Will Lipnitskaia have a career like Cohen?

Sam-Skwantch said:

Ping pong is pretty cheap

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sabinfire said:

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I was totally going to toilet paper every ice rink in Ann Arbor on my way to Boyne Highlands this year, even Yost, to avenge Yulia's season due to your avatar but you're just too nice

Plus I like Liza :yes:

Oh no, I'm sure Meryl & Charlie wouldn't be too happy about that...

I like Julia, too. Definitely a highlight from the Sochi Olympics for me.

Glad to hear I generally come across as nice. I feel like a jerk today, here, for some reason.

Why are you heading up to Boyne Highlands, and from where?

sabinfire said:

Oh no, I'm sure Meryl & Charlie wouldn't be too happy about that...

I like Julia, too. Definitely a highlight from the Sochi Olympics for me.

Glad to hear I generally come across as nice. I feel like a jerk today, here, for some reason.

Why are you heading up to Boyne Highlands, and from where?

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Snowboarding trip. I grew up in the area and go back when I can. I'm in Ohio now but always venture home when possible :yes:

sabinfire said:

Ashley medalled thanks in large part to Julia's disastrous FS (and to a lesser extent, Anna's disappointing FS).

Wagner still had a really awesome skate, but I don't think it would have won her a medal without a couple of skaters botching their FS. It's never a comforting thought to know you have to rely on your opponents to fail miserably in order for you to have a chance.

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I find this very bogus.

The only thing Wagner needs to rely on for high marks is going clean and rotating her jumps,
Pogo is not gonna score higher than her, And at the moment Lipnitskaya can't do her FS so no reason to use that as a factor either.

Sigh...

Is there snow up north now? I haven't seen any snow in Michigan for all of December, not that I'm complaining.

I guess the girls won't emigrate much. They are all loving their country and want to fight for it (at least, that's how I get it). Plus they seems to have, for the most part, quite a piece of fighting spirit and or ego in them (nothing wrong here, you should as an elite figure skater). In a word, they are not afraid of competition and all think they are the best.
Which is very good too and Russia, I'm sure, is pleased with this situation because it allows them to choose which skater to send. Like during the big pairs and dance days. Except the outcome where more predictable back then, specially in dance (even though KP bested BB there at least once or even twice before Calgary, 1985 for sure, maybe 1986 too ?).

To come back to my original idea which is they won't emigrate much also because you first have to get released. Depending on the country, it can be done but you're basically a toy in your federation's hands and be sure Russia won't relase any skater that could be a threat to their teams. It sadly aply to all the russians ladies. You will inevitably wait before competing which mean lose of possible world ranking ; and then and more importantly, you lose Russia's support at internationals competitions. The fall can be harsh...

I think along with the quad throws in pairs, The subject of giving "wildcard" slots for nations that need them should be discussed this
summer very seriously, Hoping the Russians don't migrate

I was going to make this comment earlier, but didn't want the thread to turn into a "how to fix figure skating thread"... but it kind of gone that way a little so...

We need a rule change to allow all these girls to compete at Europeans and Worlds.

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I've thought about this and would have agreed earlier... but now I think it would just lead towards resentment and work against these girls because some people(and media outlets) will tune out if it's always a consistent national shutout... I recently read an interview with the head of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Fed and the local channel that had been carrying figure skating is getting reluctant to cover any events(from nationals to euros to worlds) anymore... (not because of the recent conflict... it's because they don't really have any stars anymore)... and I'm sure this is not an isolated occurrence.

I think the the grand prix should be expanded and made more elite... the "national figure skating season" should be compressed in time... the world championships needs to be more consciously a "tournament of nations"... and an "exhibition" season for the top grand prix skaters should be created. More value(media, money, whatever) needs to be created for skating outside of the "national figure skating" season for elite skaters.

1. Expand the Grand Prix to one or two more events(Skate Europe or Nordic Skate or Skate Germany, Skate Asia or Korea Cup) and let the top 12 or so skaters skate 3 times(if they want) and use their 2 top scores.
1a. If a deal could be signed to bring the Grand Prix Final to american prime time tv, the Grand Prix Final should be held in New York or California or some big media capital every year.
1b. Expand the number of GPF qualifiers for men and women to 8 or 10 and there should rule that ensures at least 3 nations are represented(important to have a little diversity for narrative building reasons... ashley wagner vs the russians... etc).
2. Make the "National Figure Skating" season shorter... All the national figure skating events should be done by the January 1st(most except the US/Canada already do this...) , 4CC/Euros should straddle the mid January weekends, World Championships should be held the 2nd weekend of February, Team World Champions 2 weeks after. The spaced out nature of figure skating hurts it from a media standpoint because it's hard to tell people "come watch next month"... it needs to be 2 weeks at most..
3. Create a 3 event(2 qualifiers and a final) "Gala Grand Prix" where the top skaters from Grand Prix participate in judged "technical exhibitions" in the dark and under the spotlight(and maybe with some lightshow effects)... (most likely these would be previously used competitive programs or exhibitions with the harder elements put in)
3a. Host every event in either the US(Cali, Vegas, New York?) or Japan... or split between Japan/China/Korea.. or split between North America/Europe/Asia... the final needs to be live on prime time US or Japanese TV.

To compare it to basketball, Grand Prix = NBA, World Championships = FIBA, Exhibition Season = Globetrotters...

