Figure skating needs CPR

[Olympia]

Honi soit qui mal y pense. I'm a Gracie booster. The term can be used in either a positive or negative light, depending upon the context. Contra your Wiki reference, I was not utilizing the term as a pejorative, but primarily in the sense of a Midwesterner who looks strong and healthy, which I think should be fairly clear from the manner of its use in my post. A hick? No. "Uncomplicated" is probably closer to the image I was trying to convey. Porky? Definitely not. My description of Gracie led off with "pretty". The nuance I was reaching for was the solid good looks of a New World valkyrie.

Man, I love this board. To have someone invoke "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (which keeps autocorrecting to "pens") is so cool. I agree that Gracie has a freshness to her that makes me agree with your use of the term "corn-fed."

 

[Mathman]

COME ON MATHMAN, USE YOUR MATHS

Actually, I did spend a little time with these data. IMHO, the idiosyncrasies overwhelm any recognizable context-free statistical trends. The top two dance teams are way better than the rest -- but we already knew that. Ladies results are chaotic because the competitors with the potential to distance themselves from the field make mistake after mistake. Patrick Chan does not dissolve easily into statistical analysis. Yuna Kim skated in only one event in this study.

My overall impression is that the differences in the final placements between 6.0 scoring and CoP scoring are not as great as I expected.

I do like some frisson with my glisten (half sport, half performance art ). But the IJS is deliberately designed to suit the requirements of a well-regulated amateur athletic contest, not the satisfaction of onlookers. I continue to hope for the best while preparing for the worst, in terms of the future of skating as a spectator sport.

 

[fairly4]

Kristo didnt come across ss all americab
Personality comes into pksy.
Both kayla -kristi more as competitord.
Pary of all american is wholesome, obey parents, dien to earth, dont act up, flaunt your image or powet, .despite your weath, be nice, kind eyc .
I n other words dont show off, be like your next doir neighbor. Oold fashion ideas, of charactertkindness, helpfulness ,not getting something on return, fkying under radar, knowing you can, get what you want if pushed.
Alot of ahletes are all.american.
Dont let fame, money,power go to your head by acting arrogrant, belittling other athlethes etc

 

[Mathman]

The marketing archetypes that a Jackie Evancho or a (hypothetically OGM-winning) Gracie Gold represent are still, I think, very much alive and kicking, and to dismiss this is to fail to distinguish between the pragmatically diagnostic and the normatively prescriptive.

I think even Mr. Potter would buy a Pandora bracelet from this all-American family. :yes:

http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Gracie+Gold+Carly+Gold+Gracie+Gold+Visits+F9tJ9660NECx.jpg

(That's Gracie with her sister Carly and her mom.)

But to me, the most interesting trend in advertising is that of normative prescriptive beating up on pragmatically diagnostic. In the olden days, if a U.S. advertiser wanted to depict an apple pie schoolroom, all the child actors hired would look like Opie Taylor. Nowadays, the typical Madison Avenue school room looks like the United Nations. The modern family has become "Modern Family."

One advertising niche that runs counter to this trend comprises companies that sponsor figure skating competitions and shows. There we have Tom and Richard Smuckers ("with a name like Smuckers it has has to be good") picking apples in their family orchard in Ohio in 1954. By the way, here are the real Tim and Richard Smuckers, pictured after having successfully raided Proctor and Gamble of its stake in Folger's Coffee ("good to the very last drop"). Mr. Potter would be so proud.

http://media.cleveland.com/business_impact/photo/9776621-large.jpg

Plus, there is also this. Suppose I am a talent agency and a prospective client calls up and says, "I am starting a million dollar ad campaign and I need a young actress to portray a typical girl figure skating champion to star in it." Which file do I turn to, bearing in mind that in the last quarter century 17 out of 25 world champions have been Asian or Asian Americans. ("No, no, I said a figure skater, not someone who looks like they are smart at math.")

If they asked for a baseball player, on the other hand, that would be easy. Where did I put my Venezuela/Dominican Republic file.

