hockeyfan228 said:
...Form, carriage, flow, and free leg position also counted toward the scores. It's the whole body impression that is supposed to be important, not just from the ankles down.
As for your question about the Biellman, judging from the tiny downloads, Pavuk did a quite lovely one at Euros, Sebestyen did a nice one from the donut position, and Timoshenko does beautiful ones to both sides. It takes back strength as well as flexibility to do a beautiful Biellmann, and that doesn't seem to be what Slutskaya has, judging from her spiral positions and some of her other spins.
--Re Irina, '02: (Slapping myself for even posting on this thread
.) I agree with Mathman about some of Irina's strengths being such "below the ankles" qualities as speed and ice coverage (I'd also add flow and wonderfully deep edges) and that Irina's skating does not look nearly as strong on TV as it does live. However, I think Irina is also very strong in her form, carriage, and even body line with the exception of toe point and amplitude on her arabesque spirals. She actually has excellent extension in her legs through the hip and knee (extension meaning a fully stretched position); the problem is Irina is bow-legged. Thus when she has her leg in an arabesque spiral position, it looks bent on TV because we're seeing it in only two dimensions. Her leg is curved, but not because her knee is not locked; it's because the natural bow-shape of her leg. Whether a skater should be penalized for doing the best they can with unalterable skeletal formations is, I suppose, up to individual judges. The neck/shoulder configuration of one skater I can think of gives her a short neck and high shoulders, which some might find aesthetically unappealing. However I think in skating anatomical problems with body line show up more when they occur in the legs.
Also, I've always felt Irina had one of the most expressive upper bodies in skating. By expressive, I mean great articulation and range in the joints of the shoulders, neck, and thorax. Mathman mentioned "pretty positions" and this is not what I mean at all when I say Irina has "great expressiveness" in her upper body. In fact, from the waist up, I'd say Irina and Oksana Baiul are equally expressive with their upper bodies (or were at each skater's peak), though with very different styles. Both Irina and Oksana also had/have a great deal of flexibility in their upper bodies along with the ability to isolate and "stretch out" certain upper body joints, which gives a "bigger than life" look to their skating. However, Irina's style is "modern," for lack of a better word, whereas Oksana's is balletic, which I think is one reason why Irina is often criticized for her arm movements. In any case, I prefer the quality of the movement between positions whereas of course it's just as valid for others to prefer the look of the actual positions. I would think the same or similar differences in preference exists among judges as well. Thus results that have Irina receiving higher presentation marks than Michelle from some judges may look like "cheating" to those who love Michelle's positions.
Also, and I'll be the first one to say this, Irina didn't use her upper body flexibility well at all when she first came on the scene. When she won Europeans at age 16, she did indeed do a lot of flippy, wristy, floppy things with her arms. However, by '98 she had matured and if you look at her '98 Olympic programs, especially her SP, which was a wonderfully droll and restrained program entitled "Piano Waltz," hopefully you'll see that a lot of the criticism of Irina's "overdone arms" is a result of the choreography, not her inclination. Even with "Tosca," which got a reputation for "lots of head-grabbing" had at least 50% of the pantomime and arm movements cut out by the time of the GPF and even more cut out by the Olympics.
So in short, I'd say Irina gets very high marks for the form, carriage, flow, etc. for her entire body. What she does not have is the balletic or lyrical style that I think most people prefer to see with figure skaters. Unfortunately, Irina and her coach have chosen to go with balletic or classically themed LPs since '99, which I think dilutes the impact of Irina's style. If you see a skater doing "Don Quixote," you expect to see a balletic style. For me, Irina's most successful programs, such as "Schindler's List," have had nothing to do with ballet or opera; unfortunately, she hasn't used them for her World or Olympic LPs. The decision to go with ballet/opera programs is, I think, one that has hurt Irina in her presentation marks and, IMO, rightfully so. To use a much overused analogy, it's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. However, even within those programs, Irina still uses her upper body extremely well. It's just that the overall style of the program doesn't suit her, IMO.
