Golden Skate posters, I'd like to throw out a hypothetical situation, and make speculations as to the outcome if the events were to happen as stated.
Leading up to this Nationals has been a great deal of media and internet chatter regarding the activities of the top two Ladies, Sasha and Michelle. Now is the time, before the skating, to speculate and have fun with it! So here is the hypothetical situation.....
At Nationals, both Sasha and Michelle arrive healthy with the final two weeks of training before arriving going extremely well. Both skaters are doing run throughs of their SP and LP with no errors for two weeks before arriving.
In practices, Michelle skates reasonably well, but not full out, and shows she is in complete control, saving it for the competitions. Sasha has terrific practices, going through everything 100%, and is the best practice skater by far out there.
Both Michelle and Sasha skate great Short Progams and end up in the top two spots going into the Long Program. The draw for the Long Program has Michelle skating 5th and Sasha 6th in the final group of six.
Michelle skates first to "Bolero", and completes her program as planned with her magnificent energy rendering a standing ovation and thunderous applause. The marks are all 5.8's and 5.9's for both technical and artistic marks, with a couple of 6.0's thrown in to recognize her excellence.
Sasha knows what has just happened and knows the marks, and the crowd is going crazy with anticipation. She calmly waits for her time to begin, blocks out all the noise and pressure and skates perfectly with true emotion, completing her program as planned error-free. The crowd, knowing her history of mistakes, goes crazy and gives her a 5 minute standing ovation in recognition of her excellence and her finally skating the way we all hope she will.
The marks come up as all 5.8's and 5.9's with a couple of 6.0's thrown in to recognize her achievement, and the ordinal system has Michelle winning by the vote of one judge in a tie-breaker, and Sasha earning the Silver Medal.
Speculate! What happens next for both Sasha and Michelle?
Leading up to this Nationals has been a great deal of media and internet chatter regarding the activities of the top two Ladies, Sasha and Michelle. Now is the time, before the skating, to speculate and have fun with it! So here is the hypothetical situation.....
At Nationals, both Sasha and Michelle arrive healthy with the final two weeks of training before arriving going extremely well. Both skaters are doing run throughs of their SP and LP with no errors for two weeks before arriving.
In practices, Michelle skates reasonably well, but not full out, and shows she is in complete control, saving it for the competitions. Sasha has terrific practices, going through everything 100%, and is the best practice skater by far out there.
Both Michelle and Sasha skate great Short Progams and end up in the top two spots going into the Long Program. The draw for the Long Program has Michelle skating 5th and Sasha 6th in the final group of six.
Michelle skates first to "Bolero", and completes her program as planned with her magnificent energy rendering a standing ovation and thunderous applause. The marks are all 5.8's and 5.9's for both technical and artistic marks, with a couple of 6.0's thrown in to recognize her excellence.
Sasha knows what has just happened and knows the marks, and the crowd is going crazy with anticipation. She calmly waits for her time to begin, blocks out all the noise and pressure and skates perfectly with true emotion, completing her program as planned error-free. The crowd, knowing her history of mistakes, goes crazy and gives her a 5 minute standing ovation in recognition of her excellence and her finally skating the way we all hope she will.
The marks come up as all 5.8's and 5.9's with a couple of 6.0's thrown in to recognize her achievement, and the ordinal system has Michelle winning by the vote of one judge in a tie-breaker, and Sasha earning the Silver Medal.
Speculate! What happens next for both Sasha and Michelle?
). This continues with these three all through 2005-06 where Michelle wins another US title again barely beating out Cohen who continues to skate perfect programs but cannot top Kwan. At the 2006 Olympics Irina barely wins the short program followed by Cohen then Kwan. Kwan has the skate of a lifetime in the long winning the OGM...AND returns to defend her World title. Michelle and Mike Weiss take over for Peggy and Dick in the broadcast booth, while Sasha is hired by SOI as their headliner. Irina becomes head of the ISU technical committee. Figure skating becomes the most watched sport with the Skating Channel becoming a reality in the Fall of 2006 in time for the GP series which will be shown LIVE. The COP judging system is changed to make all judges accountable for their scores. Skating is finally given it's due as a true sport.
