Beauty Bonus/ Beauty Points

What do you think about this? Some skaters are not as talented or as musical as the others but their beauty gets them really high PCS!

I think skating is a beautiful sport and it is judged now also in terms of aesthetic criterion. I mean if the skater is really gorgeous, has great costumes, I think that makes them a really amazing vision on the ice for the judges and the audiences thus adding to their PCS scores.

Some skaters who I believe really get a lot of beauty points are

Yu-Na Kim
Carolina Kostner
Kiira Korpi
Laura Lepisto
Alissa Czisny

I think their beauty really adds more to their presentation on the ice!

In the case of Yu-Na, it is the total package that really sets her apart from everyone else. The rare combination of exquisite beauty, talent, personality, charm, musicality and technical proficiency really make her a one of a kind super skater.

Alissa is also amazing in terms of her spins and musicality!

christinaskater said:

What do you think about this? Some skaters are not as talented or as musical as the others but their beauty gets them really high PCS!

I think skating is a beautiful sport and it is judged now also in terms of aesthetic criterion. I mean if the skater is really gorgeous, has great costumes, I think that makes them a really amazing vision on the ice for the judges and the audiences thus adding to their PCS scores.

Some skaters who I believe really get a lot of beauty points are

Yu-Na Kim
Carolina Kostner
Kiira Korpi
Laura Lepisto
Alissa Czisny

I think their beauty really adds more to their presentation on the ice!

In the case of Yu-Na, it is the total package that really sets her apart from everyone else. The rare combination of exquisite beauty, talent, personality, charm, musicality and technical proficiency really make her a one of a kind super skater.

Alissa is also amazing in terms of her spins and musicality!

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At least three of those skaters are not what I would call beautiful, so I guess it is in the eye of the beholder.

That's another issue. There's skaters that are touted as being beautiful that I don't think are that beautiful either.

For one thing, there was Nancy Kerrigan of the huge teeth, who AFAIR Dick & Peggy were always comparing to Grace Kelly or Katharine Hepburn. She was a nice enough looking girl, but I wouldn't have called her beautiful.

But if a majority of judges think the girl is beautiful, then I suppose it does help the PCS. I only think 2 of the girls mentioned are beautiful in my eyes, but all of them at one time or another have been lauded up and down for being gorgeous, Kostner less so than the others, I think?

christinaskater said:

What do you think about this? Some skaters are not as talented or as musical as the others but their beauty gets them really high PCS!

I think skating is a beautiful sport and it is judged now also in terms of aesthetic criterion. I mean if the skater is really gorgeous, has great costumes, I think that makes them a really amazing vision on the ice for the judges and the audiences thus adding to their PCS scores.

Some skaters who I believe really get a lot of beauty points are

Yu-Na Kim
Carolina Kostner
Kiira Korpi
Laura Lepisto
Alissa Czisny

I think their beauty really adds more to their presentation on the ice!

In the case of Yu-Na, it is the total package that really sets her apart from everyone else. The rare combination of exquisite beauty, talent, personality, charm, musicality and technical proficiency really make her a one of a kind super skater.

Alissa is also amazing in terms of her spins and musicality!

Click to expand...

Beauty, I stress, is SUBJECTIVE. I'll tell you right now that I don't necessarily fancy any of those girls you have listed there. Doesn't mean I don't think they have good/ok looks, though. But I think you ask Judge A, you'll get one response, and you ask Judge B, you get a totally different response.

Of course having a looker out there on the ice will draw more attention, especially if she has great presentation skills. (It looks like Korpi is finally starting to dig in and find this) But again, there shouldn't be bonus points for beauty. That is, if it's to be taken seriously as a sport. Otherwise, it's just a pageant on ice.

R.D. said:

Beauty, I stress, is SUBJECTIVE. I'll tell you right now that I don't necessarily fancy any of those girls you have listed there. Doesn't mean I don't think they have good/ok looks, though. But I think you ask Judge A, you'll get one response, and you ask Judge B, you get a totally different response.

