What's up with Mira?

[nadster]

I think Mira may have to prove to Skate Canada that she is ready to compete before going to Skate America. I know if she was a US skater and had bombed that badly at Worlds, USFS would insist on a competition, close monitoring or both.

ETA: Actually, if a US skater had that bad a finish, I'm not sure his/her name would be submitted for GP assignments.

But USA has the luxury of having a long list of ladies with high enough rankings to get GP assignments so yanking an assignment from one would likely give another an opportunitry. Canada does not have that luxury. Yanking Mira would not open up spaces for Canadians.

Mira is closely monitored though. All national team members have to show up at a monitoring session ( where the public has access to some of it) before the season begins.

 

[Diana Mae]

I hope some up and comers like Myriane Samson shakes things up at Nationals. Chances of Lesley improving consistency in her jumps at the age of 25 or 26 and putting together two programs that are technically more challenging than Mira's does appear pretty small.

Tracey Wilson mentioned that Myriane Samson landed 3Lutz/3S a few times during warm-ups at Nationals. Can anyone confirm this?

The upside for Mira is that her coach is finally free from Sandu bug and may be more willing to focus on Mira.

I actually attended these nationals, and both in practices, and in warmups Myriane landed several 3/3s. I believe she 3Z3L, 3L3L, 3S3L, and also some series.

 

[PolymerBob]

Reading these posts, it seems that Mira is not part of the "Asian Armada".

 

[feraina]

I don't understand this Mira obsession.

I don't either. I never hear much about her except for posters on boards thrashing her. I thought she must be a nasty person and horrible skater from all that's been said.

I just watched her SP from '06 worlds and LP from '07 worlds on youtube for the first time today, and I was pleasantly surprised. She had a good debut at 16. Unfortunately in the '07 LP you can see she was clearly fatigued and/or lacking confidence -- she had good take-offs on the later jumps, but then either under-rotated or didn't have the strength to hold on to the landing. Why is everyone so nasty about her heel injury? Injuries clearly do affect performance, if not physically then psychologically b/c it's hard to give your 100% when there's a nagging injury at the back of your mind. Is there any reason to suspect that in her case that it was an "excuse" rather than a genuine injury? Tennis players are always talking down their chances and up their injuries in pre-match press conferences. I appreciate it when skaters don't do this.

True, she didn't achieve her goals for Worlds, and I'm sure she's feeling lousy about it. But what's wrong with setting your goals high as an elite athlete? She placed 12th at the Olympics and 13th at Worlds '06, so it's not entirely crazy that she thought she could place in top 8 at Worlds. In one season, I thought her spins improved, and her skating looked a little more smooth and polished.

I'm not a huge fan of Mira (like I said, I only just saw her skate for the first time), I just don't understand the disparaging and sometimes vehement remarks.

 

[Kypma]

I don't either. I never hear much about her except for posters on boards thrashing her. I thought she must be a nasty person and horrible skater from all that's been said.

I just watched her SP from '06 worlds and LP from '07 worlds on youtube for the first time today, and I was pleasantly surprised. She had a good debut at 16. Unfortunately in the '07 LP you can see she was clearly fatigued and/or lacking confidence -- she had good take-offs on the later jumps, but then either under-rotated or didn't have the strength to hold on to the landing. Why is everyone so nasty about her heel injury? Injuries clearly do affect performance, if not physically then psychologically b/c it's hard to give your 100% when there's a nagging injury at the back of your mind. Is there any reason to suspect that in her case that it was an "excuse" rather than a genuine injury? Tennis players are always talking down their chances and up their injuries in pre-match press conferences. I appreciate it when skaters don't do this.

True, she didn't achieve her goals for Worlds, and I'm sure she's feeling lousy about it. But what's wrong with setting your goals high as an elite athlete? She placed 12th at the Olympics and 13th at Worlds '06, so it's not entirely crazy that she thought she could place in top 8 at Worlds. In one season, I thought her spins improved, and her skating looked a little more smooth and polished.

I'm not a huge fan of Mira (like I said, I only just saw her skate for the first time), I just don't understand the disparaging and sometimes vehement remarks.

I think what started most of this was a statement she issued after Worlds, where she sounded a little pretentious. Also, the fact she issued it about a week after worlds, if I'm not mistaken, added to the fact people believed it was something her coach and/or mom made her write, because she never mentionned it in her post-LP interviews, and only her coach metionned it. I have uploaded a copy of it here:
http://www.savefile.com/files/885212

Kypma

 

[feraina]

Is "keeping quiet about the injury until the end, so as not to affect other skaters" the part that annoys people? The phrasing is a little odd, what did she mean by it?

I just found an old Golden Skate article about her:
http://www.goldenskate.com/articles/2004/073104.shtml
She sounded like a nice, down-to-earth, intelligent kid.

Btw, I like her new hair-do at this year's worlds. Those bangs really aren't doing anything for her.

 

[slutskayafan21]

I just watched her SP from '06 worlds and LP from '07 worlds on youtube for the first time today, and I was pleasantly surprised.

You are very generous in that case, particularly the latter performance.

