral like that I don't think of COP unless they give someone like Mirai a level 2 on them.
At U.S. Nationals Mirai got five 2's and four 1's on her level four spiral sequence. Sasha got seven 2's and two 1's.
At 2005 Worlds Sasha got straight 2's, from all eleven judges. Irina got three 2's, seven 1's, ad one 0, and Michelle got seven 2's and four 1's.
None of them (not even Michelle) did any kind of edge-work remotely in the same ballpark as the two Michelle videos I posted above. That kind of skating is gone forever. The CoP is more interested in checking off the features for levels and the bullets for GOEs.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Irina wasn't dainty and graceful like Sasha, but she had outstanding basic edging and stroking skills. Check out this inside Biellmann edge.
http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2104730/2135757/2135758/060222_frc_SlutskayaEX.jpg
- Joined
- May 15, 2009
Yes, but sometimes posts here are misleadinng. Sasha, from the boot up is so superior that in this era of skating she would always come out on top with her spirals.
From the boot up matters alot in skating, if not Irina would have won a lot more than she did.
Eras come and go and the emphasis on skills and moves change.
I miss walley jumps , sometimes done in opposite directions. I miss a good delayed axel jump, etc,
Thanks for the clips - will watch them after DWTS........
Nicole did a smokin' hot Argentine Tango
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