People who never won a world title...

[slutskayafan21]

I have two selections.

1.Bechke & Petrov were a wonderful pair that never won a world title. They won the Olympic silver medal though. They really came into their own as pros.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_twJw106uo

2.Annenko & Sretenski were ice dancers that never won a world medal but they won the pro competition twice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7w1xh-6ubY

Both of these teams really blossomed as pros. Annenko & Sretenski imparticular were underrated as eligible skaters too.

 

[blue dog]

One of the rare Olympic champions who never won a world title together (or, for that matter, even world silver!):

Kazakova and Dmitriev

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhsx8y_oOuQ

(I guess it might be cheating, since he won a world title or two with his former partner)

If that is the case, then--

Jim and Judy Sladky (Inventors of the Yankee Polka)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9TQ8JL7nBQ

 

[Tinymavy15]

I can't belive nobody said SASHA!

 

[Vash01]

I can't belive nobody said SASHA!

I thought of Sasha, but decided not to post because she has publicly stated her intentions to return to eligible skating in 2009, and competing at the 2010 Olympics. I am avoiding all the skaters who are still eligible.

I like this game! Thanks for starting it!

Rudy Galindo!

Here is Rudy's LP at the 96 nationals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJW4Lv_6j44

 

[Tonichelle]

I also thought of Sasha but as was stated she hasn't officially retired

anywho... lessee here...
Rosalynn Sumners

 

[blue dog]

I also thought of Sasha but as was stated she hasn't officially retired

anywho... lessee here...
Rosalynn Sumners

She won the 83 world title (Witt was 4th, and the defending champ, Zayak, withdrew).

Rory Flack-Burghardt (she learned jumps when she left the amateur scene!--like triple lutz and triple flip)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7v78QFRCqgQ

 

[laceup]

Yuka Sato ... I know she did great at singles but she never skated pairs until she became a pro skater.

 

[Vash01]

Yuka Sato ... I know she did great at singles but she never skated pairs until she became a pro skater.

Yuka did win a world title in 94 as a singles skater.

Here is Matt Savoie's LP at the 2006 US Nationals. It was mesmerizing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRTQCQmiAA0

 

[slutskayafan21]

Sasha Cohen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIOmZosasb0

Active smactif, she aint returning, and if she by some miracle does she aint winning at this point. She was one of the best to not win a World or Olympic title though, and above is a clip of her absolutely wonderful Olympic performance apart from the usual fateful 40 seconds or so.

Anna Kondrashova:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbidCZ289Q8

Clean performances from Anna were very rare, but those times they occured it was gorgeous skating.

Tiffany Chin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMLBqSINSGI

 

[Vash01]

Anna Kondrashova:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbidCZ289Q8

Clean performances from Anna were very rare, but those times they occured it was gorgeous skating.

I loved Anna's skating, even though she could not land the triple jumps.

Chris Bowman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ZNkpLz8Zw

 

[Tonichelle]

She won the 83 world title (Witt was 4th, and the defending champ, Zayak, withdrew).

Rory Flack-Burghardt (she learned jumps when she left the amateur scene!--like triple lutz and triple flip)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7v78QFRCqgQ

duh... for whatever reason I was thinking Olympic title...

*crawls under a rock*

 

[russell30]

Surya Bonaly

Surya should have won the 1993 title, such a shame and maybe the 1994 title?, such a fighter!!, but Surya has grown to be a classy act in the pro scene which suits her better than the amateur scene.

Angela Nikodinov

Anglea's short program by Giovanni in 2001 was absolutely fantastic and should have won that short program by a long way, artistry was second to none and what a beautiful choice of music, shame about the LP as I am sure the judges were looking at her as the new champion as opposed to Slutskaya or Kwan.

Petr Barna

Beautiful male skater with finesse and artistry to die for, his OP from 1991 and 1992 fantastic, shame he could not get a world title.

Lucinda Ruh or Nathalie Krieg

Can you imagine if they had the technique, they would bring the roof down!!!!.

 

[slutskayafan21]

Anglea's short program by Giovanni in 2001 was absolutely fantastic and should have won that short program by a long way, artistry was second to none and what a beautiful choice of music, shame about the LP as I am sure the judges were looking at her as the new champion as opposed to Slutskaya or Kwan..

I like Angela alot, and it is a shame she never medaled at Worlds, and her 2001 Worlds short program was indeed gorgeous. However for the bolded part I dont think that could be any further from the truth to what the judges were thinking.

 

[Mafke]

Surya should have won the 1993 title, such a shame and maybe the 1994 title?, such a fighter!!, but Surya has grown to be a classy act in the pro scene which suits her better than the amateur scene.

I think I would have gone with the judges' decision in 94, but in 93 I absolutely agree that she should have won.

To elaborate, Sato's edge control really was phenomenal and that would probably tip the scale in her favor for me, but Baiul (for those who bothered to look at her feet and not be taken in by the smile) had the same kinds of technical weaknesses as Bonaly, maybe even more so.

