Witt and Thomas-between 86 and 88 2 of most overscored skaters ever? | Golden Skate

Witt and Thomas-between 86 and 88 2 of most overscored skaters ever?

temperboy28

Match Penalty
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.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Is there anybody else who feels Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas between 1986 and 1988 were 2 of the most outrageously overscored skaters ever?

I don't. The ladies field was brimming with talent then but Witt was in a class by herself in terms of competitive nerve. She had her flaws but she always did what she had to do.
Thomas had more consisent jumps than some of the others, had a (for the time) bold original style and was consistently excellent at figures (some of the others you named were inconsistent in jumps or figures or both).
I thought Thomas should have won the SP at Calgary and Witt should have won in Budapest (worlds that year) though the judges reversed that for some reason.
Ito didn't really get good at presentation until 1988 and super high jumps were not as important in the overall scheme of things then either.

Ito did well to get fourth and third in her SP and LP at calgary (I would have had her 3rd and 2nd) but her figures were never very good (there's a clip from 1990 of her doing part of a paragraph loop where she lurches like a drunken sailor on the change of edge and completely looses the edge on the loop, not a pretty sight).

I had the idea that Witt was maybe held up a little in figures at calgary (in the clips I saw she was looking down too much was sloooow and her loops were too small) and her lp was overrated but she did lay down a solid if not amazing performance. Thomas's lp wasn't technically terrible but it was painful to watch since the expectation was so high.

Manley was brilliant in the LP (just good in the SP nothing that spectacular) and was known as a potentially great but maddeningly inconsistent skater. I think calgary was her only eligible competition where she didn't crash and burn in any section.


my meaningless calgary 88 rankings:

SP
thomas
witt
ito
cadavy
manley
trenary

LP
manley
ito
witt
thomas
trenary

which would give the following results (assuming figure placements were correct):

1. manley
2. witt
3. thomas
 

kittycat26

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 17, 2006
I agree both were overscored skaters who did not deserve their scores from 86 to 88. These are how I would have scored the programs at Calgary:

Short program-1)Ito, 2)Manley, 3)Kadavy, 4)Trenary, 5)Witt, 6)Koch, 7)Kondrashova, 8)Thomas, 9)Leistner, 10)Ivanova

Long program-1)Manley, 2)Ito, 3)Witt, 4)Trenary, 5)Leistner, 6)Kondrashova,
7)Thomas, 8)Koch, 25)Ivanova(she did nothing in her performance)

I dont know what the overall medals would have been. I also dont know what the push was to get Thomas to the top. Her and her mobster coach, and scores 0.5 or higher then she ever should have had made womens skating almost unwatchable then. I loved the Boitano-Orser rivalry so that made up for the unfortunates of the womens event at the time.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
These are how I would have scored the programs at Calgary:

Short program-1)Ito, 2)Manley, 3)Kadavy, 4)Trenary, 5)Witt, 6)Koch, 7)Kondrashova, 8)Thomas, 9)Leistner, 10)Ivanova

Long program-1)Manley, 2)Ito, 3)Witt, 4)Trenary, 5)Leistner, 6)Kondrashova,
7)Thomas, 8)Koch, 25)Ivanova(she did nothing in her performance)

I dont know what the overall medals would have been.

placements in figures were
1. ivanova
2. thomas
3. witt
4. manley
5. trenary
10. ito

your placements would give the following podium

1. manley
2. ito
3. witt
with trenary in 4th place
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
I always wondered looking at Ivanova skate how she won figures so regularly. Her edge quality did not stand out when you watched her skate like you might think a figures specialist did. Maybe political help the Soviet powers that be were able to give her in figures that was easier to give her then in her drab free skating efforts which would be harder then hold up, especialy when she missed half of her jumps alot of times anyway.

It was pretty funny to see someone win figures, then skate a clean short as Ivanova did and only come 10th in the short. Fadeev came 9th in the short after winning figures but only because he fell, he would have been atleast 3rd in the short otherwise, maybe higher.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
I always wondered looking at Ivanova skate how she won figures so regularly. Her edge quality did not stand out when you watched her skate like you might think a figures specialist did. Maybe political help the Soviet powers that be were able to give her in figures that was easier to give her then in her drab free skating efforts which would be harder then hold up, especialy when she missed half of her jumps alot of times anyway.
It was pretty funny to see someone win figures, then skate a clean short as Ivanova did and only come 10th in the short. Fadeev came 9th in the short after winning figures but only because he fell, he would have been atleast 3rd in the short otherwise, maybe higher.

