Which past US girls to send to Sochi? | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Which past US girls to send to Sochi?

pangtongfan

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Sumners was not that competitive with Witt. The only amateur competition she ever beat Witt was the 83 Worlds when Witt was 8th in figures to her 1st. The only reason Sarajevo was close was her being the reigning World Champion and again being 1st in figures which dont exist today. I wouldnt want Sumners other than for enjoyment level (well she isnt that enjoyable for me even, but if she is for you that is cool). She was never a strong jumper even for her own era, her spins were also quite weak even for her own era, and she wouldnt be much of a threat under todays system even if she was able to do all 5 triples (which given her would all be inconsistent and prone to scaling down when she was nervous).

Zayak I could see more potential to be a threat today assuming she had a triple lutz and flip. She was ahead of her time in jumps, strong in spins, strong in jump combinations, and despite her oft criticized artistry did lots of field moves, transitions, and steps in between and into jumps.

Fratianne I found a total zzzzz skater and IMO was successful in an incredibly weak era. Not sure objectively speaking how suited she would be to COP, probably more than Sumners, but less than Zayak.
 

drivingmissdaisy

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Not under the assumptions of this thread: If Elaine' s skating days were today, she would probably have an amazing arsenal of triples. Since Rosalyn did well against witt, if her skating days were today, I think she would be competitive with many of the top skaters today. Same for Linda.

I'm not sure I agree. I think what would hold a lot of these women back is their more womanly figures. Look at the builds of the few Caucasian women who have success with all the triples after their teenage years; they have to be quite slender.
 

Dee4707

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I'd love to see Sasha Cohen skate at the Olympics again. There's no one like her, she really tells a story when she skates and is just incredible, regardless of the mistakes!

I would love to see that too!!! I wonder how many people who always have comments about Sasha has ever seen her skate in person, competitively. I saw her in 2003 at Skate Canada and she got a standing ovation during practice. Her lines are spectacular.

So the original question was ...Which past US girls to send to Sochi???

Several people said ...why send Sasha, she falls. If that's part of the criteria then we wouldn't have any US ladies to send.
 

Jammers

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I would love to see that too!!! I wonder how many people who always have comments about Sasha has ever seen her skate in person, competitively. I saw her in 2003 at Skate Canada and she got a standing ovation during practice. Her lines are spectacular.

So the original question was ...Which past US girls to send to Sochi???

Several people said ...why send Sasha, she falls. If that's part of the criteria then we wouldn't have any US ladies to send.

The fact remains that she was not dependable in competition. She never skated a clean LP except for maybe one time when it counted.
 

ManyCairns

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I'm sure I've never seen that performance before. That was magnificent and I wish we had seen that confident Sasha a lot more. Dress is amazing, too -- we've seen dozens of swans, but that is beautiful, love the black and white combination and the feather pattern.
 

Dee4707

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The fact remains that she was not dependable in competition.

I don't understand what you mean. What does being dependable in competition mean??

Jammers said:
She never skated a clean LP except for maybe one time when it counted.

Don't all skaters hope for that??? I'm sorry but I don't understand the point you're trying to make.
 
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^ I think Jammers means that, given the choice, he/she would rather have Kristi or Dorothy, say, on his team than Sasha, because they are more dependable and more likely to deliver a clean program.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Definitely Kristi, and also Lipinski. Both would have the technical content and the dependability to deliver a solid performance with jumps that would likely be ratified by CoP with base level GOE or higher. Kristi at her peak, IMO, would be the best American woman ever under CoP.
 
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I can't believe I haven't visited this thread in awhile. It's so interesting to imagine the great skaters of our past dealing with the challenges of today. I like PTF's evaluation of Janet Lynn. She comes from an era when actual skating skills were so meticulously developed, partly because of school figures. Added to that, she had that amazing musicality and connection with the audience--and, as PTF mentions, she was just about the most competitive jumper of her era.

This brings up an interesting conundrum. These days school figures aren't taught, and most skaters don't practice anything resembling them. So would these skaters of the past, brought up to present day, have developed their gorgeous blade skills? Certainly Patrick Chan has done a lot of work to develop this smoothness across the ice. I'd like to think that in any era, Janet and Michelle would skate with that exquisite quality. (I pause a moment to imagine what Sasha Cohen's skating quality would have been like with that kind of training behind her.)