True, she didn't achieve her goals for Worlds, and I'm sure she's feeling lousy about it. But what's wrong with setting your goals high as an elite athlete? She placed 12th at the Olympics and 13th at Worlds '06, so it's not entirely crazy that she thought she could place in top 8 at Worlds. In one season, I thought her spins improved, and her skating looked a little more smooth and polished.

Top 8 at Worlds was not realistic at all for her directly before Worlds, when she is barely coming top 8 in her GP events that same season. As for her placing at Olympics and Worlds, her consistency took her to 12th and 13th at those two events in a MUCH weaker field then the 2007 Worlds. The 2007 Worlds field represents a huge upgrade from the level of either the 2006 Olympics and Worlds. It took her absolute best performances to even reach those placings.

As for improvements, she has shown no improvement from the 2005-2006 season to the 2006-2007 season. At best she has stayed the same, or one thing is she has lost some of her consistency which is by far her biggest asset. She improved a great deal from 2004-2005 to 2005-2006, but has not improved at all since.

Why is everyone so nasty about her heel injury? Injuries clearly do affect performance, if not physically then psychologically b/c it's hard to give your 100% when there's a nagging injury at the back of your mind. Is there any reason to suspect that in her case that it was an "excuse" rather than a genuine injury?

The problem is she came up with bewildering statements like she didnt want to let on about her injury since she didnt want her competitors to be "affected" by it. That kind of statement shows a sense of delusion about how she is perceived in the skating World right now. She also sent a press release about an injury only after her disaesterous free skate, and apparently never informed her coach, as her coach was caught completely off gaurd as she heard about it. There is just something fishy about the whole ordeal. It looked like a self pity ploy to many.

 

[feraina]

You are very generous in that case, particularly the latter performance.

I meant that I was pleasantly surprised based on all the nasty comments I had seen -- based on those comments I had somehow believed her to be a unpleasant person and horrible skater. I saw no reasons to believe she's an unpleasant person, nor did I think she was a horrible skater. Hence the pleasant surprise. Maybe she was hyped in Canada before '07 Worlds, hence the severity in some of the comments, I honestly don't know.

She also sent a press release about an injury only after her disaesterous free skate, and apparently never informed her coach, as her coach was caught completely off gaurd as she heard about it. There is just something fishy about the whole ordeal. It looked like a self pity ploy to many.

In this news article:
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/FigureSkating/2007/03/27/3845467-cp.html
it says she walked off dejectedly after the post-skate interview, and then her coach was interviewed:
"She had been complaining a little bit about a (left) heel concern," said McLeod. "I think she's a really tough girl and maybe doesn't want to discuss that, but the jumps that she missed were off the left foot."
And later still, Mira issued her official statement. Doesn't sound all that fishy to me.

I still don't understand the logic of her saying not wanting to affect other skaters. In skating, you're mainly competing against yourself. How would the other skaters be affected whether she has an injury or not, or whether Yu-na had an injury or not. Everyone's still going to try to skate their best, and anyway, when you have n competitors with quite different abilities, so what if one of them has an injury?

 

[Kypma]

I still don't understand the logic of her saying not wanting to affect other skaters. In skating, you're mainly competing against yourself. How would the other skaters be affected whether she has an injury or not, or whether Yu-na had an injury or not. Everyone's still going to try to skate their best, and anyway, when you have n competitors with quite different abilities, so what if one of them has an injury?

That's the part that annoyed so many people, because she seemed to say that her injury would disturb the other skaters and stop them from skating their best or something, and that's why some think she is delusional, because she thinks her injury would be that relevant. I agree with slutskayafan21 on this aspect. Another thing that irked me (and maybe just me) is that in her "Up Close" featurette from Nationals, she said that if she wasn't skating, she'd be 'one of those kids who skip a few grades' and get into university early, or something like that. Maybe skipping once grade would do, but skipping many grades isn't always the best thing and you'd have to be really, really smart to do something like that. Again, just my opinion.

Link to the fluff piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3B1NQy1lYw
Another thing I found odd about her injury-related statement was the fact that it came so late after Worlds, and I perceived it as a way of "justifying" her 24th-place finish at worlds, because, for me, if she didn't bother mentionning it in any post-skate interviews, why tell the world only later?


Kypma

 

[feraina]

Maybe this is similar to the reaction to Emily Hughes' comment that what stands her apart from the other skaters is that she really cares about her education. At least Mira didn't say what stands her apart from other skaters is that she is much smarter.

It's not all that uncommon to skip grades, especially if you're homeschooled, because you can have an education really tailored to your individual needs and strength. Mira apparently has been home-schooled since 2nd grade. Several of my high school friends had skipped at least one grade, and one skipped two and later on finished an ivy league college in 3 years. And I have some colleagues who started college at 14, or finished their PhD at 21, it's not totally unheard of.

But I agree that this kind of comment can rub off on people the wrong way.

