The ultimatum: love or hate

[sk8m8]

I can't believe this post is on page two and no one has mentioned the beloved/dispised Tonya Harding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that she a "hate her" for most folks on the planet, but I can't help but include her in my favorite figure skating performances. The power of her jumps still amaze me when I see them on tape or clips. Though she may be blazen trouble and not a very nice person, I prefer to think of her as a woman, like so many, who chose poorly in love and escapes hatches. I only know that I'd hate to BE Tonya Harding, no matter what she ever achieves in her life, she will always be branded as a criminal, a liar, and a out of control tart. Kind of ironic, Mike Tyson gets out of prison only to bite someone's ear in the ring and Tonya has to resort to boxing to make a living, sad, sad, sad....

 

[dorispulaski]

Sarah Hughes often excites a lot of hate. And some love. Even now after she has retired from skating, you will still get a poster enjoying posting pictures saying how out of shape she is.
And there are people who still love her Olympic performance, too.

 

[thisthingcalledlove]

Aw, MK's Ariane and K&O's drum beat FD are two of my favorite LPs. Anyway, the only person I remeber playing a robber was Vanessa Guzmeroli's jewel thief LP from about this time.

you're right...i meant to say that LOL

the most recent weird program i've seen was butyrskaya's short in 2002. she uses beautiful music, beautiful choreography, beautiful costume (I'm not a maria fan, but for about 2:39 min i loved this program), then in the last second, as she's almost in her final pose, she lifts up her skirt! it's like the whole "I'm a nun, but now I'm a hooker" kind of thing...

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Anyone who is unable to depict a character from whatever music and must resort to a historical figure or a personification of a storybook character lacks the ability to draw from the music. Competitions are a sport not exhibitions. What skaters must do in exhibitions is their thing, but in compeitions they should be able to get something out of non-themed music or they are not musical.

There's plenty of dramatic music in Toscas that one doesn't have to hold their hands on their head and shake.

There's plenty of dramatic music in Swan Lake that a skater does not have to flap their arms.

There's plenty of dramatic music in Madama Butterfly
without inflicting a stabbing during the performance.

How clever can a skater get? So original~

Joe

 

[shine]

Maybe "hate" is a bit strong, but I think in a way Plushenko may fall into this category. When people make wish-lists or somehting, it does seem that the majority are either "Love him! The best!! GOLD!!!" or "Anyone but Plushenko..."

Me, I'm the former. Love him.

I don't know, it seems to me that most people either love him or just can't give a damn about his skating. Those "anyone but Plush" skating fans seem to be in the very minority to me. His skating doesn't evoke such strong emotion such as hatred IMO.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I don't know, it seems to me that most people either love him or just can't give a damn about his skating. Those "anyone but Plush" skating fans seem to be in the very minority to me. His skating doesn't evoke such strong emotion such as hatred IMO.

Shine - I really don't think it's hate Plush. I believe it is the fans of other skaters who can't bear the Plush gushings. This is like Michelle Kwan. I don't think posters hate her. It's just a reaction to gushing fans.

Joe

 

[Ptichka]

I guess I'd have to say I went through a period of "hating" Fusar-Poli & Margaglio. I sort of enjoyed their skating until they started getting the medals that I thought belonged to other teams. While it's not rational to "hate" them, I think I did.

BTW, a propos "flying stool" -- certainly meaning "backless chair"; though really NOT in a meaning of a high barstool, more like a low backless chair. It's not my fault that in English translation the word is an homonym!

 

[~tibia venifica~]

Shine, Joesitz - I don't think people don't give a damn about Plush, unless they don't want to be bothered by the "lack of presentation skills", "arrogant skating", "gaudy clothing", "posing", "all this arm flapping and hidious hair" etc. Plush is a heck of a controventional skater, it's just this forum that is more diplomatic. But I've had a sheer joy of observing some other forum (don't know if I can mention it here) and I've noticed a scheme of a talk upon Plush. Here it goes:
-The name Plushenko appears. So do fifteen following posts about him being judge-centric.
-You mentioned one mistake, you must go with another. Especially when the guy is a "technician-non-artist", as Uncle Dick teaches us. It spoils the splendid theory if you just admit his mistakes are as justified as others'
-You must underline the fackt he's no artist so no-one will dare to think otherwise: "He's not really known of his presentation skills, IS HE", "We all know Plushenko lacks presentaion" etc. It's obvious, so you can expect only five posts
-Now, you can do IT. A dog bit you this morning, you missed the bus, but now it's YOUR time. Tell everybody how distracting are Plushenko's gloves so that you didn't notice the combo.
-That was a painfull psychoanalysis, now you can do what we all like - laugh at Plushenko's mullet. Sophisticated irony well seen, e.g. "Can't anybody tell him cutting this feather would improve his presentation marks, ha-ha".
That would be it. Notice that most of posts include all the points at once.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Bravo Tibia on your opinions of Plush's presentation. As we all know Presentation scores are based largely on subjectivity and you have your right to consider Plush as the best.

However, everyone has a right to what they believe is the most enjoyable performance of a skater. I am not overwhelmed with Plush or Joubert. I am of the Alexander Abt School of of masculine lyrical skating. But that's just me. I wont change.

There is therefore no arguing between posters. Stating your favorite and the reasons why is more than enough. No one will change you or should they.

Joe

 

[~tibia venifica~]

Bravo Tibia on your opinions of Plush's presentation.
Joe

That must have been really bad if you said that But I'm not sure if I really stated my opinion. It was just an reaction to stating an opinion in a particular offensive way. I am allergic to it. Even if it's about Joubert's presentation. But that rarely happens, in comparison to Plushy.
Well, I can not disagree about my liking him, but I rather meant his fitting into my category of "loved or hated". The hatred that I noticed in that forum doesn't let me agree to your proposition of the "invisible Plush".
~flute~

 

[~tibia venifica~]

A-ha. And I wasn't joking about the distracting clothes. One guy REALLY said he hadn't noticed the jumps because of Plushenko's outfit

 

[berthes ghost]

"Can't anybody tell him cutting this feather would improve his presentation marks, ha-ha".

