The state of U.S. Figure Skating | Page 14 | Golden Skate

The state of U.S. Figure Skating

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
MarkusNJ, can you elaborate on the tweets during 4C? I missed that.

Basically, people flipped their lids at a tweet she made while the first groups of ladies were skating their FS at Four Continents- it read something to the effect of "OMG, these girls are scoring 90 points total...smh" (may not be an exact quote, but the "SMH" definitely was in there)

The tweet has since been deleted and she has not been on twitter since
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
In retrospect I wonder if the USFSA was pressured by NBC television to get as much PR mileage out of Michelle as possible.

I doubt it, because I think the USFSA truly wanted Kwan there. She was so steady that if she could somehow manage to regain the jumps in practice you could be confident she would deliver them in the performance. For me, the test skate wasn't necessary because I think you could take Michelle's word that if she said she would be ready, she actually would be ready. If the US team was deeper then maybe I'd understand the controversy but in all honesty everyone knew Emily wasn't a medal threat and Kwan would be.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Okay, I don't speak text; what's "SMH"?

I had never considered that the USFSA might have been pressured into putting Michelle on the team. That's a sobering thought. But bless her for immediately withdrawing, so Emily Hughes would have time to get over to Italy. And once she did that, she didn't accept the offer to do onscreen commentary for NBC.

I think we all have to remember that the athlete's mindset is not to give up the chance to compete no matter what. So sometimes it looks greedy or ill-advised, but it's just that hungry need to be out there striving for the prize. This is why I didn't resent Plushenko for daring to think he could come back and claw his way to the Olympics. And it turned out that he was right to do so. The only one I've ever been angry at for seizing a place on an Olympic team was Tonya Harding, and there were other factors in that action. I certainly don't blame Michelle for trying to compete in a third Olympics. In any case the comparison to Alissa falls apart at several spots. Michelle, like Elvis Stojko, would have competed on one leg if she could have. Thank goodness she had the decency not to follow that instinct to its natural conclusion, but you can bet it crossed her mind.

Alissa gave up for whatever reason and fell apart. Was it a panic attack? A nervous breakdown of some sort? Whatever it was, that was not in Michelle's vocabulary.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
Actually, Michelle's test skate before the 2006 Olympics was shown publicly---at least a portion of it.

She withdrew because her participation in the opening ceremonies in frigid weather caused a flareup of her hip problem.
 

MarkusNJ

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 13, 2011
Mirai was commenting on other the ladies scores...but also tweeted to Phil Hersch about even though Adam Rippon was not great at 4CCs he was great at Nationals when it mattered...Phil responded back "so 4CCs doesnt matter?" I do not know if she tweeted back
Lots of people responded to her tweets about the first group of ladies and their low scores, repremanding Mirai, and she responded back to many of them making snarky comments...until one tweeter posted that she couldnt even beat Rachael Flatt at Nationals.
THe entire thing was so so so childish, and reminded me of the comments about when she worked with Charlene Wong about sometimes she would skate up to her, comment on her perfume being to strong, and skate away.
Brat.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Mirai was commenting on other the ladies scores...but also tweeted to Phil Hersch about even though Adam Rippon was not great at 4CCs he was great at Nationals when it mattered...Phil responded back "so 4CCs doesnt matter?" I do not know if she tweeted back
Lots of people responded to her tweets about the first group of ladies and their low scores, repremanding Mirai, and she responded back to many of them making snarky comments...until one tweeter posted that she couldnt even beat Rachael Flatt at Nationals.
THe entire thing was so so so childish, and reminded me of the comments about when she worked with Charlene Wong about sometimes she would skate up to her, comment on her perfume being to strong, and skate away.
Brat.

Exact comment:

Omg these girls are scoring 90 points total...smh

She also justified her comments by saying this:
I'm turning into @olyphil = saying my piece and not really caring what others have to say about it :) Good job Phil.

The exact exchange Rachael Flatt exchange was this:

@DeBausch: @mirai_nagasu How about you? You couldn't beat @RachaelFlatt Stanford+Skating!! #doubleSMH #thinkbeforeyoutweet #4CC

Mirai re-tweeted it with the comment "Low blow." Then tweeted this:

Too bad i used my ninja skills and flew over that insult. #bazinga

Goes to show even if you delete the comments, they never disappear. This website kept all of them: http://www.tweeting-athletes.com/index.cfm?AthleteID=4987

I have to say I am a bit disappointed. Even though she deleted them and realized the error, the fact she thought it was OK to say those things in the first place is definitely not cool. A lot of those girls don't have the training, coaching or funding to score high in competitions like Worlds and 4CC. For Mirai, who has a well-regarded coach, team envelope funding not to mention amazing talent, to make fun of them was sort of demeaning.