As for the comment about her Biellmann spins not suiting Irina's flexibility, flexibility is specific. That is, a person can be very flexible in the joints for hip flexion, spinal extension, and shoulder rotation and have achieved great flexibility in her hamstrings, all of which are needed to do a good Biellmann spin, but have very little of the flexibility in the joints needed to achieve high amplitude in an arabesque spiral. In other words, you can be very flexibile in one certain parts of the body and not at all flexible in others. Also, the ability to achieve a position involves both flexibility and strength. Again, like flexibility, strength is specific.
To make a comparison regarding specificity: Irina can't do an arabesque spiral with anything like the amplitude and line that Michelle can. Michelle can't do a layback spin with the back arch and leg position that Irina can. Both Irina and Michelle have positions in which they show great flexibility and beautiful line, and both have positions where they've had to use nontraditional positions in order to make the most of what they have and minimize their limitations. Of course there are a few skaters who are appear flexible all over, such as Sasha Cohen and Nicole Bobek. But even there, I bet they have certain muscle groups and/or joints that are not as flexible as others.
Also, bear in mind that flexibility involves several things: the skeletal shape of the joint involved; the length of the ligaments of that joint; and the stretch in the muscles of that joint. Of the three, only muscle stretch can be affected by training after about the age of seven or eight, and even with young children, the shape of the joint can only be altered with training by a few degrees. Also, and this is somewhat OT since I read it on another thread, but being exceptionally flexible "all over" does not make one more prone to injuries or unable to hold one's jump landings, although it is a much perpetuated myth that the more flexibile you are the less strength you have. What is true is that if one is naturally extremely flexible and only works on flexibility, not strength, jumping is going to be very difficult. Nicole Bobek tends to have this problem. Sasha Cohen doesn't. Sasha's jump problems, IMO, have to do with having come from gymnastics and poor jump technique, but she doesn't show the flexibility problems that afflict jumps, such as kicking the free leg too high in the back in preparation for toe pick jumps.
Lastly re Irina, I find it interesting that Irina's Biellmann spin is often criticized because in many ways, Irina reminds me of Denise Biellmann. Denise was also a nonballetic skater whose style was more about speed and motion than line and position. The judges also tended, IMO, to undermark Denise on the presentation mark. And even though we may be tired of watching her do them, Irina is still, as far as I know, the only skater who can do a Biellmann spin on both feet, much less one right after the other.
--BTW, I think order of the ladies medals at the '02 Olympics was correct and that what those Olympics really showed, both in the pairs and ladies events, were the limitations of the OBO system. The reason certain judges were jockeying around with bizarre placements for some of the final skaters was that the OGM-winning performance came early in the last flight. So the judges were in the bind of having to "save" marks for the skaters after Sarah, yet nobody skated up to Sarah's level technically or in terms of presentation. Under the COP, the skate order of the last flight, whether it be random or by placement in the SP, would have no impact on who won because there is no need for the judges to "save" scores.
--Re Nancy and Oksana, '94: The music for both of Nancy Kerrigan's '94 programs were entirely composed by a friend of hers, which I don't think was a plus. Her LP had no Neil Diamond in it at all. Also, the quality of Oksana's program has come up several times before, so the last time it did, which was about six months ago, I timed the number of seconds Oksana and Nancy each spent standing still and/or doing minimal skating. I don't remember the exact number of seconds for each skater, though it was between 25 and 30 seconds each. What I do remember is that there was only a three-second difference between Nancy and Oksana regarding "standing still/minimal skating."
Also, it's virtually impossible to accurately evaluate speed based on TV. After the final results were in, one of the things Scott Hamilton said about Nancy's LP was that it was "a little cautious and a little slow." I know these weren't the Olympics, but I saw Oksana and Nancy skate live professionally four times with COI and Nancy never even came close to Oksana's speed. In fact, Nancy was one of the slowest skaters on the tour and Oksana was one of the fastest skaters I've ever seen. At her peak, she's still the fastest woman FS I've seen, except for Irina. Oksana had technical problems, no doubt about it, and a valid case can be made that Nancy should have won the gold in '94. However, IMO, the case should not be made based on Oksana "standing around doing nothing" more than Nancy nor on Nancy having more speed.
