- Joined
- Apr 18, 2012
JSF should not promote anyone ...
Let the skates speak for themselves.
The JSF has really done an amazing job for all of its top-tier skaters. They all have great coaches, and get great placements at events. Let the chips fall regarding to the scores.
I kind of don't understand whether some of the entries here are suggesting that JSF should be lobbying for preferencial judging, but I think if we each stop and think about it, none of us want that. If anyone who watches this sport closely wants to know what turns non-skating fans off from ever looking at this sport, it is a sense some of the results are fixed and not based on merit. For the sport to grow, it still has clean up its image.
The scoring system now is more transparent than it has ever been. Rarely, are scores super wonky (Asada's fs at NHK did seem kind of strange though).
In the men's skating, I think that the scores have been accurate enough to be considered ethical. The more and more that I review Hanyu's fs at NHK, I realize what an amazing skate it was. The problems he had, the other six and a half billion people on the planet should be so lucky. And his short skate, I don't think, was over-scored. (It is perhaps the first year that a short skate has been so beautifully skated to be worth watching and re-watching over and over.)
Generally, though, I see Hanyu getting better and better, going from amazing to better than amazing. Forget the JSF, I wish, with out hockey strike in Toronto, the press here in my own country would be giving more ink to figure skating and maybe let it drop in a few articles that this amazing talent is training here. It gives a good reference to Chan (for a rivallry) and perhaps they could help each other (Chan especially seems invisible) in the PR department in Toronto and Canada to spark an interest in the sport again. (And this would be good for Japan as well.) Hanyu has a wonderful charisma that could, I think, carry the sport well beyond the borders of Japan. Perhaps this is a dream that never can come true, but I sure wish that the people who handle skating promotion in Canada would try a little harder or be a bit smarter about it.
Regarding Takahashi, I question whether he is even second best of the Japanese men right now. The talent pool of Japanese men is sooooooo deep. Is it so far-fetched to say that of the top eight male skaters of the world, six of them are Japanese? Arguably no, but arguably yes. I don't think the JSF's problem is anywhere near figuring out who their top male skater is, but rather how to give international skating space and exposure to all of their great male skaters. Regarding who gets the highest mark though on any given day, just let the scores be ethically and impartially applied. Everyone wins then.
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