- Joined
- Feb 17, 2006
Is there anybody else who feels Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas between 1986 and 1988 were 2 of the most outrageously overscored skaters ever? To me there were better skaters then both, both artisticaly and technicaly and the judges choice to hold those 2 up as the best. Granted they were the most consistent skaters, but there were 5 of 6 others who on a good day were either strong technicaly, stronger artisticaly or both, yet the judges chose to make those 2 the queens basicaly. Kadavy, Trenary, Kondrashova, Ito, Manley, Chin all with a clean skate should have beaten either Witt or Thomas every time in the short or long program IMO. Even Leistner, Ivanova, Koch were about on par with them with a clean performance most times.
With regards to Witt I think it is because from 82-85 when she was legitimately the best or one of the best she build up such a reputation she could not be brought down at that point even as the level of skating progressed. With Thomas I have no idea why she was all of the sudden propped up into ridiculously overscored and overrated skater along with her mega-bad attitude coach who whined about her scoring despite her scores being so much higher then she deserved for basicaly any performance she ever did. I recall her coach being so upset after she did not win the 88 Olympic short program over Witt, and complaining of her presentation scores. Well fact is she did not deserve anywhere near the technical scores she received when Ito, Kadavy, Trenary, and Manley all outjumped and skated with more speed then she did.
That was when I first started following skater and it was a period I focused more on the other events since even as a kid at the time who was a novice to the sport I could see 2 skaters propped up to the very top more through who they were then what they could do as skaters, and their bad attitude diva-fit rivalry was not appealing either.
With regards to Witt I think it is because from 82-85 when she was legitimately the best or one of the best she build up such a reputation she could not be brought down at that point even as the level of skating progressed. With Thomas I have no idea why she was all of the sudden propped up into ridiculously overscored and overrated skater along with her mega-bad attitude coach who whined about her scoring despite her scores being so much higher then she deserved for basicaly any performance she ever did. I recall her coach being so upset after she did not win the 88 Olympic short program over Witt, and complaining of her presentation scores. Well fact is she did not deserve anywhere near the technical scores she received when Ito, Kadavy, Trenary, and Manley all outjumped and skated with more speed then she did.
That was when I first started following skater and it was a period I focused more on the other events since even as a kid at the time who was a novice to the sport I could see 2 skaters propped up to the very top more through who they were then what they could do as skaters, and their bad attitude diva-fit rivalry was not appealing either.