Did Schuba really display great edges in free skating?
As for Ivanova, I wonder a little too, the only clip I ever saw of her doing figures the tracings were pretty far apart (as in 3 or 4 inches).
IIRC she had a lot of problems with competition and the federation and her coach and didn't want to go to Calgary at all but that her strength was figures because of the lack of a crowd. That said her free skating was occasionally pretty good in the early parts of her career (Sarajevo SP for one example).
I thought her SP in Calgary wasn't clean though I remember Peggy (kiss 'o death) Fleming talking about how much she'd improved in her jumping and then she went splat.
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
Actually you are right, I think Ivanova stepped out of the back of her triple toe-
double loop combo. I think under the old short program rules that was even a .4 deduction on the first mark which is pretty big. Since she came in 10th how many places do you figure the mistake cost her in the short program alone? Seeing as Trenary and Kadavy landed harder combinations then that and only came 5th and 6th in the short I am guessing she still only would have been about 7th but I dont know. No higher then 4th anyway though I would say. Anyway her free skate was awful, she didnt even land one jump cleanly.

Her short program at the 84 Olympics was pretty good, she beat a clean Kondrashova and a clean Zayak(and a faulty Sumners)so that was pretty good. Her free skate was also pretty good after the shaky first part with 3 errors. She also had some pretty good free skating in 85 events. After that it was all figures though.

Dick Button and Peggy Fleming could not stand her skating. They really ripped her whenever she performed IIRC.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Seeing as Trenary and Kadavy landed harder combinations then that and only came 5th and 6th in the short

I thought Kadavy was really undermarked in the SP there (meaningless since she had to drop out of the competition, but ...) and Elisabeth Manley was overmarked in the SP with an easier combo and one of her spins travelled an awful lot for the time (about average now). I assumed at the time that Manley was being given a home crowd boost (though she fully deserved the win in the LP).

IIRC Trenary's SP was what I'd call sloppy clean, she didn't fall but her jumps, especially the combo weren't especially well done. I thought if anything she was a tad overmarked (see my from-memory rankings above though the more I think about it the more likely I am to switch Kadavy and Ito).
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
You say Manley had an easier combo but wasnt a triple sal-double loop harder then the triple toe-double loop Witt did, and equaly difficult to the double loop-triple toe Thomas did? I dont remember the traveling spin either. Interestingly she was only 1 or 2 judges away from being 2nd in the short which would have given her the overall gold.

It sounds by your accessment she lost the gold with a somewhat shaky short program which she was lucky to even be 3rd in though. Of course coming into the event she wasnt favored either though.
 

Zuranthium

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 30, 2006
I think ITO should have won the '88 Olympics. Her technical content was FARRR beyond that of any other lady and although she was not a fully-formed skater in the traditional sense, her skating was a pure joy to watch.

I would have given Witt the Silver and Manley the Bronze.

~Z
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
What really offended me was Katerina's winning the World Pro in 1989. Her artistic skate consisted of mostly flirting and she hardly skated, at all.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
I think ITO should have won the '88 Olympics. Her technical content was FARRR beyond that of any other lady and although she was not a fully-formed skater in the traditional sense, her skating was a pure joy to watch.

/QUOTE]

Ito is one of my two or three favorite skaters ever, but no, she shouldn't have won the 88 olympics with the rules that were in place at the time (and I'm not just talking about her low placement in figures).
And saying now what we think the rules should have been then is more speculation about alternate histories than anything else.

But I fully agree that the total of her SP and LP (especially the latter) were the most fun to watch.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
You say Manley had an easier combo but wasnt a triple sal-double loop harder then the triple toe-double loop Witt did, and equaly difficult to the double loop-triple toe Thomas did? I dont remember the traveling spin either. Interestingly she was only 1 or 2 judges away from being 2nd in the short which would have given her the overall gold.

It sounds by your accessment she lost the gold with a somewhat shaky short program which she was lucky to even be 3rd in though. Of course coming into the event she wasnt favored either though.

IIRC the triple after the double (as Thomas did) was considered more difficult than either the 3t2r or 3s2r.

Of course the hardest combo was by Ito, a 2r3r (!!!)

I wouldn't call Manley's SP shakey, far from it, I just though Kadavy's and Ito's were more interesting/difficult (assuming that Thomas and Witt were 1 and 2 in whatever order). The SP at that competition was really great with about 8 clean programs toward the top.
The LP of course was a disappointment with only two really memorable LP's (Manley and Ito, Witt was clean but slow and uninspired IMHO)
 

mememe

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 20, 2004
What really offended me was Katerina's winning the World Pro in 1989. Her artistic skate consisted of mostly flirting and she hardly skated, at all.

Katarina didn't win the World Pro in 1989 -- she didn't even compete at the World Pro (Landover) until 1994, and she never won it. She did win some competition (Miko Masters?) in France in 1989 or 90, and some other one (can't recall the name of it now -- but it was in Cincinnati and put on, I think, by the PSA -- and there was one put on by Mike Berg, too) in 89 or 90 or sometime through there -- I'd have to go look it up. The Cincinnati one may be the one you're thinking of. But it wasn't the world pro -- Kat did very little "pro" competing until after 1994 Olympics.
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
Ito is one of my two or three favorite skaters ever, but no, she shouldn't have won the 88 olympics with the rules that were in place at the time (and I'm not just talking about her low placement in figures).
And saying now what we think the rules should have been then is more speculation about alternate histories than anything else.