 

[fairly4]

Kristo didnt come across ss all americab
Personality comes into pksy.
Both kayla -kristi more as competitord.
Pary of all american is wholesome, obey parents, dien to earth, dont act up, flaunt your image or powet, .despite your weath, be nice, kind eyc .
I n other words dont show off, be like your next doir neighbor. Oold fashion ideas, of charactertkindness, helpfulness ,not getting something on return, fkying under radar, knowing you can, get what you want if pushed.
Alot of ahletes are all.american.
Dont let fame, money,power go to your head by acting arrogrant, belittling other athlethes etc

All american is being yourself.
Act like how brought up.
Despite,all your fame,money,power, be down to earth. Dont let it go to head and abuse it.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Don't you patronise me pal. Of course I know who frigging Danica Patrick is. I've been watching and been involved with motorsport since I was four years old. Danica Patrick is one of the most over-hyped, over-rated, useless drivers I've ever seen. Her career is based solely on the fact that she apparently looks good in a bikini. She's a rubbish driver. Her pole at the Daytona 500 was pure car. Notice how she hasn't done anything else since? There are other women in motorsport who are far more deserving of the attention and accolades that Patrick gets. Look at Johanna Long in Nationwide. Improving steadily and surely, never making a big fuss or a big deal over the fact that she's a woman, just focusing solely on racing. Look at Pippa Mann and Simona de Silvestra in Indycar. I have the highest respect for de Silvestra because last year she had a massive shunt in Indy 500 practice, put her hand up and admitted it was her fault, and driving with major burns and other injuries, qualified for the Indy 500. Not exactly something your run-of-the-mill male racing driver does all that often either!

Don't you ever be condescending towards me about motorsport, pal. I may be a girl. But I KNOW motorsport. More than you can say I'm sure.

Ironic that you think I'm being condescending towards you when you were condescending to Danica Patrick in the first place... saying she's less talent than an up and coming figure skater who hasn't even come close to being as prolific or win anything major. "Notice how she hasn't done anything since the Daytona 500 pole?" That was at the end of February 2013, not even 3 months ago! She's only one of only two women to compete in both the Indy 500 and Daytona 500, has the highest finish for a woman at the Indy 500 (3rd), and the only woman to win an Indy Series race (let me guess, also 'pure car', right?). I'm not saying other women in motorsport aren't hardworking and all that, but to debase Patrick (and her achievements) as just someone whose career is based on her looking good in a bikini is even more insulting... and painfully cliché to see one woman talking smack and trying to bring down a prolific, well-liked woman who is beautiful and successful... jealousy, much?

 

[Mathman]

Act like how brought up.

There it is.

That is why Michelle Kwan's star continues to shine so bright long after she has moved on from her skating career.

 

[ice coverage]

I certainly appreciate your point of view, golden411. The comments on the apparent hue of Gold's roots was a kind of short-hand, throw-away line, but you seem to have become quite attached to it, so allow me one further comment to your comments: the example of the President and the First Lady is, if I do say so, a bit of a red herring, if the implication is that we have somehow finally become a color-blind society. Your exhortation to celebrate with a group sing of Kumbaya is, I think, slightly premature. I would venture that the Obamas would not endorse this, and as accomplished a personage as Colin Powell has more or less said that this is not yet the reality in America.

Kristi Yamaguchi came to realize this when it became apparent that she would not enjoy quite the level of acclaim or monetary reward as her predecessors. Have we made fundamental progress since Kristi's time? Yes. Are such issues now negligible? President Obama's re-election notwithstanding, I think not.

If you find it difficult to agree that longstanding cultural biases still have totemic (and commercial) power, then let us agree to disagree. I will merely say that such biases are still subtly ingrained, even in the language ("fair-haired boy"). Don't shoot the messenger, please. You might want to direct your satirical ire at Pope Gregory the Great. He's the one who started it all, you know .

OT: For some reason, I find McKayla Maroney annoying. Perhaps I cannot get past the iconic image of her Olympic discontent (something like this hwell.

Agree that it is too early to say that race is a negligible issue in the U.S.
But I will mention Tiger Woods, who for many years was an advertiser's and broadcaster's dream. He too used to be one of my favorites. Before his unforgivable (IMHO) personal transgressions came to light, I was among many who would have said that he was as All-American as you can get.