If those above changes were to bear fruit(and if skaters don't get too tired of the schedule), I'd like to see...
4. 3-day short program elimination tournaments(maybe jsut ladies and guys)... 13->9->5 (or similar) skaters for the 1st,2nd,3rd day ... this would be part of the "exhibition" season and they should be highly encouraged to use old programs.
5. Create more'Japan Open" exhibition warmup events at in the beginning... they should just be fun things to get ready for the season... nations, disciplines, and rulesets should be chosen for parity and to make the competitions interesting. These should not be taken too seriously at all...
** Russia vs US(and maybe Canada on US side if it's always a blow out) "cold war"
** US vs Canada
** China vs Korea vs Japan
** Russia vs Euro All Stars
** Asia All Stars vs Euro All Stars
etc etc

I also think it would be interesting if there were some exhibition style contests held outdoors instead of indoors... maybe the short program elimination tournaments...

I am open to the winners of Euros/4CC getting individual tickets to the World Championships... but only to make the 4CC more interesting(top skaters often skip) and to give the "national skating season' a more tournament feel.

There are those that want to take skating more in a tennis direction, but the way to go there is to get elite skaters skating against each other more often in varied ways. Trying to make the "World Championships" more elite would actually be moving in the wrong direction because instead of a "tournament of nations" it would just be Grand Prix Final 2.0.

This thread is like a bouncy ball of topics

Boing!!! Boing!!! Boing!!!

What were we talking about again? The topic says Lipnitskaia and Cohen. Now, I know I haven't said anything about Cohen....

What's wrong with Sasha's career? Yulia should be so lucky...with the competition being what it is these days.

sabinfire said:

Okay, now I really have to ask, what are you doing where tennis is an expensive sport for you? As I and others have mentioned here, you can find tennis courts to use for free or very inexpensive. Tennis racquets and tennis balls can be bought fairly cheaply. What are you spending all this money on?

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I agree. And you don't even need a tennis court to play. Maria Sharapova was discovered by her coach when she was literally just hitting tennis balls against a wall in a park when she still lived in Sochi.

Back on topic, these girls won't leave Russia because Russia won't release them. They 9th ranked skater may not ever compete at Euros or Worlds, but I can't imagine the federation not loving the fact that they have so many excellent skaters on reserve. They're not just going to let them go especially since the sport is socialized and the government invested a lot of money into them.

The maximum amount of time that the federation can hold a skater is 2 years and in those 2 years they can't compete at all. I don't think many of those girls are willing to sit out of competition for that amount of time.

Actually, tennis is a very expensive sport if one wishes to play at an elite level. The boarding fees at a tennis academy exceed $100 000 US dollars per year easily, and you can find many of them in Florida. I'm not sure whether figure skating is more expensive or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were at least on equal footing. There's a reason why tennis has been called a privileged person's sport, even if now-and-again we see phenomena in the Williams sisters etc. breaking through.

Back on topic: Julia has a fire in her belly and mental toughness that distinguishes her from Cohen. Although as stated earlier, many girls would kill to have a career like Sasha's. I find it really insulting to Sasha actually that she has a "basket-case" label - sure she often didn't win when we wanted her to, but she sure did well with some of the technical flaws she had for all her beauty on the ice.

One way in which Julia and Sasha are similar is that they both have many fans who just like their skating, whether they win or lose.

Mathman said:

One way in which Julia and Sasha are similar is that they both have many fans who just like their skating, whether they win or lose.

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this :thumbsup:

Sandpiper said:

. We need a rule change to allow all these girls to compete at Europeans and Worlds.

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I don't like this kind of talk at all. There should be a new competition named The Bests of the Bests. Perhaps 20 skaters according to best international score. IMO Europeans and Worlds are Europeans and Worlds and the rules are good as they are. Russia will have 3 ladies skaters in the Worlds 2015 for the first time in many years. For a long time they did not have even three. These girls have grown and skated knowing well that the number for worlds and europeans is limited. Perhaps that is one of reasons why they are so good. But we are lucky to see these girls skating even though we won't see these all at europeans or worlds. There are girls in many countries who have skated for years and dreamed to go to europeans and worlds and they never have a chance for that one spot for their country or sometimes 2 and rarely 3.

Sini said:

There are girls in many countries who have skated for years and dreamed to go to europeans and worlds and they never have a chance for that one spot for their country or sometimes 2 and rarely 3.

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That statement is probably true for any competitive sport. In soccer you may have a "team" but I think there are more the 19x serious soccer players than serious ice skaters. I chose 19 because the current US soccer team has 19 players.

Sini, I like that idea but I can see a lot of scenarios where skaters would skip out on event like that... the biggest being World's bronze medal winners or those close to earning a medal who know they would just go down in the standings. Holding it too close to the World Championships would devalue the World Championships.

To make an event like that work, I think you would have to...

1. Make it more elite... top 10 or 12.
2. Have some kind of event that separates the Worth Championships and this new event...

This is why I prefer tweaking the Grand Prix(1-2 more events, let top skaters skate 3 times, 2-4 more singles skaters, better media exposure), compressing time spent on nationals/euros/4cc/worlds, and do some fun events afterwards with elite skaters.

Yulia bombed her FS at Nationals just as she had at all her events so far this year. She finished 9th overall. It doesn't seem as if she's going to go to any championship events this season. I hope she can regroup for next season.