2006 - The Year a Teenager Will Not Win Olympic Gold

[SkateFan4Life]

I wouldn't count on a 'mature madam' winning gold just yet. Anything can happen: Csisny, Liang, Phaneuf, Pavuk...some unknown cutie who'll show up.

Please - let's not have an "unknown cutie" show up and win at Tornio. UGH!! Let's have the gold medal won by one of the "older", established skaters who have been competing for years and who have paid their dues, so to speak.

Three cheers for the vets!

 

[JonnyCoop]

ITA. Let's have a Ladies OGM be the capoff to a pretty good long career, not just something that happened to be picked up during the ONE GREAT YEAR of their careers......

 

[Enero]

Isn't Kimmie a teen? If so, if she makes it to Turin she could also be a teen spoiler.

 

[Jasper]

Isn't Kimmie a teen? If so, if she makes it to Turin she could also be a teen spoiler.

Kimmie is still a teen (16, I think), but she's not nearly developed enough in the new system, as her poor Grand Prix results this season have shown. Still inconsistent jumps and not much in the way of program components. I think Czisny will beat out Meissner for the American Olympic team, and she should! That girl is the complete package and has much more maturity to her skating.

Cheers to Slutskaya or Suguri taking Gold! I would love an older winner this year unlike in past Olympic competitions. And let's have some nice rivalries developing between now and the next Winter Games, I say.

 

[Enero]

Kimmie is still a teen (16, I think), but she's not nearly developed enough in the new system, as her poor Grand Prix results this season have shown. Still inconsistent jumps and not much in the way of program components. I think Czisny will beat out Meissner for the American Olympic team, and she should! That girl is the complete package and has much more maturity to her skating.

Cheers to Slutskaya or Suguri taking Gold! I would love an older winner this year unlike in past Olympic competitions. And let's have some nice rivalries developing between now and the next Winter Games, I say.

Thanks for the info. And ITA to some "nice" as well as new rivalries developing for the next Olympics. If one of the "older" ladies wins gold, they will likely retire, along with most of the competition they've had over the past few years. Then the door would open for up and coming talent and new rivalries.

 

[R.D.]

Kimmie is a teen, yes, but from the way she's been skating, a podium finish would be quite an upset. I don't see her on the podium let alone winning. Those spots are reserved for other skaters.

 

[curious]

yes,I'm sure the judges are going to pay close attention to kimmie,cizny,rochette etc in Turino

 

[JonnyCoop]

We should remember that at least, at the time of their OGM wins, Baiul at least was World champion, as was Lipinski, and Hughes was at least a Worlds medalist on top of having beaten Kwan and Slutskaya at Skate Canada a few months earlier. Czisny, Meissner, Phaneuf, Leung, and some of the other names that have been tossed around on this thread certainly don't have that type of resume, or even close, except for Kostner. IMO, there is a difference between the issue of "a teenager" winning and the issue of "a teenager from out of nowhere" winning.

 

[bethissoawesome]

i hate just lumping skaters into categories.... the "young jumping beans" or "older mature skaters." i thought lipinski was a phenomenal skater who possessed a great amount of talent and a lot of charisma (not to mention, she was a world champion... she had a resume... she might have been young, but she wasn't unestablished). hughes i was less fond of, personally, just because her oly performance didn't seem very "special" to me, it was just technically flawless while skaters i would consider much better than her made errors, but she didn't have the grace or enthusiasm to light up the ice like cohen or kwan can do. of course, this is just my opinion. really when push comes to shove, the oly gold doesn't go to the best skater, it goes to the best performance of the day(s).

personally, i would love to see sasha cohen win over other "older more mature skaters" simply because i feel, when she is on top of her game, she is the best skater out there. no other skaters give me the same emotional impact as watching cohen skate her beautiful sprial sequence or execute a dynamic spin. she makes skating look like a work of art compared to other skaters who are scoring higher based on technical elements (like mao), my opinion again.

in the future, i would love to see a more mature mao skate against cohen. that would be a great sight to see.

 

[slutskayafan21]

The podium will be very likely be made up from skaters from this group-Suguri, Slutskaya, Kwan, Cohen, and Arakawa; and for certain of those non-teens will be standing on top. There are a few teenagers with an outside chance, and that is it, no chance to win barring a miracle:

Miki Ando-she has improved her performance and basic skating skills but still has a ways to go in those areas. Her jumps are nowhere near as consistent as they were as a young hotshot in 2004, and she is no longer believed to have the potential she did then IMHO. After COR she was looking like a possable Oly medalist this year, now after her recent very dissapointing string of events, it would take a phenomenal effort for her to medal in Turin IMO. For all the hype around she still has not won a World medal of any color, nor even a GP final medal of any color.

