Skaters who fall shouldn't be awarded a medal | Golden Skate

Skaters who fall shouldn't be awarded a medal

Johar

Medalist
Joined
Dec 16, 2003
I didn't say that, but that's what people on several non-skating message boards are saying.

How do I explain to them why Sasha won Silver?

And if I have to hear another person say, "This was a boring Olympics. Glad it's over" comment I might have to be restrained. Maybe I just have a hard time understanding how anyone could find the Winter Games exciting. Maybe Americans have short attention spans.

Maybe it's why I watched alone the past two weeks because my friends wanted to watch American Idol/The Bachelor/Survivor/Skating With Celebrities/Beauty and the Geek, etc.

Yes, sad to say, but I watched the entire Games by myself because nobody else wanted to watch any of it.

I just had to get this off my chest.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
About falls, you could say it's like a quarterback who throws an interception, but then comes back and throws a touchdown on the next possession. It's whoever ends up with the most points.

About "short attention span," at least we know that the television networks agree. The way they chopped up the coverage, it was like they figured we couldn't watch any one event for more than five minutes.

MM
 

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I think what's-her-name attempted to justify why the skaters (the top three at least) were placed the way they did after the broadcast.
 

LBC

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
Mathman said:
About falls, you could say it's like a quarterback who throws an interception, but then comes back and throws a touchdown on the next possession. It's whoever ends up with the most points.

About "short attention span," at least we know that the television networks agree. The way they chopped up the coverage, it was like they figured we couldn't watch any one event for more than five minutes.

MM


That is a good analogy. Just like in basketball a team can have a horrible 1st half and miss darn near everything but be on fire in the 2nd half and win the game. Sometimes both teams have a bad night and the one who played the best of the bad wins. Hardly any player hits every attempt but the more attempts you make the more likely to make points. If player X makes 5 of 7 he gets 10 pts. Player B makes 5 of 6 and gets 10 pts. Also make the 3 pt. vs 2 pt analogy. A triple is 3 pts. A double is 2. 5 triples is 15 pts. 4 triples and a double is 14 points.
 

alain707

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 7, 2004
Johar said:
I didn't say that, but that's what people on several non-skating message boards are saying.

How do I explain to them why Sasha won Silver?

Easy! You only have to say that some skaters have so high components scores that they can fall a couple of times and still be ranked ahead of less known skaters who did a clean performance.
 

dancindiva03

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
How do I explain to them why Sasha won Silver?

Easy. You just tell them that she was propped up by the judges. Simple as that.
 

Sk8n Mama

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
I like using other sporting analogies because non-skating fans will get that. You say, "Shaquille O'Neal is still one of the best in basketball, even though he can't make the foul shots. Sasha's skate is like that-she missed the foul shot but she hit plenty of beautiful singles, jams and three-pointers, so she still had the second-highest points for the game."

I would imagine Americans might find the Winter Olympics kind of boring. I hang out online with a bunch of Americans, almost none of whom watched the Olys or only watched the ladies free. For people in the US, they win a gold medal practically every 5 minutes in the Summer Games so the Winter Games might be kind of boring for them. For Canadians, even though we did extremely well overall, it's always a little anti-climactic when we don't make the men's hockey gold medal game. And also, in figure skating, at least, the podiums were pretty much 'as expected'. Who didn't pick N/K for dance gold, Plushy for mens, T/M for the pairs....the only surprise was the ladies, I think, and even then not who was on the podium just where they were standing.
 

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
dancindiva03 said:
How do I explain to them why Sasha won Silver?

Easy. You just tell them that she was propped up by the judges. Simple as that.

Simple enough!!! :cool: :laugh:
 

rain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
Johar said:
I didn't say that, but that's what people on several non-skating message boards are saying.

How do I explain to them why Sasha won Silver?

And if I have to hear another person say, "This was a boring Olympics. Glad it's over" comment I might have to be restrained. Maybe I just have a hard time understanding how anyone could find the Winter Games exciting. Maybe Americans have short attention spans.

Maybe it's why I watched alone the past two weeks because my friends wanted to watch American Idol/The Bachelor/Survivor/Skating With Celebrities/Beauty and the Geek, etc.

Yes, sad to say, but I watched the entire Games by myself because nobody else wanted to watch any of it.

I just had to get this off my chest.


I sympathize, though I'm from Canada and me and all my co-workers watched tons of Olympic coverage and loved it. I didn't think it was boring at all. (And I loathe reality shows.)

On the skating.....I have no patience for the kind of crap you're talking about (not blaming you - I've read similar complaints on this very site, so I know it's a not uncommon idea). Have those people ever watched skating at the Olympics before??? I don't think I can remember one instance where at least a good portion of the medalists HAVEN'T had falls/ and or comparable mistakes in either the short or the long. The idea of everyone skating the perfect program is a myth.

On CBC my Mom and I were irritated by an interview with Elvis Stojko after the skating was done, in which he basically sat back and said "well, in my day....." and proceeded to slam all the current skaters. I always respected him as a skater before, but after this interview I'm actually reconsidering. He basically stated that jumps were everything and while "all the in-between stuff" is nice, it's really all about the quads and triples. Steam started coming out of my ears. All that other stuff? Like the spins, edges, footwork - doesn't matter huh? He sure went down a notch in my estimation. He expressed a similar distaste to what you mentioned having heard, with people getting medals when they fell. Then proceeded to contradict himself by praising the Zhang's (who were the most undeserving of all the top medalists, IMO) for their attempted throw and huge fall. So how is that different than Buttle trying the quad and falling - except that Buttle recovered much more quickly, with less negative impact on the overall program, and skated a much more interesting FS then they did? Same can be said of Cohen. It made me want to smack him. Figure skating is not solely a jumping contest. If it was, I wouldn't be nearly as interested in watching it.
 

rain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
hockeyfan228 said:
Actually, I thought Stojko was channeling Don Cherry. The only thing that was missing was plaid.

It's hilarious that you would say that, as that's exactly what my mother said. And she didn't mean it as a compliment.
 

blueskies

Spectator
Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Kristi Yamaguchi fell in her Olympic long.

I don't know if Scott Hamilton actually fell, but I remember him saying that he skated badly at the Olympics, came in second in both the short and long programs, but won because he placed first in figures.
 

FreeKatie

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
How do you explain to them why Sasha won Silver?


Tell them all the other skaters who have fallen and won medals at the Olympics and that should shut them up.
 

Frau Muller

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 1, 2005
Hamilton didn't fall but stumbled out of 3 lutz and popped some other jump.

Peggy Fleming also had a couple of bad landings, if not outright falls, in her '68 LP. That's why the full version of her LP has mysteriously 'disappeared' from ABC's vault and it's now impossible to see the entire program from beginning to end. :cool:
 

bethissoawesome

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 12, 2005
It's reality TV, I'm telling you. Everyone wants somebody kicked off each week. Maybe we should make the Olympics 24 weeks long and phone in our votes for which skater passes the next round :laugh:
 
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