I thought it was mean of that poster to point out that Rachael Flatt beat her, but Mirai's response to it was no better.
 
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MarkusNJ

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 13, 2011
exactly, and I am just done....
It was insanely childish, just like she has always been, but this time also kinda mean.
 

Becki

Medalist
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
exactly, and I am just done....
It was insanely childish, just like she has always been, but this time also kinda mean.

Coming from a skater, that's very low class. She's a very fun character, but similar to Patrick, she's not a very good public speaker (she doesn't filter well). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, that with experience and maturity, she will become a more eloquent speaker.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Coming from a skater, that's very low class. She's a very fun character, but similar to Patrick, she's not a very good public speaker (she doesn't filter well). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, that with experience and maturity, she will become a more eloquent speaker.

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt as well and hopeful as well that she'll learn from her various experience. But I don't feel the tweets are comparable to Patrick Chan's comments. At least there, Patrick was responding to leading questions from the media that likely led to the comments. Nobody asked Mirai, "So what do you think of those low ranking skaters?" And she has more than 17,000 followers following her...she should know the consequences of people seeing her comments...
 

MarkusNJ

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 13, 2011
Did anyone else notice at Nationals how Mirai was obsessing over something with her fingernail? Both before the skate, and as she was skating off the ice as well...
 

AlexaD

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 2, 2011
Hopefully she learned a lesson or two from it. She definitely doesn't filter well and probably just typed that tweet out the same way, not thinking there would be a big negative reaction. The comments were immature and the way I saw it was that she is still stinging about her own personal disappointments that she felt she had to make a comment about other girls not scoring well.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Actually, Michelle's test skate before the 2006 Olympics was shown publicly---at least a portion of it.

I remember seeing a bit of it. I remember being so happy that she was strong enough to go to Torino. And then....alas. Well, we Michelle fans can't really complain that her career was too brief. In all the skating world, we and the Plushenko fans are among the luckiest. We have gotten to see pretty much the entire arc of a career of an athlete, from young prodigy to mature competitor-interpreter-artist.

Can we still hope for that kind of development in someone like Mirai or Caroline Z.? I don't like to give up, so I will.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Coming from a skater, that's very low class.

because if she was an "uneducated, bumbling football player" it'd be more acceptable? why does her being a skater factor into the equation?
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Wow, thank you all for posting the tweet-gate here. That's pretty pathetic in some respects that she felt that that would be OK behavior. Maybe if she spent more time working on her stuff and less time making snarky comments about other skaters she would have been at 4C and Worlds. I am disappointed that she wouldn't have been able to draw conclusions better (that people would be disgusted by this).
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
because if she was an "uneducated, bumbling football player" it'd be more acceptable? why does her being a skater factor into the equation?

I think the OP of that comment means it's low class for a skater who wasn't asked to participate in that event because she scored too low at her own Nationals making those kind of comments is low class as opposed to an armchair fan posting it...
 

Becki

Medalist
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
because if she was an "uneducated, bumbling football player" it'd be more acceptable? why does her being a skater factor into the equation?

She was tweeting about the "lower ranked skaters at 4CC barely even scoring higher than 90 for their total score". To put this into context, she is a skater commenting on the performances of other skaters. One would expect her to be more knowledgeable about the training conditions and background of these skaters even if she doesn't know them personally. Most of the lower ranked skaters don't have the proper training facility, resources, and adequate support from their federation, so 4CC might be one of their only international competitions. As a skater, she knows these skaters train hard for competitions, but they might deliver up to the "elite standards" considering their background. A total score of 90 might be a personal best for a skater from Hong Kong, yet Mirai is shocked by her scoring ability. I don't know, this just doesn't translate into being classy. Perhaps low class is not the best term to use here - she's just not very considerate.
 

Dragonlady

Final Flight
Joined
Aug 23, 2003
When we watched skaters from Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand at 4CC in Hamilton, I reminded my daughter and her friends how very lucky they were to skate in a country with ice-rinks in every community, world class training facilities and coaches, and a federation with enough money to support its skaters because the skaters from these countries really had no hope of being competitive unless they left their homes and families and moved to Canada or the US to train and their parents were rich enough to foot the bills.

These kids truly are skating for the love of the sport.
 
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
Her comment is a bit tacky but she's a kid by today's standards (at least in the US) and she's grown up in the age of Twitter where people broadcast their stream of consciousness. I hate the way people pick apart every little thing skaters say. Just let them be without constantly judging them.
 

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
...she's grown up in the age of Twitter where people broadcast their stream of consciousness. I hate the way people pick apart every little thing skaters say. Just let them be without constantly judging them.

THIS!! It's so annoying. It must be a generational gap...
 
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