Tara Lipinski I suppose would have been an asset these days, given her jump content. But would the small size of her jumps have her marked down by judges?

I agree that Kristi would likely be the best American woman under CoP. One important component of her success would be that she's not a headcase. I've come to treasure her contribution to skating, both eligible and pro, more and more through the years. When I think that, as one poster mentioned, she executed a triple-triple in 1992 that many of our champions since then did not have, I am astounded.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Tara's jumps were usually fully rotated and she usually had a secure landing edge. Given her size (like Satoko Miyahara or Zijun Li), you can't really expect her to jump 2 feet off the ice.

I think it's astounding that Kristi still managed to maintain her technical ability going pro. It's usually the mark of a solid technical skater and it's quite impressive (I remember thinking the same about Kurt Browning still being able to execute 3As as a pro).

I don't think Hughes would have been a solid option... like Cohen, she just wasn't as consistent. Cohen's artistry would probably make her like a Kostner - scores high even with errors due to the quality of her other elements and greater level of polish and sophistication, but the inconsistencies in jumping would hold her back. Somebody was right in saying that she lucked out with the silver (Sasha herself said it was a gift) in 2006, although she did have an excellent SP.

Lynn would have been a good choice given her artistry, but technically she wasn't the most dependable. And it's really hard to compare those skaters to the CoP skaters from today... and not exactly fair to skaters like Kwan or Hughes who had to do much more technically ambitious programs, but would be nailed by CoP technicalities like flutzing and URs, which Lynn/Hamill didn't exactly have to deal with.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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I don't understand what you mean. What does being dependable in competition mean??

Don't all skaters hope for that??? I'm sorry but I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

To both points, "dependability" means the ability to get it together in high-stakes competitions, particularly Worlds or the Olympics. Several skaters do well in Nationals or minor GP events but then do poorly when the field is stronger and the pressure is greater. A skater who's undependable is "on" one competition or "off" another competition, with the latter being the more predominant. All skaters hope and train for a strong skate, but some are "practice" skaters, who do amazingly well in practice, but then blow it in the competition (Cohen and Sandhu are the two that come to mind... both have the talent to be a multi-World champion but could never get it together or made simple errors along the way). Usually it's focus that's a problem for them, not that they're incapable or not talented.
 

FlattFan

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Tara's jumps were usually fully rotated and she usually had a secure landing edge. Given her size (like Satoko Miyahara or Zijun Li), you can't really expect her to jump 2 feet off the ice.
Cohen's artistry would probably make her like a Kostner - scores high even with errors due to the quality of her other elements and greater level of polish and sophistication, but the inconsistencies in jumping would hold her back.

Cohen had even smaller jumps than Tara. Her artistry isn't that strong either. She can hit beautiful positions in spins and spirals, but her skating skill is severely lacking. Her speed is also not even above average. She would not get the kind of PCS Kostner gets. I don't think even in her best, she can captivate the audience like Kostner did at World this year.

About spins, even at her best, she was never the best spinners, never the highest scoring spinners. Regularly got beaten by the likes of Shizuka and Irina.
 

pangtongfan

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Irina and Sasha only competed in 2 competitions vs each other under COP ever due to alternating ailment or injury layoffs for both. So there isnt much basis to say which scored higher regularly on spins. Irina did at the 2005 Worlds at home in Moscow at end of her most dominant season ever, and Sasha did at the 2006 Olympics. Shizuka did not regularly outscore Sasha in spins. The only competition she ever did was the 2006 Olympics. Actually that was just the long, combining the two programs I am not sure if she did even there.

Sasha is for sure a better spinner than Kostner who is a mediocre spinner at best with one of the ugliest laybacks ever. She is probably atleast equally good to Kim (IMO better than Kim too). I know you will say Sasha could never compete with Kim under COP since Kim would score about 30 points more per competition on jumps alone (superior consistency + superior difficulty + superior GOE), and there is no chance of Kim giving her help with enough mistakes like Asada and Kostner could, and you are right on that, but even so her spins are not lesser than Kim's. She is better than all the women ranked 4th-11th probably too, even if Gold and Sotnikova are good spinners. The only one who might be a better spinner than her today of the top women is Asada.