I can tell that you meant no harm, Robeye , and I hope you understand that I'm not picking on you.
If I seem overly fixated on your original reference to hair color, here is my reason: if I do not point out (politely) that blondness is not synonymous with or deserving of automatic unanimous popularity, then I feel that I am "enabling" the perpetuation of the stereotype. By saying something, I hope to chip away at the lingering stereotype and make any and all messengers think twice before they invoke it as casual shorthand or a throwaway line. (Although "fair-haired" has not died out [yet?] either, I myself avoid using the expression.)
And I always love hearing about fine-looking women who dye their hair darker, such as Tessa Virtue and Meryl Davis (ETA: assuming what I have read about them is true), and the actress from "Modern Family," whose name escapes me at the moment (ETA: Sofia Vergara, who has talked openly about dyeing her naturally blonde hair) .

Everyone is entitled to her/his favorites (and non-favorites). Gold is fortunate to have you among her ardent fans. (As for Maroney, I have a theory that her hwell: face was widely misinterpreted, but don't worry, I do not think this thread is the place for it. )

(I don't claim to remember to what extent Yamaguchi's Olympic gold immediately resulted in monetary opportunities. But if the list cited by Mathman is reliable, her current net worth is tied with Boitano's at $18 million. Not too shabby. For comparison: Scott Hamilton = $30 million; Peggy Fleming = $8 million; Shaun White = $20 million.)

One moment that made me realize that the term "all-American" meant so much more than its limited earlier connotation was when the old TV show Lois and Clark was cast. In the old days, Superman always had blue eyes. (Originally in the comic book, this was for practical reasons: blue, a primary color, was easier to "register" than any other color, because it required only one plate in its printing.) But for this show, the producers cast Dean Cain, who has brown eyes. They didn't make him wear blue contact lenses. Dean Cain isn't just dark-eyed; he's one quarter Japanese. When I read that, I have to say that my heart leaped up. It meant on a deep symbolic level that the icon of mainstream America was someone with all of America in his soul.

Olympia, I love your example of Dean Cain as Superman. Hear, hear!

Turning to the pros and cons of "corn-fed," ... just kidding, I'm not touching that one, LOL.

ETA: Thanks to Mathman for his update on Mr. Pell.​

 

[zschultz1986]

Actually, I did spend a little time with these data. IMHO, the idiosyncrasies overwhelm any recognizable context-free statistical trends. The top two dance teams are way better than the rest -- but we already knew that. Ladies results are chaotic because the competitors with the potential to distance themselves from the field make mistake after mistake. Patrick Chan does not dissolve easily into statistical analysis. Yuna Kim skated in only one event in this study.

My overall impression is that the differences in the final placements between 6.0 scoring and CoP scoring are not as great as I expected.

I do like some frisson with my glisten (half sport, half performance art ). But the IJS is deliberately designed to suit the requirements of a well-regulated amateur athletic contest, not the satisfaction of onlookers. I continue to hope for the best while preparing for the worst, in terms of the future of skating as a spectator sport.

Totally agree. I think that the "ability to control their own destiny" depends on the amount of quality and depth of competition in a specific quad. IJS is supposed to be more "fluid" than 6.0 though, that WAS one of the stated goals, and I don't think it has been as successful as it had hoped.

Patrick Chan dissolves easily into statistical trends, however, his scores definitely do NOT. There are two clear top teams in Dance. Yuna does impact the open-ness of the Ladies field. Who care about Pairs? (Not me. LOL)

 

[Robeye]

Agree that it is too early to say that race is a negligible issue in the U.S.
But I will mention Tiger Woods, who for many years was an advertiser's and broadcaster's dream. He too used to be one of my favorites. Before his unforgivable (IMHO) personal transgressions came to light, I was among many who would have said that he was as All-American as you can get.

