Who is the greatest COMPETITOR? | Page 6 | Golden Skate

Who is the greatest COMPETITOR?

I agree about Kwan, Witt and T&D. I also think Plushenko should be added to the list. He rarely showed nerves or lost his form.


During his early years, Plushy cracked by wanting it too much. There was one year where he just had to stay on his feet and he would've won World Championships over rival Yagudin. I've never seen Plush fall on the ice so much.
 
Henie

Mathman, everything you said was true-Henie was guilty of all of those things. No, they didn't make her a great competitor, just ruthless and a lousy human being. As for her not being aware of who the Nazis were and what they stood for, rubbish. She knew exactly what they stood for. She was an opportunist in the worst sense of the word.

Joe there is no way Henie was the greatest competitor in the history of figure skating. Competitive skating was in its infancy when she started skating and for a long time she had not only very little competition, but no real competition.
 
Last edited:
By all accounts, Michelle's toe was injured. But whatever. As for her arsenal of jumps, per Christine Brennan's book focused on the 98 games, there is a passage that refers to Team Tara freaking out a bit because Michelle was planning on substituting a combo for the 3lutz/3loop because of her toe.

Michelle Kwan doing a 3Lutz/3Loop. Yeah. That's rich. :rolleye:

Anyway, even if her toe was injured, her jump layout in '98 was clearly a reaction to what Tara did in '97 and an indication that Kwan's only consistent Triple/Triple is the Toeloop/Toeloop.

~Z
 
Arthur Dmitriev and Irina Rodnina on the first place in my mind.
And of course Button, Witt, GG, Plush... What about Grishchuk-Platov?
 
and this pains me because I have so little regard for her as a person, Katarina Witt.

Mathman, everything you said was true-Henie was guilty of all of those things. No, they didn't make her a great competitor, just ruthless and a lousy human being. As for her not being aware of who the Nazis were and what they stood for, rubbish. She knew exactly what they stood for. She was an opportunist in the worst sense of the word.

The thing that angers me the most is when persons bash skaters that they don't know personally! How can you say all that bad things? Did you know Katarina and Sonia personally to describe them in that way? What did Katarina do to you to say that you have so little regard for her as a person? Did she offend you? Please be more moderate and try not to use the tons of offensive words you used against those two skaters! In this forum there are also fans of them!
 
Last edited:
Mathman, everything you said was true-Henie was guilty of all of those things. No, they didn't make her a great competitor, just ruthless and a lousy human being. As for her not being aware of who the Nazis were and what they stood for, rubbish. She knew exactly what they stood for. She was an opportunist in the worst sense of the word.
Ruthless and lousy human being has nothing to do with her skating or her skating medals or her skating shows or her skating movies, or bringing figure skating indoors so we can all go and not freeze to death. If you think that she is a lousy human being, that is your perogative. Nobody is compelled to agree with you. You obviously met Sonia and discussed her belief in Naziism. Am I correct?
I can believe she was an opportunist, but that has nothing to do with her contributions to figure skating.

Joe there is no way Henie was the greatest competitor in the history of figure skating. Competitive skating was in its infancy when she started skating and for a long time she had not only very little competition, but no real competition.
Kyla, I believe with you about her not being the greatest competitor but not because of her being an opportunist. I posted she was in jest because I knew all posters would name skaters from past 20 years and do not know much about what it was like back when. Most posts that I've read seem to be naming their favorite skater of present times as the greatest.

As I said before any time you see a superlative in the topic heading you will get a bunch of replies of favorites in recent years.

Joe
 
Joe

No, happily I didn't know Sonia Henie personally but I have seen alot of video of her skating, and a very well done documentary on her skating, her life, and her character. Even if you try to weight her career to her advantage, she still doesn't compare to Michelle, or Katarina Witt for that matter. As for Hitler, everyone knew what he was about except Neville Chamberlain, but we won't go there. Did she know he would instigate a genocide of the Jewish people? Probably not. That's about as much as I am going to let her off the hook.
 
Michelle Kwan- If you compare the length of her career to the few flubs she had it is totally amazing.
Kristi Yamaguchi
Katarina Witt
Alexei Yagudin
Brian Boitano
Gordeeva and Grinkov
Shen and Zhao
 
No, happily I didn't know Sonia Henie personally but I have seen alot of video of her skating, and a very well done documentary on her skating, her life, and her character. Even if you try to weight her career to her advantage, she still doesn't compare to Michelle, or Katarina Witt for that matter. As for Hitler, everyone knew what he was about except Neville Chamberlain, but we won't go there. Did she know he would instigate a genocide of the Jewish people? Probably not. That's about as much as I am going to let her off the hook.
Kyla - Let's stick with the opportunist Sonia which we both agree on. I doubt she was brought up to hate Jews, and capitalism. Her father was a rich entepeneur. She got along with all of Hollywood regardless of their backgrounds. Ex;pose s of documentaries would have you believe every male actor was bi. Anyway, the topic is about the greatest skater and I guess we can not include anyone before Yuka Sato. ;)

Joe
 
I've seen a few actor documentaries where they don't say they were bi or had a 'homosexual encounter' ;)

and I agree that Boitano needs to be on teh list (oo look, he started winning before the 20 year mark... his olympic medal is 19 years old though lol)

I can't speak on really anyone before then I don't know the capabilities to go back in time and watch it as it happened...
 
Off Topic- Toni, that's your link (and your name) below the banner, right? Nice site.
 
and your picture on the front, I assume? ;) :p

nice work, I've always loved photography and always wanted a digital SLR camera. Decided to go small this time, though.

Would love to know what camera you use. :agree:
 
no my picture is not featured AT ALL on this version of my site lol

that is one of my best friends, and that was one of her senior photos. She was my first senior photo shoot and it was so much fun :)

as for cameras used... for film I have a Canon AE-1 and a Canon XST

for Digital I have a Canon XT :)
 
the XT was pretty cool (and so is the new XTI) but the grip is just too small...for some reason I have rather big hands and the Nikon's larger grip fits me better (even though I own two Canon digital cameras).

Almost got a D70s actually, had the order gone through. But I had some trouble with those guys, and over the course of waiting for a refund had a change of heart and went for a Canon SD550 instead. :agree: nice, too. Took a couple really nice ones in Italy with it.

Definitely want my next camera to be an SLR, though.
 
The first that came to mind was Rodnina and Dmitriv for pairs. But what about Lu Chen for singles? I know most people don't consider her to be a tough competitor per say because she had an ethereal quality to her. She also does not have the medals of Kwan or Witt, but she was always consistently at or near the top from 92 to 98 (exception being 97). She rarely melted down, and always laid down top notch technical programs for her time.
 
Back
Top