Of course having a looker out there on the ice will draw more attention, especially if she has great presentation skills. (It looks like Korpi is finally starting to dig in and find this) But again, there shouldn't be bonus points for beauty. That is, if it's to be taken seriously as a sport. Otherwise, it's just a pageant on ice.

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"Pageant on ice" ...... hmmm, where have I heard that before?

Of course figure skating, whether singles or teams depends greatly on the pageant effect to keep filling the seats and finding it's way onto TV.

Are there some posters here who actually think skating is shown on TV only for it's sports values?

While some of those girls might not be classic beauties facially, they have very long and thin body-types, which gives them an advantage in having a "beautiful line." Certainly it helped Carolina when she couldn't do the harder triples. And I think skaters with a stockier build or shorter limbs like Rachael and Caroline (who are not overweight by any means, but they just don't have pencil-like body types)are at a disadvantage, through no fault of their own. They just can't do some of the things--or look as elegant and graceful--as the skinny, long-limbed ones.

The question then becomes, though: is this fair? Janetfan actually has a point here. In a SPORTING contest why on earth should body type (line, whatever you want to call it ) be important?? I'll let that one be rhetorical.

It's not necessary in gymnastics, another sport with guidelines for extension & so forth.

Consider the body type of Mary Lou Retton, Olympic champion.

So yes, I think those writing the rules for skating and training judges need to stress the difference between doing the best possible with what you have for a body and face, and giving points for being cute.

That's if skating is a sport and not the ancestor of American Idol.

Just curious, do you think this applies to any men? I don't think Patrick Chan is that physically attractive, although he isn't ugly.

dorispulaski said:

It's not necessary in gymnastics, another sport with guidelines for extension & so forth.

Consider the body type of Mary Lou Retton, Olympic champion.

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Actually, the Mary Lou Retton/Shawn Johnson type seems to be perfect for gymnastics.

Svetlana Boginskaya had to work hard to overcome the handicap of stunning long-legged elegance.

Yeah I clearly remember the judges at TEB in 08 (was it?) deducted SO MUCH of PCS from then overweighted Aki Sawada. Suddenly her PCS's were in 4s, big drop from her 4th place finish at 4CC in the season before where she was in a better body shape.
That was such a clear proof that judges are human and don't give points to what they find superficially unpleasant.
I have to admit that Aki was astonishingly overweight at the time, though.

I think that Retton's win had less to do with body type and more with the fact that the Soviets withdrew. But I digress...

I kind of waffle on this issue. Sometimes I think presenting a good picture on the ice, such as having a nice costume that's fashionable, hair that's been well put together and elegance that are more important than physical attractiveness itself. That said, I know personally, I prefer skaters with long lines and limbs and a lot of ballet training, particularly in dance.

I honestly think it does make a difference. I mean, Miki Ando has always been pretty IMO, but wasn't as highly regarded a skater as she is now before she lost a bunch of weight after the 2006 Olympics. Her spirals and spins used to be a big weakness for her but now they look nice due to her sleek line and usually she gets high +GOE for them even though the positions themselves aren't the greatest. I think there is something to be said about what the ISU wants their female figure skating champions to look like...

How do you separate physical beauty from aesthetics, though? We can't deny that physics of the sport favours a certain kind of biology, can we?

I think that yes, but more like inconsientemente, you can´t just not see when a skater is beautiful, but is a little , because I can see that Kiira is really pretty, but when she is skating doesn´t anything for me, I can see more beautiful to Carolina K. (and I don´t think she is pretty) or Mao when they are skating.

sorry my english

Sigh, this is such a thorny issue, partly because of the subjective element and partly because we skating enthusiasts don't want to think of it as a beauty contest (except in terms of beautiful skating, of course). It is true that some skaters are more glamorous than others. I was just watching Trophee Eric Bomphard and thinking that with both Alissa and Kiira in the final flight, the glamor quotient was soaring today. I like to think that beauty takes you only so far, but I'm sure it's a factor because judges are only human (and frequently male!). I mean, whether Czisny and Korpi are your "type" or not, they're clearly luminous to a large part of the world, as is YuNa. But with Yuna's jumps, she could skate with a bag over her head and still win coming and going.