I can tell that you meant no harm, Robeye , and I hope you understand that I'm not picking on you.
If I seem overly fixated on your original reference to hair color, here is my reason: if I do not point out (politely) that blondness is not synonymous with or deserving of automatic unanimous popularity, then I feel that I am "enabling" the perpetuation of the stereotype. By saying something, I hope to chip away at the lingering stereotype and make any and all messengers think twice before they invoke it as casual shorthand or a throwaway line. (Although "fair-haired" has not died out [yet?] either, I myself avoid using the expression.)
And I always love hearing about fine-looking women who dye their hair darker, such as Tessa Virtue, Meryl Davis, and the actress from "Modern Family," whose name escapes me at the moment.

Everyone is entitled to her/his favorites (and non-favorites). Gold is fortunate to have you among her ardent fans. (As for Maroney, I have a theory that her hwell: face was widely misinterpreted, but don't worry, I do not think this thread is the place for it. )

(I don't claim to remember to what extent Yamaguchi's Olympic gold immediately resulted in monetary opportunities. But if the list cited by Mathman is reliable, her current net worth is tied with Boitano's at $18 million. Not too shabby. For comparison: Scott Hamilton = $30 million; Peggy Fleming = $8 million; Shaun White = $20 million.)

Actually, I've quite forgotten what we are bickering about . Thank you for fighting the good fight against pragmatic diagnosticians like me .

A minor quibble: while Kristi's net worth is now, relative to peers, impressive, she's had a long time in which to make it (eg the efffects, both direct and indirect, of her participation in "Dancing With The Stars"). I still suspect that if a financial snapshot had been taken in the year after Olympics glory, her earnings would have been nowhere near the level of a Janet Lynn or a Dorothy Hamill.

(Edit: I'm a huge fan of Tiger the golfer as well, even after his run-in with the fire hydrant)

 

[karne]

Ironic that you think I'm being condescending towards you when you were condescending to Danica Patrick in the first place... saying she's less talent than an up and coming figure skater who hasn't even come close to being as prolific or win anything major. "Notice how she hasn't done anything since the Daytona 500 pole?" That was at the end of February 2013, not even 3 months ago! She's only one of only two women to compete in both the Indy 500 and Daytona 500, has the highest finish for a woman at the Indy 500 (3rd), and the only woman to win an Indy Series race (let me guess, also 'pure car', right?). I'm not saying other women in motorsport aren't hardworking and all that, but to debase Patrick (and her achievements) as just someone whose career is based on her looking good in a bikini is even more insulting... and painfully cliché to see one woman talking smack and trying to bring down a prolific, well-liked woman who is beautiful and successful... jealousy, much?

First, it's common knowledge that her only Indycar win was a setup. It's well-known and acknowledged within the motorsport industry. Second, three months since Daytona is a LOT of NASCAR races. She has done jack squat but cause problems for other drivers since. Heck, just after Talladega she was ripping into Marcos Ambrose for not pushing her. Sorry sweetie, Marcos was busy pushing and being pushed by cars that MATTER. He was the one caught up in others' wrecks, not like you, sweetie, CAUSING them. And just who did you push today? Exactly, no-one. And no-one pushes her because she's a liability.

But overall the thing I hate most about her is that she hides behind "being a woman". It was her stick in Indycar all the time - she'd be in a wreck (most often causing it), and then she'd go charging down the pitlane, shoving and pushing and punching the chests of the other poor blokes involved in the wrecks, screaming at them and blaming them for it - knowing darn well that none of them would ever dare so much as push her back because there were cameras and they couldn't possibly lay a hand on a woman, no matter how much she was laying into them. It was utterly disgusting. Her diva antics, her poor attitude, and her sense of entitlement are unbelievable.

And whether you like it or not, her career IS based upon her posing in a bikini. How do you think she got her first big drive? Bikini photoshoot. Although GoDaddy.com are reportedly getting quite sick of her antics and are preparing to dump her, since their current Indycar driver, James Hinchcliffe, is a much more likeable and marketable character, rather than some diva princess pitching fits every time something doesn't go her way.

 

[Robeye]

I think even Mr. Potter would buy a Pandora bracelet from this all-American family. :yes:

http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Gracie+Gold+Carly+Gold+Gracie+Gold+Visits+F9tJ9660NECx.jpg

(That's Gracie with her sister Carly and her mom.)