One last nit to pick: In the crash Oksana had with Germany's Tanja Swievcenko, Oksana experienced a small fracture in her lower back and a gash on one shin. After being examined by the Olympic physician, Oksana was given two approved injections of lidocaine, which numbs the injured area. One was on her shin where she had the gash and one was in her back. People often point to the fact that Oksana did not do a layback spin in her LP. This is true. However, in the LP there are no requirements and no mandatory deductions. Assuming the judges knew the nature of Oksana's injuries after the crash, I wonder if some of them took the fractured vertebra into consideration, especially since she had shown exceptional spinal flexibility in the SP with the donut spin and her side-back "star" layback. [Note: The rules for a layback spin state that the skater must either arch the spine directly backwards or to the side. Either way is valid.]
--Re Torvill & Dean, '94: As much as I love T&D, I thought they shot themselves in the foot, so to speak, by rechoreographing 80% of their free dance during the three weeks between Euros and Worlds. Somebody else already brought this up (sorry, who said what is all a blue
) so I won't repeat what was said, but here's my spin on it. T&D were apparently concerned at Euros that they won by such a slim margin, so they asked some judges what they should do to improve their program. I don't know if Chris just got carried away or if they took what a couple of judges said too much to heart, but I do know that what I saw T&D do at Euros could have won the OGM, but what they did at the Olympics could not. For one thing, the Olympic version of "Let's Face the Music" mostly looked like a stringing together of "Torvill & Dean's Greatest Stunts" whereas the Euros version had the strong, well-balanced choreography that made their rhumba OD the clear winner. The new choreography lost all connection to the music, which was a paricular strong point of the Euros version, and also stayed at one frenetic level throughout, even though the music didn't. T&D also looked like they were skating "LFTM" by the seat of their pants, whereas at Euros, their edging, flow, line, relationship, and carriage were superb. Everything they had at Euros was lost in favor of things I'd seen T&D do in other programs over the years. Plus there was the controversial 3/10ths deduction for the over-the-shoulder flip that was added on as the new ending.
I felt awful for T&D because I think Chris got caught up in trying to please the judges and ensure their win rather than having confidence in his own judgment. Perhaps one or two stunts or "highlight moves" would have added some spark to the Euros version of "LFTM," but to completely rechoreograph 80% of what you had meticulously worked on for six months--that was a bad move. I know they got telegrams from people like Gene Kelly saying it was the best ballroom dancing on ice they'd ever seen, or something to that effect, but I think you can't really assess what the judges saw until you compare the '94 Euros version of "LFTM" to the Olympic version. After comparing the two, you may still feel T&D deserved the OGM, but I know for myself, my jaw dropped in disappointment as I watched the Olympic version unfold. My reaction was that there was no way they would win the OGM with that and that they'd be lucky to win the silver. I had wanted T&D to win and I'm still a big fan of theirs, but IMO Grishuk & Platov set a new standard for speed and intricacy that night, plus the choreography was well balanced and G&P's playful relationship was very effective. I know there's the whole thing about mandatory deductions, but I think what happened is T&D got nailed for what the judges saw as more than one illegal move, whereas timing 24 seconds without touching is more difficult to see, especially if everything else about the choreography and performance is strong. With T&D, you could see them thinking through virtually the whole thing, IMO, and I found it uncomfortable to watch.
If you can't compare T&D's Euros "LFTM" with the Olympic version, just compare their Olympic OD, the rhumba, with "LFTM." I think the rhumba shows everything "LFTM" had at Euros both in choreographic sophistication and performance quality, but lost at the Olympics. I felt very bad for T&D, but I hope the result was that Chris would never doubt his own choreographic judgment again, at least not to that extent.
--Who do I think wuz robbed at the Olympics? ME! I lived in Salt Lake City 11 damn years, through tons of snow, and the Winter Olympics didn't go there until 17 years after I'd moved to NY! But at least I got to see '84 Nationals there, where Scott Hamilton had the LP skate he wished he'd had at the Olympics and Tiffany Chin was a knock-out. BTW, if anybody wonders what figure skating might go back to if audience interest keeps dropping off, I think '84 Nationals may, unfortunately, be a good indicator. These were Nationals in an Olympic year and the 18,000 seat Salt Palace was only about a third full for the ladies finals. Sigh.
Rgirl
at how they could even find a way to place B&E above M&D.
). But objectively speaking-I can see no reason for putting B&E above M&D.
. 
