Figure skating as an academic discipline

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The question was something like this: At the 2002 Olympics, after Kwan, Hughes and Cohen had skated the leaderboard was in that order, Kwan in fist overall ahead of Hughes and Cohen. Then Slutskaya skated, getting second in the long and second overall. Kwan dropped behind Hughes into third overall. Which of Arrow’s voting principles does this violate?

Answer: The Principle of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives.. The point being that if Kwan was ahead of Hughes after both Kwan and Hughes had skated, then what Slutskaya did afterwards should not “flip-flop” the relative rankings between Kwan and Hughes.

This, by the way, cannot happen under the current IJS judging system: if Kwan scored more points than Hughes than Kwan will always finish ahead of Hughes no matter what any other skater did.

Sasha, and also Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Goebel, were enrolled at a special program at Columbia designed for “older” students with “life experience” – for instance, an athletic career. Both got degrees with honors (I believe that both were Magna Cum Laude), she in political science and Goebel in applied mathematics.



I once saw a feature by a Japanese mediical research team which undertook a study of "How is it humanly possible for Shizuka Arakawa to do such a spectacular Ina Bauer?'' The conclusion was that Arakawa has aome sort od spinal abnormality -- double-jpinted lumber discs, or something.

Thank you! The Ina Bauer is one of my favorite moves; I need to re-watch some of Shizuka’s performances. Her spine sounds similar to a cat’s.

Cornell Center for Materials Research - Why are cats so flexible?

Cornell Center for Materials Research

www.ccmr.cornell.edu

Sasha also had amazing flexibility. Her Charlottes were just stunning to see. It’s great to know that she and Tim G did so well at Columbia!

 

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I once saw a feature by a Japanese mediical research team which undertook a study of "How is it humanly possible for Shizuka Arakawa to do such a spectacular Ina Bauer?'' The conclusion was that Arakawa has aome sort od spinal abnormality -- double-jpinted lumber discs, or something.

WOW...Shizuka's Ina Bauer really was a thing of beauty; "spectacular" hardly does it justice. And her Y-spiral...! Anyway, here's her 2006 OGM skate:

Shizuka Arakawa's Mesmerizing Free Program to 'Turandot' | Music Monday

📲 Subscribe to @olympics: http://oly.ch/Subscribe This week on Music Monday we feature the Japanese Figure Skater and Olympic Champion Shizuka Arakawa and ...

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I had forgotten what a gorgeous performance that was. After the 2006 Olympics, "Ina Bauer" became sort of a household word in Japan and the Japanese often refer to the IB as an "Arakawa." And who could blame them?