 

[slutskayafan21]

I would have given Lu Chen the gold at the 1993 Worlds, Bonaly the silver, and Sato the bronze. If Kiellmann had not messed up the short program I would have given her the bronze, she had a skate of a lifetime that night. These are how I had the programs marked:

Short program: 1)Kerrigan, 2)Chouinaurd, 3)Bonaly, 4)Baiul, 5)Chen
Long program: 1)Chen, 2)Bonaly, 3)Kiellmann, 4)Sato, 5)Baiul
Final standings: 1)Chen, 2)Bonaly, 3)Sato, 4)Baiul, 5)Kiellmann

Baiul is one of the most overrated skaters in history. Her only long program ever used in competition in 93-94 had so many glaring omissions of basic skating. No combinaton spin, no footwork sequence, barely a spiral sequence, no jump combination, stroking stroking and more stroking galore. Atleast in the short program she did some proper elements.

Kerrigan, Chouinaurd, Bonaly, Sato, and Chen at the minimum all would have had to make multiple major mistakes before I would have ever thought of giving her my 1st place ordinal in any program. She was a talented young skater whose potential was sabatoged by being pushed far too quickly up the ranks relative to her development.

 

[blue dog]

Baiul is one of the most overrated skaters in history. Her only long program ever used in competition in 93-94 had so many glaring omissions of basic skating. No combinaton spin, no footwork sequence, barely a spiral sequence, no jump combination, stroking stroking and more stroking galore. Atleast in the short program she did some proper elements.

Kerrigan, Chouinaurd, Bonaly, Sato, and Chen at the minimum all would have had to make multiple major mistakes before I would have ever thought of giving her my 1st place ordinal in any program. She was a talented young skater whose potential was sabatoged by being pushed far too quickly up the ranks relative to her development.

Like many people said, Baiul's time was definitely 1994--had she stayed around until 1998 or if the Olympics were in 96 instead of 94, she may not have even been in the top 6.

Here's another non world champion--

Alexei Urmanov

 

[slutskayafan21]

Like many people said, Baiul's time was definitely 1994--had she stayed around until 1998 or if the Olympics were in 96 instead of 94, she may not have even been in the top 6.

Here's another non world champion--

Alexei Urmanov

I dont agree. She could have improved alot from what she was in 93-94 IMHO.

As for competition in the coming years, she wouldnt have had that much, Bonaly and Chen in 95, Chen and Kwan in 96, Kwan and Lipinski in 97-98. Slutskaya and Butyrskaya were not that good until after the 98 season, Kwan even in her big slump season in 96-97 still never lost to either of them. Chen after 96 was not that strong ever again, even in 98 she was technically in another league from Kwan and Lipinski and reliant almost entirely on artistic ability by now, and only won her Oly bronze since Butyrskaya, Slutskaya, Gusmeroli, Bobek all faltered. Lipinski only became a big threat in 96-97 when all the other women were having problems and she stood out since she was landing all her jumps cleanly, granted I dont think Baiul would have ever matched that jump difficulty, but I think even a mature womenly skater skating cleanly with 5-6 triples would have been put over Lipinski that year but nobody was doing that. Bonaly was done at the top after the 95 season basically.

 

[slutskayafan21]

Ilia Kulik:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9L0QIa667Q

 

[Mafke]

I would have given Lu Chen the gold at the 1993 Worlds, Bonaly the silver, and Sato the bronze.
-
Baiul is one of the most overrated skaters in history. Her only long program ever used in competition in 93-94 had so many glaring omissions of basic skating. No combinaton spin, no footwork sequence, barely a spiral sequence, no jump combination, stroking stroking and more stroking galore.
-
She was a talented young skater whose potential was sabatoged by being pushed far too quickly up the ranks relative to her development.

I think Chen over Bonaly is a defensible position (I don't agree with it, but I understand it). Baiul over Bonaly in 93 is just ... baffling (as in I don't understand the rationale at all).

 

[slutskayafan21]

I think Chen over Bonaly is a defensible position (I don't agree with it, but I understand it). Baiul over Bonaly in 93 is just ... baffling (as in I don't understand the rationale at all).

Chen's short program at the 93 Worlds was kind of shaky, clean, but a bit shaky, she landed the combo close to the boards, she was a bit tenative, that is why she came 5th in the short when Kerrigan, Bonaly, Baiul, Chouinaurd all skated cleanly and with more confidence and attack. I think that hurt her in the end, they arent going to look too seriously at someone in 5th place to win. If I was just judging the long program I would have atleast had her 2nd over Baiul in the long.

I agree with you on Bonaly vs Baiul. Bonaly I would have had many tenths ahead on the technical mark (which should also account for Baiul's lack of non-jump elements, not just jumps) and about even on the artistic mark for their performances. I did not think it was even close, except for Bonaly having this bad rap about certain aspects of her skating that was hard to shake even with how much she improved that year (huge improvements from the previous 2 seasons in her skating), and Baiul was this golden stepchild so to speak who could somehow do no wrong.

On another note I think we all know Kerrigan would have won with a decent performance that year, although there is a huge question if she was even capable of that with how she trained that year. Another interesting question is how Chouinaurd would have fit in if she had an excellent performance like she had at the Canadians; how exactly they would have ranked her vs Baiul, Bonaly, and Chen's performances if she skated the same way at Worlds in the long as she had at Canadians. Mathematically she was also in position to win after Kerrigan's failure. Maybe it is the Canadian homer in me bringing her up, but atleast she would have had a medal chance after Kerrigan's failure and the lower (too low IMO) marks of Bonaly and Chen.