You love Kostner and cant stand Sasha though, and all your opinions are based 110% around which skaters you root for and against, so of course you wont agree with any of this. :laugh:
 
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Here is Sasha's clean long program. She beat Michelle and everybody. :clap: :clap: :clap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oUIDWF1zRw

Wow! Thanks for the link. It's been a while since I saw this. You can't tell me that spins like these were inferior to Irina's. Irina was a good spinner, but this program of Sasha's is extraordinary. If Irina beat her, it was on jumps, which is understandable; Irina jumped like a cat. Sasha was one in a million, and considering that she could melt down in a program, she had an amazingly good record of podium finishes, both national and international. If she were at her peak, I'd be happy to see her on our hypothetical Olympic team.
 

FlattFan

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Shizuka did not regularly outscore Sasha in spins. The only competition she ever did was the 2006 Olympics. Actually that was just the long, combining the two programs I am not sure if she did even there.
This is factually wrong.
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2006/OWG06_Ladies_SP_Scores.pdf
This is the SP, Shiz got level 4 on all 3 spins, 10.68
Sasha got level 3 on 1 spin, 2 level 4 on 2spins, total including GOE: 10.14

Also in the same year, at the TEB
http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpfra05/GPFRA05_Ladies_SP_Scores.pdf
Shiz got 1 level 3, 2 level 4
Sasha got 2 level 3, 1 level 4

Sasha is for sure a better spinner than Kostner who is a mediocre spinner at best with one of the ugliest laybacks ever.
She might hit positions better than Kostner, but I doubt she can get enough levels to beat Kostner. Again, you'd think she's a good spinner, but in reality, she got beaten REGULARLY by so many other girls.

You love Kostner and cant stand Sasha though, and all your opinions are based 110% around which skaters you root for and against, so of course you wont agree with any of this. :laugh:
Look at past results, I'm not basing my opinions on who I root for. There has to be some truth to it. I wouldn't say Kostner has the best layback ever.
 

FlattFan

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As for the LP, with 4 spins requirement, the other girls pulled so far ahead of Sasha in spins, it's ridiculous that people even think she's a good spinner. Just because Sandra and Scott said "Sasha can milk it on the spins" doesn't make it true.

Here's the LP at the TEB
http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpfra05/GPFRA05_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf

Shiz got 3 level 4, 1 level 3
Sasha got 1 level 4, 2 level 3, 1 level 2

At the Olympics LP
Shiz got 4 level 4
Sasha got 3 level 4, 1 level 3

Again, Sasha got beaten regularly by the medal contenders in spins. All facts, none fictions.
 

Skater Boy

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I'm not sure I agree. I think what would hold a lot of these women back is their more womanly figures. Look at the builds of the few Caucasian women who have success with all the triples after their teenage years; they have to be quite slender.

Well Elaine did an admirable job coming back in 1994 and if it were for not the US had such strong ladies she might have been able to compete against the returning Witt (or alternatively Witt was lucky to make the German team (she is a true competitior but sometimes it is like she puts a spell on others to fall - How she beat the likes of Chouinard at Oly's - that girl is lucky:)
 

FlattFan

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LOL, even at the 2005 World, when Shiz was a hot boo boo mess, she still beat Sasha in spins

http://www.isuresults.com/results/wc2005/wc05_Ladies_SP_scores.pdf
2 level 2, 1 level 3 for Shiz
3 level 2 for Cohen

Here's the truth, she was an above average spinner, but for some reason, Dick, Peggy, Scott, and Sandra perpetuated this idea that she was the best spinner and can gain ground on all of her competitors due to the strength of her spins. They gotta be the most ignorant commentators when it comes to the sport. How do you even say it with a straight face is beyond me. If the commentators don't know the sport, and don't bother reading the score sheet, then this ship has sailed. Figure skating is dead.
 

Skater Boy

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Feb 24, 2012
Looking at Sasha's Campbell soup performance - that is the best and cleanest I have seen her ever skate BUT her jumps aren't that text book. They lack amplitude and somtimes height and the landings - well sometimes I thik there was a struggle (the triple lutz double toe, triple flip double toe, double axel for example looked like she was muscling through). I think her lutz was a flutz too.
 
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