That's it! Eureka. Now that we know that Hedi Lamarr invented the cell phone, perhaps we can pursuade her to slip into something sexy and cut off Plushy's mullet. Only then will the "reign of terror" end!.

 

[Rebecca]

OT - You know, after seeing Plushy without the mullet, I think that it's a very good thing that he has it. It's not so bad. It adds character.

Anyways, when I first started browsing figure skating forums in general, this one included, I was a little surprised at how many people seemed to "hate" Joubert, since I really seemed to get him. But, upon further reading, I came to understand some of the criticism launched at him (not to say that some of it isn't ridiculous), and realized that this "hate" was just a matter of "not getting"... which isn't such a bad thing afterall.

 

[Mathman]

Here's what I like about Plushenko. I saw him skate live at the International Skating Challenge last December. After the men's competition was over (he won), Evgeny was the only skater who stayed to watch the whole ladies competition. He pulled a chair up to the front row and gave enthusiastic encouragement and applause to each of the ladies' performances in turn. He seemed to be on very friendly terms with all of them, smiling and talking with them as they left the ice.

I thought that was cool.

Mathman

 

[icenut84]

Here's what I like about Plushenko. I saw him skate live at the International Skating Challenge last December. After the men's competition was over (he won), Evgeny was the only skater who stayed to watch the whole ladies competition. He pulled a chair up to the front row and gave enthusiastic encouragement and applause to each of the ladies' performances in turn. He seemed to be on very friendly terms with all of them, smiling and talking with them as they left the ice.

I thought that was cool.

I remember he stayed to watch Todd Eldredge's LP in 2001 Worlds too, who skated after him (he stayed in the kiss n cry). You couldn't see Evgeny all the time, just when the camera angles were right, but I remember seeing him clapping for Todd a lot, like when he landed jumps. I've read people saying things like that about Evgeny before too, about him supporting others.

 

[Ladskater]

"Love" or "Hate" ????? Why would we "hate" any of the skaters? This is a silly post - indeed.

 

[JonnyCoop]

My two nominations would be Alexei Urmanov and Pasha Gritshuk, Oksana Gritshuk, Lucy Lou Gritshuk, whatever she's calling herself this week. (That should certainly give an indication of my postion regarding the latter, anyway )

Urmanov -- judges loved him (at least enough to give him the Lillehammer gold) but I've never read anything particularly positive about him. Personally, I intensely disliked his skating -- I have no problem with the balletic style on men IF IT'S NOT OVERDONE, and this was. The costumes DID not help; made the whole effect seem even more over the top than it was to begin with. And what was with that "whacky knees" thing he used to do amidst all this? To me, his skating just went almost into the parody zone despite the good qualities that it did have.

Gritshuk -- I could not STAND this woman. Getting beyond the fact that I always considered her & Platov to be overmarked and undeserving of about 90% of all the titles they won, one still has the PERSONALITY to deal with. I don't know if we'll ever know for sure if Nicole Bobek slapped her or not, but I can tell you this -- if Bobek did, and had I been judging an event Bobek was in at the time, I'd've given her an extra .2 in her marks just for THAT. Recently I saw her host a holiday exhibition "with all of her skating friends" and quite honestly I couldn't believe she even had any.

[Please note I don't like to "bash" skaters, even ones I'm not wild about, but there is something about Gritshuk that pretty much makes me lose any desire at all to be diplomatic.] {Platov I can tolerate}

 

[Grgranny]

Bobek slapped her? That's news to me. What happened?

 

[JonnyCoop]

Bobek slapped her? That's news to me. What happened?

Supposedly -- this happened back during the 1997 post-Worlds tour, if it happened at all -- Pasha and Nicole got into an argument over some guy that Nicole was seeing; Pasha claims that Nicole slapped her, Nicole denied it. But then again, I don't think even "Tact and Diplomacy" Bobek would actually go on the record as saying, "Yeah, I slapped her". Which doesn't necessarily mean she did. No witnesses have ever gone on record as verifying one way or the other, at least not as far as I know.

 

[RIskatingfan]

Urmanov -- judges loved him (at least enough to give him the Lillehammer gold) but I've never read anything particularly positive about him.

You never read anything positive about him? You never read anything about the work he's been doing in Russia with younger skaters, you never read anything about the effort he's putting in developping skating in Russia? You never read anything about how he is the only skater in Mishin's group that everyone liked and is still friends with Mishin, Plushenko and Yagudin (which is saying something )? You never read how so many skaters admire him and have him as their role model? I'd say these are plenty of nice things LOL (not to mention he is absolutely gorgeous ) And I'm sure if you go around and ask, there are many people who enjoy his skating and admire him. (perhaps not that much among American and Canadian fans I'll admit that LOL)

I liked his skating. Not my favorite but it was okay. He deservedly won his Olympic Gold and it was unfortunate that he got injured, I'm sure many skating fans would love to have the chance to watch him more in eligible competitions. I understand many North American fans would prefered to see the gold medal going to Elvis Stojko or Kurt Browning and still hold that against Urmanov. I'm sure many dislike his skating and dislike it even more for knowing that it was that "balletic" style that won over Stojko and Browning.

I never thought anyone could "hate" Alexei Urmanov Dislike his skating, yes, hate a professional who has done so much for the sport in his own country and is so uncontroversial, never thought it could happen. Guess we learn something new every day LOL