sex, drug abuse, violence
RE: Sex, drug abuse, violence: Are we talking about hockey or baseball? Sorry, couldn't resist. I think there still is sex, drug abuse, and violence in figure skating....there always was, and always will be because people don't change through the years. We aren't hearing some of it lately, is my guess...just like we're not hearing/seeing very good coverage of the GOOD stuff, either.
I agree w/whomever said if figure skating interest is down 80% in the US, then it should be down in relative correspondence in other countries, too. It probably isn't. I can't find out with regularity WHEN an event will be on televison. And, when I do find it, it's so far removed from the event in time that it's passe by then. Everyone already knows the outcome. Neither do I care for most of the commentators if I DO find an event covered. I've watched very little this season.
The other thing that bothers me is the escalation of "high-pay-off-tricks" in both singles and pairs, to the point where most of the field is injured and withdrawn from most competitions anyway, except their own Nationals or Europeans, Worlds, etc. , not to mention that the competitive life of most of these athletes is cut short. I also groan at the commentators who whine and snarl and moan when a competitor does not "make" the quad-jump/throw/twist/handstand, whatever...and the rest of the program is deemed "trash" after that...or the non-stop chatter about the skater's inabilities to do the quad-bazookalooka extends right through the program...no matter what he/she/they have done already or do through the rest of the program.
I taught in a school with a 2-hour-block schedule, except that one day a week every class met for one hour. On that day, I could not get the kids to "do anything" because they claimed that an hour was just not enough to do anything with...because they were so used to having 2-hour classes the rest of the week. Well, I think skating has gone down that lane: unless every program has a quad something in it, it's not worthy and "nothing can be done with it", including watching it. This is why I think women's skating has been a strong ticket most of the time...while it did progress into triples, the pressure was not as unrelenting as it became for men's skating and the developing crush now on pairs. People felt "free" to watch it and enjoy it without expectation of anything beyond the beauty of the sport...it it happened, then "OK" but it was always "OK" even when "it" didn't happen. Now, I believe like my ex-students, the comparisons between expectations and reality promote disappointment and sometimes downright disdain.
I also am not happy about a system that will not accomodate, for instance, a bi-national couple in pairs or ice-dancing without them both coming from the same country. What's the big deal? This is a different world than your grandma's outdoor Olympic event on a frozen pond. People make couples from many different nations these days as regularly as they did in their own arenas years past. A bi-national couple should be able to go to an Olympic, each representing their own respective countries. If they win something as a team, they both get Gold Medals anyway, why can't one be tallied up for one country and the other for the partner's country? How hard would it be to make rules governing numbers or totals of participants instead of numbers of teams? Year after year there's always some high drama about citizenship changes in time for an Olympic. I hardly see the need for this these days. You can represent your country no matter where you live, and even if you are paired with someone else. I can see it happening with other events, too. I may be an idealist, but wouldn't this sort of thing be a reflection of the spirit of the modern Olympics being realized---a world growing smaller and in which the world's citizens have become more tolerant of each other?
Well, there's probably lots more to gripe about, but I'll mercifully sign off for new on this.
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