Carolina Kostner-she actually seems to have matured in her style, and seems a more refined skater this year than last. Yet her consistency has gone completely out the window. She could come up with an inspired effort in front of the home country crowd, I doubt it though. The pressure will be too much for her.

Kimmie Meissner-no chance, not at the level of an Oly medal contender yet. Anyway she did not do two back-to-back clean programs at her events yet, and her only hope of an Oly bronze would be for her to complete both of her stacked
(especialy the long)programs with all those jumping passes squeeky clean, and I cant imagine her doing that, the programs are too stacked to do that under all the pressure and hype she will get from the U.S media leading into Turin(if she is the 3rd U.S lady).

Csizny-if she gets the 3rd U.S spot, she is even more of a no-hoper than Meissner for the podium. Either of these two very talented young woman should just soak up the Oly experience and go for a personal best. A top 10 finish would be good for either, and a top 5 would be incredable.

 

[mzheng]

Some thoughts--- First, in general, I think we can all agree that great skating is NOT always what earns the OGM. .......

Second, personally, in the youth v age department, the two most memorable performances by females that I ever saw were from Denise Bielman and Rory Flack in a pro competition a few years back........

The difference was that these women were skating works of art....and the amateur athletes were competing (even at the Oly level) as though it were a very large Sectional, with the predictable choreography, standardized "proscribed" jumps, and so on.......Earning a coveted spot in your sport earns you the "right" to either "retire" or to give back in some way.....coaching, choreography, media, sports ethics, art, etc.....The ones we treasure fall on one side of this perspective, and the ones that we "lament over" as a loss fall on the other side.

Very well said, pipsqueak.

 

[~Muffin~]

I have a feeling that Irina Slutskaya is going to win this season. Irina has an amazing SP this season and she is going to show them youngins how it's done. Michelle is going to get 16th place, Sahsa Cohen is going to get silver and Carolina Kostner get's bronze.. just because the Olympics are in Italy and then all of Michelle Kwan's borgs are going to go after Sasha with pitchforks and Michelle goes into nervous breakdown and gets taken away by men in white coats. Then Sasha, Irina, and Caro smile and greet the press as though nothing happened and the memory is stamped in their minds forever.. next year Michelle tries out for American Idol.
​

 

[Mathman]

Well, I just watched (CBC) Mao Asada crush the opposition at the GP final. I think we have to face facts. Competitive figure skating is a teenager's game. The older ladies don't have a chance.

MM

 

[Enero]

Well, I just watched (CBC) Mao Asada crush the opposition at the GP final. I think we have to face facts. Competitive figure skating is a teenager's game. The older ladies don't have a chance.

MM

Amen to this!:yes: Most of the "ladies" who are competing now will probably have little chance at advancing or staying at the top of the podium when Mao and others are able to compete in all International competitions.

 

[millie]

I agree MM, just as well the older ladies retire now after this season, they haven't got a chance with Mao on the scene. I say that she will win everything next skating season. She reminds me of Michelle when she was younger.

 

[slutskayafan21]

Mao may be too good for the older women to compete with, except maybe for a very in-form Irina, but she will not be at the Olympics so is irrelevant to this thread. The teenagers that will be going to Turin are not good enough, or confident enough right now, to stop a 20+ year old woman from winning in Turin.

 

[Mathman]

Go Miki!

 

[Piel]

I have a feeling that Irina Slutskaya is going to win this season. Irina has an amazing SP this season and she is going to show them youngins how it's done. Michelle is going to get 16th place, Sahsa Cohen is going to get silver and Carolina Kostner get's bronze.. just because the Olympics are in Italy and then all of Michelle Kwan's borgs are going to go after Sasha with pitchforks and Michelle goes into nervous breakdown and gets taken away by men in white coats. Then Sasha, Irina, and Caro smile and greet the press as though nothing happened and the memory is stamped in their minds forever.. next year Michelle tries out for American Idol.
​

Michelle is already an AI...Americon Icon of skating.

 

[slutskayafan21]

Michelle is already an AI...Americon Icon of skating.

An American icon of skating who will always be reminded of that one gaping hole on an otherwise historic resume. It isnt fair, but it is American media way of thinking.

 

[R.D.]

An American icon of skating who will always be reminded of that one gaping hole on an otherwise historic resume. It isnt fair, but it is American media way of thinking.

For "obscure" sporting events, the Olympics is the only stage that they can be "showcased". You have lots of viewers that watch the Olys that wouldn't watch these events any other time. Those are reserved for skating fans. So, any feat is an accomplishment, but the average Olympic viewer will only have seen her during the Olympics. And she's done respectably well, but the performance(s) of her life were in other events.