What I still don't understand about "affecting other skaters" comment is that even if she were the JGPF champion, like Yu-na, news about her injury still wouldn't affect how the other skaters perform. So I don't see it as a statement on her self-believe on her ability/standing. What would matter much more is on the night of the performance, whether the other skaters close to your ranking skated a brilliant or lousy program, so that you can adjust your own program to be bold or cautious.

 

[feraina]

Another thing I found odd about her injury-related statement was the fact that it came so late after Worlds, and I perceived it as a way of "justifying" her 24th-place finish at worlds, because, for me, if she didn't bother mentionning it in any post-skate interviews, why tell the world only later?

Maybe because after her coach mentioned it in the interviews, the reporters wanted her own comments on it?

 

[Mathman]

I don't understand this Mira obsession.

There is a small but, shall we say, rather vocal group of Internet posters who are just not happy unless there is an active Mira-bashing thread going on somewhere.

 

[feraina]

MM, was it you who once speculated that poor Mira has such a hard time because she's not as blessed with physical beauty as some?

Reminds me of a joke the psychologist Steve Pinker once cracked in a lecture: (because of her looks) Hillary Clinton will never be as successful/popular as her dashing husband, and poor Cherie Blair is even more cursed. We'll see next year whether Hillary proves him wrong.

And we will also see abut Mira, shall we?

 

[passion]

I don't like Mira's attitude on and off the ice, but I have seen how hard she has worked for many years. Although her musical style is not my favourite, I hope that all those hours of sweat and labour were not in vain. I hope that she can see the fruit of her labour and fulfill her dreams whatever they may be. She has a new start this season and can prove who she really is this year. Hopefully, she also has a new maturity on and off the ice as she is now eighteen.

 

[passion]

MM, was it you who once speculated that poor Mira has such a hard time because she's not as blessed with physical beauty as some?

Well, not everyone can be blessed with everything. Mira may not be blessed in the physical beauty department, but she is certainly blessed in the hard working, determination, fight spirit department. Noone can argue that. My predictions for this year is that she will want to prove to herself, to her mom, to her coach, and to all the fans out there that she is a fighter. Because of that we will probably see a much better performance with even more marked determination than ever before.

 

[Mathman]

MM, was it you who once speculated that poor Mira has such a hard time because she's not as blessed with physical beauty as some?

No.

I hope not.

Shame on me if I did.

Go Mira!

All figure skaters are beautiful:

http://z.about.com/d/tvcomedies/1/0/h/0/-/-/michelle_kwan.jpg

 

[dwiggin3]

IIRC she skipped Novice and Juniors and went right to Seniors. Might have worked for her then but I think it really stunted her growth (skating wise) all around....so many important things to learn and develop in Novice and Junior....shame she missed it. Perhaps this skipping head might have have contributed to the general feeling that she doesn't work hard or hard enough and has a mis-perception regarding her skill level and where she should be placed.

 

[chuckm]

Well, not everyone can be blessed with everything. Mira may not be blessed in the physical beauty department, but she is certainly blessed in the hard working, determination, fight spirit department. Noone can argue that. My predictions for this year is that she will want to prove to herself, to her mom, to her coach, and to all the fans out there that she is a fighter. Because of that we will probably see a much better performance with even more marked determination than ever before.

Mira's problem when it comes to 'improvement' is that she cannot seem to judge her skating objectively. She skated poorly in the Worlds 2008 SP, badly underrotating the 2A and bobbling the spiral sequence, yet after the performance she felt she had skated very well and blamed the judges for marking her too low.

No one is denying that she works hard, but she doesn't work smart. Instead of working on the areas that need improvement, her focus is on 3/3s that don't pass muster in competition. The protocols provide important details about what she is doing right and what she is doing wrong. But if Mira continues to insist that the judges are somehow in league against her, she isn't going to take the actions needed to improve her placements.

Determination and hard work are important, but without objectivity and clear focus, they aren't enough.

 

[Kypma]

Maybe because after her coach mentioned it in the interviews, the reporters wanted her own comments on it?

But then why not answer in an interview with one of the reporters, or another? Why issue a full statement like the one she wrote?
I still do admire Mira, and think she has the potential to be a champion, but something is irking me and I still haven't found out what. I think that it isn't the small things (phrasing in the statement, comment in up close featurette, and other things as well) indivudually that annoy me, but the fact that there are many small things which add up to something bigger. I'm axious to see how she'll skate this season, hopefully she'll be injury-free and compete at her best.

Kypma

 

[Kypma]

Mira's problem when it comes to 'improvement' is that she cannot seem to judge her skating objectively. She skated poorly in the Worlds 2008 SP, badly underrotating the 2A and bobbling the spiral sequence, yet after the performance she felt she had skated very well and blamed the judges for marking her too low.

No one is denying that she works hard, but she doesn't work smart. Instead of working on the areas that need improvement, her focus is on 3/3s that don't pass muster in competition. The protocols provide important details about what she is doing right and what she is doing wrong. But if Mira continues to insist that the judges are somehow in league against her, she isn't going to take the actions needed to improve her placements.

Determination and hard work are important, but without objectivity and clear focus, they aren't enough.

I agree, chuckm!!:yes:

Kypma