But to me, the most interesting trend in advertising is that of normative prescriptive beating up on pragmatically diagnostic. In the olden days, if a U.S. advertiser wanted to depict an apple pie schoolroom, all the child actors hired would look like Opie Taylor. Nowadays, the typical Madison Avenue school room looks like the United Nations. The modern family has become "Modern Family."

One advertising niche that runs counter to this trend comprises companies that sponsor figure skating competitions and shows. There we have Tom and Richard Smuckers ("with a name like Smuckers it has has to be good") picking apples in their family orchard in Ohio in 1954. By the way, here are the real Tim and Richard Smuckers, pictured after having successfully raided Proctor and Gamble of its stake in Folger's Coffee ("good to the very last drop"). Mr. Potter would be so proud.

http://media.cleveland.com/business_impact/photo/9776621-large.jpg

Plus, there is also this. Suppose I am a talent agency and a prospective client calls up and says, "I am starting a million dollar ad campaign and I need a young actress to portray a typical girl figure skating champion to star in it." Which file do I turn to, bearing in mind that in the last quarter century 17 out of 25 world champions have been Asian or Asian Americans. ("No, no, I said a figure skater, not someone who looks like they are smart at math.")

If they asked for a baseball player, on the other hand, that would be easy. Where did I put my Venezuela/Dominican Republic file.

Some very funny and illuminating observations.

Although sometimes I get the sense that advertisers look like they are really straining to make a point. In other words, the real message of some of these efforts seems to be: "Look how open-minded we are!"

Yes, I agree, the normative prescriptors have made significant headway in recent decades. But there is still some ways to go before it becomes the new pragmatic diagnostics .

 

[Mathman]

Shifting gears, is anyone up to more discussion of whether falls are sufficiently punished by the IJS.?

In diving, a "failed dive" automatically results in zero points. There are five stages of a dive that that contribute to the score: the staring position, the approach, the take-off, the flight, and the entry. If the entry is wrong (meaning you hand on your back or stomach), that's a failed dive. I suppose the analogy in figure skating would be under-rotation combined with a fall. In the case of a failed dive, it doesn't, matter how wonderful the take-off and form in the air were, the dive failed.

There are also deductions for a "balk" (I guess that would be like a popped jump), and for not doing the type of dive that was announced (flutz). There is also a deduction for hitting your head on the diving board on the way down (crashing into the boards? dropping your partner on her head is pairs?)

I learned this by watching the "diving with the stars" show Splash.

 

[ice coverage]

Plus, there is also this. Suppose I am a talent agency and a prospective client calls up and says, "I am starting a million dollar ad campaign and I need a young actress to portray a typical girl figure skating champion to star in it." Which file do I turn to, bearing in mind that in the last quarter century 17 out of 25 world champions have been Asian or Asian Americans. ("No, no, I said a figure skater, not someone who looks like they are smart at math.")

If they asked for a baseball player, on the other hand, that would be easy. Where did I put my Venezuela/Dominican Republic file.

As my closing remark to this enjoyable discussion, Mathman, will just quickly thank you for these astute comments.

If you will allow me a new little tangent that is unrelated to jumps -- but is related to popularity of Olympic sports:

Do you watch diving during the Summer Olympics too? Am just curious whether the celebrity diving show has appealed to you -- and even been instructive to you -- in a way that NBC Olympics coverage has not?

Eisler's infidelity with his celeb partner ruined the concept of celebrity skating shows for me (making me regret cheering for B/E during their heyday), but do you think the celebrity shows of the past had any positive effect on skating's popularity? (I honestly don't know if that was even one of their goals.)

(I like Olympic diving -- without being a serious student of the rules. The few random snippets of "Splash" that I have seen have not drawn me into watching at any length, mostly because I really worry about the celebs injuring themselves.)​

 

[TontoK]

Shifting gears, is anyone up to more discussion of whether falls are sufficiently punished by the IJS.?

