Watching on a screen vs live

When I was a teenage preliminary skater in the 1970s, skaters tended to take their time learning new jumps, so that many juvenile and intermediate skaters might only have a few double jumps, and triples were very rare at higher levels. It seemed to me at the time that one major way of distinguishing what level a skater belonged at was what jumps she was doing.

In the 1990s, I started paying attention to figure skating again and got obsessed.

Attending live competitions made a big difference in my understanding of what makes better skating.

I attended a local club competition. By that time, many of the juveniles were doing double lutzes and double-double combinations, and even the best prejuvenile had a double lutz. The seniors were not successfully landing double axels or triples; some of them didn't try, at least in the freeskate where they weren't required.

So the difference between juvenile and senior was clearly not in the jump content. They were mostly all doing the same double jumps. But the height, distance, completed rotation, etc. of the jumps did clearly improve, on average, with each higher level. More obviously the speed and security on the ice improved.

At the club level, often there would be one skater in a group who had the talent to be competitive on a national level, competing against skaters of average and below-average ability. It would often be clear as soon as that skater started her program, did some steps and edges and crossovers, even before the first jump, that she would easily deserve to win unless she bombed big time.

(Obviously, when that skater got to sectionals or nationals she would be competing against others of similar ability, so judges would need to make finer distinctions and one or two mistakes would be a lot more costly.)

I went to 1994 US Nationals, arriving in time for the men's freeskate. In the earlier groups, Rudy Galindo skated what looked to me like a clean program (I later saw a video that showed there were subtle cheats/two-foot landings on some jumps), with a triple axel, strong spins, good body line, good musical expression. Why couldn't that performance win, I wondered.

As soon as the top guys came out for the final warmup group, I understood why. The level of speed/power/ice coverage from those guys was on a completely different level than in the earlier groups.

Wow ... Looks like I have to get myself out to an event and soon too, looks like everyone agrees that live is an entirely different animal than watching on the tv.

Nadya said:

The other thing is that some skaters are really better on telly. Sasha Cohen is very slow and underwhelming in person. On TV she is lovely, but watching live, she is kinda nonexistent.

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I agree about Sasha Cohen. When I saw her live, I was really shocked at how slow she moved, and the lack of ice coverage in comparison with some of the other women. TV really enhanced her performances which were lovely.

My mother and I went to Nationals in Omaha last year and had second row seats. Before that, we had been to a couple of COI shows, and I had been to SOI many years ago (in the late 90s).

Things that really stood out to me about a live competition:

--Ice coverage and how skaters place elements on the rink--which really is part of choreo. You really have no sense of that on television.
--Speed. I never thought much about it when certain skaters were talked about as being too slow. There wasn't a lot of difference in my mind. But I'm here to tell you that Caroline Zhang looks like she is skating through a layer of molasses while wearing fuzzy slippers. A few of the lesser known senior skaters were equally slow and a friend and I were given a pair of free tickets to junior ladies short where there was a lot of crawling, too. And the fast skaters--when the warm groups would come on the ice for the men, they would come flying by us in a pack of five or six on their first lap around the ice and there was a cold breeze when they went by.
--Height of jumps is clearer from close seats in the arena.
--Pairs--the height of throws, twists and lifts is kind of awe-inspiring from the second row. You don't really think about it watching a screen.
--Sounds of blades--you can hear the scratchy blades versus the deep edges that are quieter.
--Power--I was taken by the difference in power between the men and women particularly seeing them jump or spin directly in front of our section. The men are just stronger, higher and faster. Nothing against the ladies, though.
--Costumes and make-up--it is all truly designed and intended for the view of the judges in the arena. Stuff that seems over done in a close up on television is not really distracting in the arena. I had to point this out to a relative who was trashing Meryl for her make-up during the Olympics. It is like stage make-up and meant to enhance features for people looking from a greater distance than a panned in tv camera.