But I fully agree that the total of her SP and LP (especially the latter) were the most fun to watch.

I would have given Ito all 5.9s and 6.0s for technical merit in both short and long at the 88 Olympics. If Debi Thomas can get 3 5.9s in the short for smaller jumps, not any better spins, and slower skating then Ito, then Ito deserved higher then that but Ito was giving lower scores even on the technical side then Debi "I really on my name for my scores" Thomas in the short. Her jumps difficulty, jump quality, ice coverage, and speed blew away all the other skaters in the field, and her spins and footwork were more then adequate. Too bad she did not have the name of Witt, Thomas, and to a lesser degree Manley to prop up her scores or even get the scores she deserved.
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
IIRC the triple after the double (as Thomas did) was considered more difficult than either the 3t2r or 3s2r.

Of course the hardest combo was by Ito, a 2r3r (!!!)

I wouldn't call Manley's SP shakey, far from it, I just though Kadavy's and Ito's were more interesting/difficult (assuming that Thomas and Witt were 1 and 2 in whatever order). The SP at that competition was really great with about 8 clean programs toward the top.
The LP of course was a disappointment with only two really memorable LP's (Manley and Ito, Witt was clean but slow and uninspired IMHO)

Ok thanks for clarifying. I agree the SP was great, Kadavy, Trenary, and Kondrashova were buried in the standings for very strong performances if I recall. Potential contenders like Leistner and Ivanova made a mistake and were really bured in the short program standings.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
I would have given Ito all 5.9s and 6.0s for technical merit in both short and long at the 88 Olympics. If Debi Thomas can get 3 5.9s in the short for smaller jumps, not any better spins, and slower skating ... Her jumps difficulty, jump quality, ice coverage, and speed blew away all the other skaters in the field,

I think you're looking at an 1988 performance with 2006 standards.

I'm not an expert on judging criteria but I think high jumps and speed were not quite as important then. IIRC 'speed and power across the ice' was just developing as judging criterion but skaters were expected to not only have a slow section in their programs but skate more slowly to it (as opposed to changing body positions more slowly while skating as fast as possible like now). Go back a few years more, look at John Curry's 1976 LP and marvel at how _slow_ he is.

And I don't think heighth in jumps was especially rewarded then.

And ... (getting to dangerous ground here) ladies were expected to skate like ladies (and not adorable little girls). Ito's programs were in terms of choreography (and her persona itself) a little on the immature side, more juniorish than appropriate for seniors.

That said, in terms of skating history, Ito's performances were clearly the most important in all the competitions at Calgary as (like Janet Lynn in 1972) they directly and indirectly led to a fundamental re-thinking of the sport and long term change in competition format and judging standards so that similar performances would be able to win in the future.
 

Fernan

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 12, 2006
I think in slow sections, skaters should still try to be slow. I mean, the music should dictate the performance, but I guess now---it's the code of points that dictates the performance.
 

temujin

Rinkside
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
I don't think Witt and Thomas were 2 of the most overscored skaters ever.

At the 1986 Worlds, I think they skated the 2 best LP of the ladies competition and I agree with the placement in the LP (Witt-Thomas), as well as the overall (Thomas-Witt).

At the 1987 Worlds, both skated terrific LP. So did Cadavy. And the podium was Witt-Thomas-Cadavy. I don't think Manley, Liestner, Ivanova, etc... deserved to be on the podium ahead of any of the 3 medallist.

At the 1988 Olympics, I agreed with Manley winning the LP. It was the performance of her life and nearly won her the gold. But Witt was the most consistent competitor and deserved the gold under the marking system of the time. Thomas skated strongly in the SP but her disasterous LP was over-marked. In addition to Manley and Witt, I would have placed Ito and Trenary to name just 2 other skaters ahead of Thomas in the LP. So there might have been a change for the bronze medal; I'd have to work out the factored placements to say for sure.

So, in my opinion, at the biggest competition in each of these years, only Thomas' LP marks at the 1988 Olympics are high relative to other skaters' marks. So I think it is an exageration to say Witt-Thomas were "2 of most overscored skaters ever".




.
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Thomas skated strongly in the SP but her disasterous LP was over-marked. In addition to Manley and Witt, I would have placed Ito and Trenary to name just 2 other skaters ahead of Thomas in the LP. So there might have been a change for the bronze medal; I'd have to work out the factored placements to say for sure.
.

Thomas was 4th in the LP (after Manley, Witt and Ito) very quick non-foolproof calculations show that the medal standings would have remained unchanged had she placed fifth after trenary or even if she were 6th behind Trenary and Leistner.
Looking at the placements at:

http://winter-olympic-memories.com/index.htm

I think Ito would have to have placed second in the lp and Thomas as low as 8th for Ito to place ahead of Thomas overall. (if you accept the rankings going into the lp). Thomas was leading going into the lp (with a hefty lead over the third and fourth ranked skaters. She'd have had to do somewhat worse than she actually did to get knocked off the podium.
 
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