Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS | Page 56 | Golden Skate

Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Spineless people like Scott Hamilton go through life proclaiming they are "Olympic Champion" like it means anything.

I think you are too hard on Scott Hamilton. Hamilton had a huge positive impact of the popularity of figure skating in the United States through his entrepreneurial talents. When Ice Capades told him that no one will pay to see a man skating, he started his own show, Stars on Ice, building it from the ground up from into the premier US pro skating tour for the better part of three decades. (Sort of like Yuna Kim's All That Skate adventures. :) )

Having the credential of Olympic champion helped him get his foot in the door, but his success came from entertaining audiences as a showman and organizing the talents of others (Kurt Browning, Kristi Yamaguchi) as an impresario.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
I think you are too hard on Scott Hamilton. Hamilton had a huge positive impact of the popularity of figure skating in the United States through his entrepreneurial talents. When Ice Capades told him that no one will pay to see a man skating, he started his own show, Stars on Ice, building it from the ground up from into the premier US pro skating tour for the better part of three decades. (Sort of like Yuna Kim's All That Skate adventures. :) )

Having the credential of Olympic champion helped him get his foot in the door, but his success came from entertaining audiences as a showman and organizing the talents of others (Kurt Browning, Kristi Yamaguchi) as an impresario.

Sochi 2014 is only but one example in a long history of Scott Hamilton talking out of both sides of his mouth on many issues. Like a politician, he exhibits no integrity, vacillating back and forth whichever way the ISU winds blow, often displaying a great amount of hypocrisy.

I have no respect for those kind of people.
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
To some degree, Mathman is right. But I personally like programs with a theme--extra props if you can do a story/character piece. Of course, this doesn't mean programs with themes/stories always deserve to win over those that don't, regardless of execution.

Thanks, gkelly, for TAT's explanation. I too felt befuddled about the theme of Adelina's free skate. I dunno if the explanation holds any water, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

RE: Michelle--I think, say, "Tosca" was the more "I can do this. And this! Take that!" skate. Lyra Angelica was calmer, more introspective.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Sochi 2014 is only but one example in a long history of Scott Hamilton talking out of both sides of his mouth on many issues...

...I have no respect for those kind of people.

As Teddy Roosevelt said ;)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
RE: Michelle--I think, say, "Tosca" was the more "I can do this. And this! Take that!" skate...

I know, right? "You talkin' to me, Sasha? There's only me and you here, so you must be taklin' to me."

To quote GM member Pepe Nero's custom signature, "I got your program components right here!" :laugh:
 

jkun

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 16, 2013
Sochi 2014 is only but one example in a long history of Scott Hamilton talking out of both sides of his mouth on many issues. Like a politician, he exhibits no integrity, vacillating back and forth whichever way the ISU winds blow, often displaying a great amount of hypocrisy.

I have no respect for those kind of people.

I think he just loves everyone and wants everyone to get excited about figure skating. I don't think he has some evil intentions.. :laugh:
 

jkun

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 16, 2013
When you go out on the ice, skate the best 7 triple program of your life with the pressure of skating in front of an audience who is hoping you will win, then I will call you an Olympic champion. Had Julia won with two falls, that would have been a farce. The skater who won had the highest BV by a good margin and executed all but one element flawlessly. This isn't a pageant, it's a competition and you have to do more than your opponents to win.

1. Adelina flutzed, which in combination with 2 flips, I think should be given a harsher penalty.
2. She was not called for the flutz.
3. She URed her 3T and it was looked over.

It was not "flawless" in any way. Sure, she attempted more, but I don't think she achieved more.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
And that arena gets more and more empty by the year, doesn't it?

Can't blame Scott Hamilton for that. Scott filled arenas for twenty-five years. U.S. audiences are not much interested in that form of entertainment any more, largely for the same reason that figure skating movies a la Sonia Henie faded away in the 1950s. Cultural tastes change.

On the positive side, who would have guessed that Dancing with the Stars would make it as a popular television show? Who could have imagined that Olympic champ ice dancer Meryl Davis would be able to jump in and grab the show by the short hairs? :clap:
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Can't blame Scott Hamilton for that. Scott filled arenas for twenty-five years. U.S. audiences are not much interested in that form of entertainment any more, largely for the same reason that figure skating movies a la Sonia Henie faded away in the 1950s. Cultural tastes change.

I don't think it has anything to do with cultural tastes. I can't tell you how many people laugh at figure skating "not being a real sport" because it's all based on "corrupt judges". That's the average person's opinion of figure skating. Bill Plaschke, a nationally known U.S. sports writer and frequent ESPN guest (to talk about mainstream sports), was at Sochi and saw the competition. He commented how great both Yuna and Adelina were in real time on Twitter, but what was the message of his article in the LA Times? How much of a farce the competition was. His takeaway line was figure skating = "scoundrel of a sport".

That about sums up what most people feel about figure skating. It's not cultural. It's the mismanagement by the ISU and the Federations. And that's why they are going bankrupt, and nobody bothers to show up at the events anymore or watch them on television.
 

