Were the French Welcome in Washington?

[Jules Asner]

Were the French Welcome in Washington?

So many were sure the French would be booed by the 'intolerant' American audience. Just wondering if anyone who was at Worlds could fill us in on what kind of reception they received. Aside from Speedy getting booed I haven't heard of any other instances.

 

[Ladskater]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

I was concerned for Bourne and Kraatz when they were getting their medals - we are not exactly "popular" with the US at the moment either. I heard some booing, but Rod Black reassured us at home it was Cinquantas (sp?) or "Speedy" as he is called here. I don't know about the French, I missed most of the competition through the week.

Ladskater

 

[Jules Asner]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

I am worried daily for my NY hockey teams who were booed in Canada and for my American baseball teams which have to play in Toronto and Montreal.

 

[Joesitz]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

The Americans were giving Joubert quite a good reception during his LP, and were overly sad about his qualifying round.

As for B&K, the Americans joined the Canadians in a roar of approval when they were listed in lst place.

Joe

 

[Jules Asner]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

By joves, that's very surprising since in the last thread it was concluded that Americans are very intolerant, especially of french and canadians, who I've heard are very unpopular here at the moment. Go figure.

 

[Verbalgirl77]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The Americans were giving Joubert quite a good reception during his LP, and were overly sad about his qualifying round.

As for B&K, the Americans joined the Canadians in a roar of approval when they were listed in lst place.[/quote]

I'll second that. The cheers for the French skaters were quite good. Unfortunately, Joubert & Jeanette skated very early in the qualifying and gave very disappointing peformances. They were cheered & hounded for autographs during practices, and both got great receptions for their short programs. Brian had a great long and might have gotten a partial standing ovation had he not blown his final spin in the free skate. I went to reach for my 'Chevy 6.0' sign under my seat at the end of his performance, then down he went. I think I jinxed him.

A lot of the time I prefer Brian & Stannick to Tim & Mike, though Tim without a doubt trumped them all last week.

A&B got a very warm reception as well. I think their programs translate very well over here. It's unfortunate that they had that mishap during their long, since the crowd really seemed to enjoy the Addams Family routine. They got some great applause and support anyway.

A lot of the people in my section were missing A&P and we began reminiscing about their great programs of the past.

Bourne & Kraatz got a rousing standing ovation from everyone after pretty much every performance last week. It was unanimous with the crowd that they deserved to win. Elvis the Commentator got a loud cheer as well.

The only thing that irked me slightly (don't shoot) were the Canadians that held up the "Stop the War" sign while Michelle was on the podium and her national anthem was playing. I just felt like Michelle's achievement was so amazing, I just wanted the spotlight to belong to her and her alone, not a protester. I guess I'm just a selfish fan like that. It's just a personal preference, and it certainly isn't something I would 'boo' over.

 

[Grgranny]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

That is sad. There are plenty of places for protesters without something like that.

 

[Ladskater]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Jules:

No worries about the Baseball. The Canadians are not only cheering for the US National Anthem, but also have to play "God Bless America" at each game.


Ladskater

 

[Jimmy Hoffa 2]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Unfortunately, it looks like there WERE a few rednecks at Worlds.

groups.yahoo.com/group/Sk...age/113176
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>As to Piseev's complaint, IIRC I only witnessed one skater who could reasonably argue that they did not have the crowd's support, and that was Anne Sophie Calvez. When she was introduced as "representing France," several people in my section audibly booed. Politics aside, I found that rude to the skater. However, even that was only a minority of the crowd, and she probably (I hope) couldn't hear it.[/quote]
And I hear Candeloro has his self-defense all together for this year's COI tour.

 

[thvudragon]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Glad to see I was wrong about the American audience booing the French skaters.

TV

 

[mathman444]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Isn't Philippe skating to God bless America this season?

Mathman

 

[mathman444]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

ThvuDragon, can I get you to read your in-box? We have had a lot of trouble with custom signatures, however good the joke is, and we are trying to be consistent.

Mathman

 

[Princess Leppard 625]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Philippe is skating to Proud to be an American, I think. Weird.

Anyway, the section I was in booed during the Russian national anthem, which was playing for Evgeni. Thankfully, no one else here heard it, so hopefully the ignorance was confined to my section, and Evgeni didn't hear it.

Laura

 

[Verbalgirl77]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Did they really? Honestly, I didn't hear any of this booing stuff, and I was listening for it too. I was in section 229. The only thing I really heard 'booed' was if a skater either got low marks or a bizarre range like 4.4-5.7, and the boos were always in support of the skater.

I guess any time you get a crowd of 13,000+ there is the possibility of a few bad apples, unfortunately. It's a shame, because I know 99% of the audience was very respectful and enthusiatic and stuff like this gives us a bad name.

 

[Joesitz]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Jules - No one booed the Russians either, and they were much more anti-American political than the French.

I believe Americans who love figure skating were there for figure skating as it should be. We didn't boo the Soviets so why the French?

Joe

 

[icenut84]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Apart from for some of the marks, there was audible booing for Petrova & Tikhonov when they were announced as being in 1st place. Whether the crowd agreed with it or not, I thought that was very unfair to P&T and they looked embarrassed - it wasn't THEIR fault. I wonder if the same would have happened if the words "from Russia" hadn't been there. The applause also seemed to me to be a little muted for the Russians & French. (I'm going by TV coverage here, as I wasn't there. It might have been different live, I don't know. That's just my impression.)

 

[DORISPULASKI]

P&T

I remember their marks being booed, but didn't hear them being booed. On the other hand, the marks of Obertas and Sokolov (also Russian) were booed because they were too low.

It wasn't the Russian, it was the impropriety and wide spread of the rankings. Particularly in the pairs short, even the ordinals were all over the map.

When you have a team ranging from 4.7 to 5.9 & in that case the team was American, it was evident that the crew of judges at the pairs short were not working from the same set of rules as each other. The audience was having a hard time with this throughout the SP and expressed their disapproval of the marks a lot.

dpp

 

[Joesitz]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Icenut - I reiterate. No one booed the skaters. They did indeed boo the judges. Judges in figure skating have now widespread distrust because of the shenanigans and the ensuing media blitz at SLC.

BTW, P&T were not at their best that night anymore than Joubert was. Joubert got the low marks he deserved in the QR and SP. P&T were held up in the LP. This is not just my opinion, but the opinion of the spectators.

Joe

 

[JillLaQ]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Why is everyone so quick to think the worst of us Yanks? I said it before and I'll keep saying it as long as these threads show up; skating fans don't give a flying damn about foreign policy. Period, end of story. They spend the money to see competition.

Now if France and Russia want to sell weapons to the middle east, they can go ahead. If they want to bad mouth us and our president, be my guest. Just don't come whining to us the next time there's an earthquake or other big disaster and they need us to "interfere".

 

[Jules Asner]

Re: Were the French Welcome in Washington?

Thanks Joe for your eyewitness reports. I am happy to hear that people's perceptions of American figure skating fans were incorrect.

I have no problem with judges being booed as they deserved it, especially in the pairs and dance events.

In other sports, booing the other teams is sometimes not only acceptable but part of the game - especially in baseball (you guys just love to boo my Yankees - especially when they're winning which is most of the time), but booing the national anthem of a visiting team is just rude and tacky and has unfortunately been reported to be happening in Canada to the Star Spangled Banner quite a bit. Hopefully the Americans will not do the same to Au Canada when Toronto and Montreal visit and instead will opt for taking the high road .