In diving, a "failed dive" automatically results in zero points. There are five stages of a dive that that contribute to the score: the staring position, the approach, the take-off, the flight, and the entry. If the entry is wrong (meaning you hand on your back or stomach), that's a failed dive. I suppose the analogy in figure skating would be under-rotation combined with a fall. In the case of a failed dive, it doesn't, matter how wonderful the take-off and form in the air were, the dive failed.

There are also deductions for a "balk" (I guess that would be like a popped jump), and for not doing the type of dive that was announced (flutz). There is also a deduction for hitting your head on the diving board on the way down (crashing into the boards? dropping your partner on her head is pairs?)

I learned this by watching the "diving with the stars" show Splash.

Sure, why not? I watched bits of Splash, too. It appealed to me because I played around at diving while in high school. I wasn't very good, but I liked it a lot.

Personally, I don' think the risk-reward ratio is quite right in skating. There's insufficient penalty to prevent skaters who are not consistent with the big tricks from attempting them. Think of some of the debates we've had here... "Yes, Skater X fell, but he was less than 1/4 turn short and he clearly held the jump for nearly a second before he fell, so that should be rewarded with some technical merit; it's not like he doubled the jump... I can even make a case for neutral GOE because the takeoff was excellent... blahblahblah"

Contrast that with something simple like: "He did not successfully land the jump. No credit and a standard penalty for the fall."

 

[Mathman]

If you will allow me a new little tangent that is unrelated to jumps -- but is related to popularity of Olympic sports:

Do you watch diving during the Summer Olympics too? Am just curious whether the celebrity diving show has appealed to you -- and even been instructive to you -- in a way that NBC Olympics coverage has not?

Eisler's infidelity with his celeb partner ruined the concept of celebrity skating shows for me (making me regret cheering for B/E during their heyday), but do you think the celebrity shows of the past had any positive effect on skating's popularity? (I honestly don't know if that was even one of their goals.)

(I like Olympic diving -- without being a serious student of the rules. The few random snippets of "Splash" that I have seen have not drawn me into watching at any length, mostly because I really worry about the celebs injuring themselves.)

I do enjoy Olympic diving. Greg Louganis is The Man! (Plus, he was in those cruise ship commercials with Michelle Kwan, so that put him up a few more notches. )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3p9dSO08hw

For some reason, though, I never took it into my head to learn anything about the scoring. As far as I can remember, they never said much about it in the Olympic telecasts. About the only thing I knew was, big splash, bad; no splash, good.

I didn't really watch the celebrity show Splash. It just happened to be on TV in the background a couple of times, and I caught some of it by accident. My feeling about the show was the same as yours -- how can they put such a dangerous show on television? What if someone fell on his head and ended up quadriplegic?

On the last dive in the finals, one of the contestants did not make the rotations and landed flat on her face. She was dazed and had the wind knocked out of her, and the lifeguard had to jump in and help her. When the judges gave their marks they said, well, by rights that was a failed dive, but since it was so high on the difficulty scale I'll bend the rules and give you a three. So that made me curious enough to look up the rules on the Internet.

As for the attempts at Skating with Celebrities shows in the U.S., they were duds. The Canadian one with hockey players was successful because hockey players are a big deal in Canada and also because, well, the hockey guys can skate. Plus, there was something entertaining in the image of a big bruising tough-guy being led about by a petite little pixy of a pairs skater.

 

[Mathman]

Personally, I don' think the risk-reward ratio is quite right in skating. There's insufficient penalty to prevent skaters who are not consistent with the big tricks from attempting them. Think of some of the debates we've had here... "Yes, Skater X fell, but he was less than 1/4 turn short and he clearly held the jump for nearly a second before he fell, so that should be rewarded with some technical merit; it's not like he doubled the jump... I can even make a case for neutral GOE because the takeoff was excellent... blahblahblah"

Contrast that with something simple like: "He did not successfully land the jump. No credit and a standard penalty for the fall."

I think the IJS has changed our expectations and our perception of the sport a lot. We have got to the point now when we actually expect our champions to fall and to make it up in other areas.

Back in the day, Michelle Kwan did not always skate perfectly, but if she actually fell down there was a gasp of incredulity from the crowd. When she fell at the 2002 Olympics, it was well understood that the gold medal was gone. How can you give the gold medal to someone who FELL DOWN?