Nadya

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
I don't think it has anything to do with cultural tastes. I can't tell you how many people laugh at figure skating "not being a real sport" because it's all based on "corrupt judges". That's the average person's opinion of figure skating. Bill Plaschke, a nationally known U.S. sports writer and frequent ESPN guest (to talk about mainstream sports), was at Sochi and saw the competition. He commented how great both Yuna and Adelina were in real time on Twitter, but what was the message of his article in the LA Times? How much of a farce the competition was. His takeaway line was figure skating = "scoundrel of a sport".

That about sums up what most people feel about figure skating. It's not cultural. It's the mismanagement by the ISU and the Federations. And that's why they are going bankrupt, and nobody bothers to show up at the events anymore or watch them on television.
People have always laughed at figure skating; corrupt judging is only one part of it. (And that part hasn't changed for years, either - it's not like the general audience EVER believed in integrity of judging in figure skating). It's everything - the costumes, the makeup, the drama, the theatre, the fakeness, and yes, the judging. You are not wrong about that, but you are wrong if you think it's a recent phenomenon.

Skating may be out of favor in the U.S. - and who can blame them? The last Stars on Ice I attended was made of unapologetic schlock. Why should I pay a hundred bucks a pop to see mediocrity? If it was packed with quality skaters and programming, I wouldn't mind paying.

Also, arenas and competitions outside of the U.S., especially in Russia and Japan, are packed to the gills. Why do you think so many Russian skaters who at one point were all but settled in the U.S., made their way back? Certainly, Yagudin and B&S, Zhulin, Navka and Co. etc. could have made a nice living here, yet clearly Russia offered greener pastures. Hardly a sign of decline.
 

DarR

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
When you go out on the ice, skate the best 7 triple program of your life with the pressure of skating in front of an audience who is hoping you will win, then I will call you an Olympic champion. Had Julia won with two falls, that would have been a farce. The skater who won had the highest BV by a good margin and executed all but one element flawlessly. This isn't a pageant, it's a competition and you have to do more than your opponents to win.

Who is this skater with the highest BV are you referring to? I'm confused.
 

DarR

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Very hypothetical but still, Mao wouldn't have beaten Adelina with her World's SP and Olympic's FS.
 

DarR

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Talk about Adelina's 'difficult program' when she did only 1 f(lutz) over 2 programs when other skaters did 3 lutzs.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I don't think it has anything to do with cultural tastes. I can't tell you how many people laugh at figure skating "not being a real sport" because it's all based on "corrupt judges".

The more things change the more they stay the same. In 1906 Ulrich Salchow refused to skate in the world championship in Munich because he knew the outcome was fixed in favor of German Gilbert Fuchs. In 1927 14-year-old Sonia Henie won her first world championship in Oslo by a score of three Norwegian judges for Henie to two German/Austrian judges for Herma Szabo. Five-time champion Szabo promptly retired.

At the 1980 winter Olympics Frank Carroll thought the odds were stacked so heavily against his skater, Linda Fratianne, that he threatened to withdraw her. Sure enough, East German Anett Potzsch picked up first place scores from all seven European judges, against USA and Japan for Fratianne.

Did President Putin bribe his way to securing the 2014 games in Sochi? We don't know for sure, but prior to the 2002 games the entire Salt Lake City Olympic committee was forced to resign in disgrace when the extent of the bribery of IOC committee members became known.

Anyway, I think we should not discount the cultural drift hypothesis out of hand. From the 1930s to the 1970s touring shows shows like Ice Follies and Ice Capades were very successful. These featured Las vegas-type entertainment (chorus girls in skimpy feathered costumes). Skaters' motivation to try to win amateur titles was the hope of catching on with a show. Beauty pageants like Miss America were a big deal.

Now, not so much. Tastes in entertainment change. Now I guess now we are entering the post-television era of spectator sports. I don't know what to expect.
 

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
The German and Austrian judges ALWAYS worked together back then, and might as well have just been one country, so the 2 votes for Szabo might as well just have been 2 Austrian judges, just like 3 Norwegian judges for Henie. Really there is no way of knowing who was the better skater at that event. Given Henies rapid rate of improvement and that she had climbed from 8th to 2nd from 24 to 26, she probably did legitimately surpass and beat Szabo, and Szabo was just being a sore loser and pulling a hissy fit in retiring abruptly when she had a chance for a 2nd OGM in singles a year later, and a chance for a historic Olympic gold in pairs to go with it (she was 2 time world champion in pairs by then). Granted 3 Norwegian judges were still stupid, and it was good that happened to make a rule of only 1 judge per country, although many times they might as well be from the same country as I said.

Poetzsch totally deserved her Olympic Gold based on the rules of the time. She won by her lead in figures. Fratianne was an overhyped complainer, and Carrol had an inflated impression of her and thought she was the best skater ever or something. Fratianne only won her 2 world titles in 77 and 79 since Poetzsch bombed. Fratianne was the better free skater but not by nearly as big a margin as Poetzsch was better in figures, so if Poetzsch hit all her phases she won. That is how it ALWAYS was, despite the delusions of Fratianne, Carrol, and most of all Lindas whiny [/snip/] mom.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top