Re: Kwan against the World
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Cats on Ice:
I am not a kwan fan for the following reasons.
One
As the leaders in ladies figure skating she has done nothing to advance the sport technically, Unlike IS, SC, and SH she does not try to up the technical anti, she does not attempt 3/3, 3 axels or quads. To me as a leader she should be doing this.
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No problem with your preference, to each their own. But I disagree a leader should be pushing the envelope. Michelle or any top athletes for that matter should not have any responsibility to continue advancing the sport. Their job is to win or deliver great performances to their best capability. You seriously think pushing the technical envelope is all that Irina, Sasha and the likes have in mind? Their #1 priority has to be to win competitions and they will have to rummage their own respective bags of talents and capabilities to achieve that. To us, it appears as if they are just pushing the envelope.
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Two
The way flapping she moves her arms is very disturbing to me.
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Again to each their own. I, on the other hand feel Michelle's hand flapping is very much in tune with the music and not distracting as others' that I have seen. She did lots of hand flapping only very recently that is in Aranjuez. If you happen to have watched her past programs, it was always very minimum and if it wasn't minimum it was never distracting or disturbing as Dick Button himself commented. But it's ok if you find it disturbing.
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Three
The way her fans insist she is the best ever and any criticism of her launches a barrage of attacks on the poster
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I find this comment very unfair. I have been to some skater-specific forums and I have encountered exactly the same behaviour from some of the skater's fans there. By the way, why should you let a skater's fans' ugly behaviour dictate how much you like him/her? The first 2 aforementioned reasons are "legitimate" reasons for not liking Michelle on your part. But this third reason seems a bit "weird" to me. I'm not criticizing, sorry if you infer that way.
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My guess is yes because if you take Kwan out of the mix then you still have skaters able to beat each other. In general they have to increase their technical difficulty to win.
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Agreed. But putting Michelle in the mix makes the competition even much more exciting. To me the more elite players are competing the better and more exciting is it to watch.
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In my opinion Kwan is winning because of her consistence not because she is the best.
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How can any athlete win by not being the best? Ok, there are fluke wins, but can anyone say the same of Michelle's? Fluke wins over and over and over for 10 years? Boy, something is seriously wrong with this sport because no one seems to be complaining except her detractors (I'm not implying you are one of them, I'm just trying to form my points for my argument here
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Michelle has won by being able to consistently skate great or very well. Being consistently mediocre is nothing to write home about but being consistently very good/great is something that few athletes of any sport can achieve because it is in itself technically difficult to do. Can you name me tens of top athletes of any sport who can consistently deliver great performances for 5 years, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. I doubt if you can, because it's rare and it's rare because it's an extremely difficult achievement. In women's tennis for example, only a handful achieved that like Margaret Court in 60-70s, Evert in the 70s-early 80s, Navratilova in the 80s, Graf in 80-90s. It's freaking rare. Anyone saying Michelle is winning by her consistency and just that is missing the whole picture altogether either intentionally or unintentionally. No athlete can dominate a sport for a long period of time by being consitently mediocre. He/she has to be consistenly very good or great to be able to to that.
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If you look at most of the skaters in the top ten all have continued to improve their technical skills over the last four years while Kwan has not. I prefer skaters who continue to evolve and strive through out their life time.
Janet
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Well, you are definitely entitled to have your preference. If you are not into Michelle's skating for the reason of lack of progress technically, it's perfectly fine. But to say it's her responsibility to the sport to continue improving technically, I would have to disagree strongly. I thought she had already done her part in the early years...a necessity to have 2 lutzes, 6-7 triples, a flip in sp, not to mention good presentation. And people still expect her to continue to improve and push the sport? Come on, can she at least get some credit for what she had done before Irina, Sarah and Sasha and now Elena started to push the envelope further?