By the same token, when Plushenko fell in the short program, it was not just, "oh, too bad," it was shocking. We expected Olympic contenders to stay on their feet.

 

[Olympia]

I do enjoy Olympic diving. Greg Louganis is The Man! (Plus, he was in those cruise ship commercials with Michelle Kwan, so that put him up a few more notches. )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3p9dSO08hw

For some reason, though, I never took it into my head to learn anything about the scoring. As far as I can remember, they never said much about it in the Olympic telecasts. About the only thing I knew was, big splash, bad; no splash, good.

I didn't really watch the celebrity show Splash. It just happened to be on TV in the background a couple of times, and I caught some of it by accident. My feeling about the show was the same as yours -- how can they put such a dangerous show on television? What if someone fell on his head and ended up quadriplegic?

On the last dive in the finals, one of the contestants did not make the rotations and landed flat on her face. She was dazed and had the wind knocked out of her, and the lifeguard had to jump in and help her. When the judges gave their marks they said, well, by rights that was a failed dive, but since it was so high on the difficulty scale I'll bend the rules and give you a three. So that made me curious enough to look up the rules on the Internet.

As for the attempts at Skating with Celebrities shows in the U.S., they were duds. The Canadian one with hockey players was successful because hockey players are a big deal in Canada and also because, well, the hockey guys can skate. Plus, there was something entertaining in the image of a big bruising tough-guy being led about by a petite little pixy of a pairs skater.

I couldn't tell you the rules for diving, but I always enjoy watching it at the Olympics, and one big reason is the splendid commentary given by Cynthia Potter. While I'm watching, she makes it completely understandable, though I don't retain the rules in my memory after the competition ends. Now with synchronized diving, I'm especially interested, because this is as close as it gets to defying gravity.

The celebrity diving show, however, I'm afraid to watch. That's an awfully dangerous sport to give to total newbies. Talk about throwing them in at the deep end! I watched for five minutes one night. One look at that diving tower, and I thought I was watching an auto race.

The American celebrity skating show was a downer for me. The level of skating wasn't high enough for me to enjoy it, and then when Lloyd Eisler enacted a soap opera with his celebrity partner, I was totally put off. The Russian one and the Canadian one are splendid, by contrast. Don't know why the Russian one is so good, because it's celebrities again and not athletes, but maybe they train harder. The Canadian one...some of that skating is first rate. The James Bond number that Gordeyeva does with Valery Bure is electricity itself. She taught Bure some challenging lifts, and she throws herself into them as if she trusts him completely not to drop her. He does a throw jump with her, even! I suspect Gordeyeva made Bure spend a lot of time learning just to skate around, because they move like silk. And of course she conveys the music and the emotion. From Russia with love indeed.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWl47OkisCA

And hooray for the chance to see Greg Louganis! He hasn't gotten any plainer in the last thirty years.

 

[ForeverFish]

Shawn Johnson was my favorite gymnast at the 2008 Olympics, and yes, I agree that she is "All-American." (Thanks for not making hair color a prerequisite, ForeverFish.)
For me, Johnson and Maroney each had an irresistible vibe. IMHO, Gold does not belong in the same sentence with them.
Agree with Mathman that Yamaguchi also is "All-American." As is Wagner, as is Gao, etc., etc. :yes:

I don't know whether "conventional" beauty is foolproof as a marketable commodity. To some eyes, "conventional" would be generic, boring, dull, tired, you get the idea.

Agreed that everything here is my subjective opinion too -- no more and no less subjective than anyone else's.

[Robeye: If you liked Susan Boyle, I hope that you came across Paul Potts too. ]

Thanks for sharing your POV. But can I ask, in what I hope is a respectful way, what about Gao qualifies her as "All-American"? To me, she lacks the charm and force of personality that make Ashley and Gracie so popular.

 

[Mathman]

Thanks for sharing your POV. But can I ask, in what I hope is a respectful way, what about Gao qualifies her as "All-American"? To me, she lacks the charm and force of personality that make Ashley and Gracie so popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0p4G-0yyf0