I think gymnasts probably have a lower beauty quotient because most of them are so tiny and young. Since someone brought up Mary Lou Retton, she was actually considered an anomaly during her time, because the underfed sprite was the norm--remember fourteen-year-old Nadia? And there was a Soviet gymnast, Maria Filatova, I think, who was about four foot seven. The Chinese gymnasts are barely past the duckling stage as well. Khorkina was a marvelous exception through her career, both for her height and then for her age--she hung in there into her mid-twenties, whereas these days most gymnasts are used up after one Olympic cycle. I always feel bad for them. It's such a relentless pace.

Skaters, thank goodness, seem to stay in until they're older, or at least the top ones do. This gives them a chance to grow a bit and also to mature artistically and facially. (We'll leave bodies out of it except for height.) Thus, more of them might have a chance to be actually beautiful, rather than just cute little things. Then, allowing for subjective reaction, I add Kwan to the list (her charisma and command add to the impression of what I think of as beauty), Sasha (the model of a gamine ballerina--large eyes, heart-shaped face), Asada (unique and expressive--no one will get me to take her off my list), and Ando when she's wearing sleeker costumes. Korpi and Czisny are a given for me!

By and large, I find the highest quotient of glamor in ice dancing. But many pairs skaters are glamorous, and at the top of all lists for me is Gordeyeva, who at well over thirty is only more beautiful than ever. A large part of that is character, by this time. Also, she adds expressiveness to beauty, which I have to say Kiira Korpi doesn't really do.

The opposite side of the coin is whether being less beautiful is a handicap in terms of judging. I sure hope it isn't, and I haven't the heart to name any skater as "less beautiful" so we can continue this discussion.

Afterthought: I just thought of two skaters who aren't known for their glamor, though they're far from homely. One is Susanna Rahkamo, and the other is Natalia Bestemianova. What these commanding ice dancers had was the acting ability that combined Judy Garland and Scheherazade. Could those ladies build a character! I can just imagine what either of them would have made of Korpi's "Evita" music, minus the jumps of course.

As for gymnastics, most of them are 15 anyway. Shouldn't even enter the equation.

I think the skaters we speak of here are over 20, so it's different.

Sometimes, I think this helped Kat Witt. It was rare that they didn't mention how many letters she received from guys etc. But, her biggest asset was doing more under pressure (or seeming to do more as in 1988 Olympics LP ); she didn't ever seem daunted by the competition.

I agree with Doris about Nancy Kerrigan- she was pretty compared to Tonya Harding, but the commentators and press really embellished this.

I think an "appealing" quality ( the IT factor) carries more weight in the long run. Janet Lynn had this,IMHO, as did Dorothy Hamill and Michelle Kwan. Irina Slutskaya had this also.

dorispulaski said:

So yes, I think those writing the rules for skating and training judges need to stress the difference between doing the best possible with what you have for a body and face, and giving points for being cute.

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There isn't and never has been anything in the rules about giving points for being cute or for having an attractive body or face. The rules only talk about what you do with what you have. Read the Performance/Execution criteria:
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-152086-169302-64121-0-file,00.pdf

Here's a short, curvy skater with quite good alignment and extension: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-W2WfrBunw
(Too bad her televised 1997 Nationals long program isn't on youtube)

Which isn't to say that judges aren't affected, consciously or unconsciously, but how they perceive the attractiveness of the skaters. But there's nothing in the rules to encourage that.

Olympia said:

I'm sure it's a factor because judges are only human (and frequently male!).

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Which may have just as much effect in the men's event as in the ladies'.

I don't know whether there are actually "points" for being beautiful, but I do think it must affect a skater's self-confidence---e.g., I remember reading about Midori Ito thinking of herself as unattractive.