|
Post by apkaylinn on Apr 12, 2015 21:22:46 GMT -5
Does anyone like figure skating? I've been watching skating since the 1960's.
|
|
|
Post by tristanfan on Apr 13, 2015 13:18:23 GMT -5
Yes, I am a skating fan. I probably am not as dedicated as I was previously but I could never drop it completely. Speaking as a Canadian, Worlds didn't go exactly as I hoped with Weaver and Poje only achieving Bronze. After the perfect season they created the capper was supposed to be a world title. Alas, it was not to be. But Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford were a joy so we Canadians have something to cheer about.
I just saw a tweet and picture from Kaitlyn and Andrew. They are on their way to Japan for two months, I think. Not sure why, I will have to investigate further.
|
|
|
Post by apkaylinn on Apr 14, 2015 5:44:25 GMT -5
Yay, a skate fan! Was also surprised Weaver and Poje didn't take WC gold. The French couple seemed to come from out of nowhere--and wow, they're young!! But Radford and Duhamel was a big win and they won big. Also amazed no Russian couples were on the podium--the Russians have been a tradition in pair skating. We've seen some big changes in our America skating tradition, too. We haven't had an American woman on the singles podium since Kimmie Meissner in 2006. So we're now into a 9 year drought, and American ladies on the podium had been a tradition that stretched back to the 1950s with Tenley Albright. We didn't always win, but we did always have a contender. I don't know that it's had an impact, but one thing I remember from way back and being as old as I am, is that these big contracts the girls are getting--with Cover Girl and other major sponsors--used to be bestowed on our skaters after they'd succeeded. We had a huge pre-Olympic controversy over whether Ashley Wagner should have been named to the team after tanking at Nationals, and one of the speculations was that sponsors were already so invested in her that the committee felt it had no choice, though supposedly there was a big war behind closed doors prior to that announcement. But it definitely lowered the bar for the criteria previously used by the committee whenever it overrode the results at Nationals (and had been so rarely invoked that going back to '88 you could count the times it had happened on one hand). She hadn't been ill, she skated the event, she was not considered to be a contender for a medal. At best had an outside shot at the podium based on who was slated to compete--when you've got Yuna, Mao, and Carolina in the event you need help from an implosion on the podium and that was before Lipnitskaya and Sotnikova were even on the radar screen. And last but not least, Ashley didn't even have to apply for the bye--the committee just GAVE her the slot. To give a comparison, just a few years earlier, Johnny Weir, a world bronze medalist, had requested a bye after skating with the flu at nationals and failing to qualify. The committee turned him down, and conventional wisdom (as voiced by Scott Hamilton at the time) said if Johnny had only withdrawn from the event due to his illness, the committee probably would have given him the bye. Johnny's sin was that he had tried to persevere through his illness. But the same Scott Hamilton was at the microphone selling the Ashley Wagner bye based on "body of work" even though Johnny's had been a LOT better. Definitely left the impression that Scott thought part of his job was being a frontman for the committee rather than an impartial broadcaster and analyst. The irony I guess is that this year Johnny was chosen to replace Scott on the main broadcast team
|
|
|
Post by Firedrake on Apr 14, 2015 11:06:03 GMT -5
Well you can add a male fan to the list. I have always found figure skating to be a great display of incredible skills. I have to say that I cannot watch any American broadcast that has Johnny Weir as a commentator on it, however. I'm not homophobic in the slightest but this guy goes way over the top and ruins my enjoyment of the show.
|
|
|
Post by apkaylinn on Apr 14, 2015 18:26:15 GMT -5
Great, another skate fan!
I really liked the Tara & Johnny show at the Olympics. Tara is one of the great jumpers and to watch them have the opportunity to call every skate performance I really felt I learned a lot from them. But Tara especially has the ability to break down a jump so that you understand where and why points are being sacrificed even though a skater stays on his or her feet. Two footed landings, under-rotations, they got into all that stuff. As Tara put it, all the things that the viewers may not notice but the judges do.
So when they were moved up to the main broadcast team I thought it was possible that a whole new generation of skating fans could learn enough about the scoring system to avoid a lot of the outrage older generations of fans felt when they couldn't understand the results. Plus younger people are tech savvy, so they may have a lot more patience for those kinds of explanations. With younger hosts skating could become popular in this country again.
I did see recently that there's some popular opinion that Tara & Johnny should be hired as hosts of Fashion Police. Could work--they're funny and they know fashion, and that's the combination of qualities that made Joan Rivers seemingly irreplaceable.
|
|
|
Post by jennifer on Apr 16, 2015 20:41:43 GMT -5
I used to like to watch Johnny when he skated, however he lost me as a fan and has turned me off to him as a person since he was interviewed about his outlandish costumes and dress. He likes to wear fur and when asked if he ever thought about the animals that died for this, he said it did not bother him at all. A truly classy person does not need this to make a statement, Johnny in my opinion is not one.
I should add, about Tara Lipinski. I remember sitting up at four in the morning watching live t.v., smoking like a chimney when she skated in the Olympics and beat Michele Kwan. I think I scared the dog and everyone else when I cheered like mad over that one. Did not have a computer or PVR in those days, but always recorded when Davis and White skated and checked the results on the computer before I could bear to watch. Davis and White are my all time favorites. They are truly what I admire not just as athletes, but as people.
|
|
|
Post by apkaylinn on Apr 17, 2015 21:21:52 GMT -5
Wow, another skate fan. Great!
So agree about Davis and White and so many reasons to be proud of them. You must have loved DWTS Season 18. I know I did. Meryl and Maks were the most perfectly matched DWTS pair ever. Did you see that Meryl's been named brand ambassador for Vera Bradley?
|
|
|
Post by tristanfan on Apr 17, 2015 23:52:40 GMT -5
As a Canadian my skating heroes are Canadian. The ice dance team that will forever be number one in my heart are Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz. They truly took ice dance to new heights and were so innovative. Did any of you in our little skating discussion group ever see them skate?
|
|
|
Post by apkaylinn on Apr 18, 2015 5:57:30 GMT -5
Victor and Shae-Lynn, remember them well. Riverdance! Also, Shae-Lynn still skates the pro tours as a solo. Still highly original and innovative. One of my favorites is a skate she did to All That Jazz for Yuna's show in South Korea. She's also a much in-demand choreographer who's choreographed for a long list of stars, including some of the Japanese singles skaters, who I think have been the best singles skaters in the world over the past decade.
She's choreographed for Langlois and Hay, a pair that didn't reach the highest heights in competitive skating, but their Fascination Waltz short program in the Vancouver Olympics was my favorite number in the whole event. I'm wondering if it's possible that Shae Lynn choreographed it. I've never forgotten that short program, it was absolutely lovely.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 18, 2015 11:21:58 GMT -5
She also skated on CBC's Battle of the Blades. Basically an on ice version of DWTS combining hockey players with figure skaters. It was a great show while it lasted.
|
|
|
Post by tristanfan on Apr 18, 2015 18:31:39 GMT -5
Thanks for the video! I never missed an episode of Battle of the Blades. It was so surprising to see the level of skill so many of these big tough hockey players could rise to. It could easily be resurrected and we will get another season; the ratings were very good. Jamie Sale (of Sale and Pelletier) won one season with her now husband Craig Simpson. Jamie and Craig live here in my home town of Edmonton. At the time Annabelle Langlois was skating with Cody Hay they were training here in Edmonton too, at the storied Royal Glenora Club that has a Wall of Skating Fame like very few other facilities can claim. Alas, it has fallen on rather hard times but I believe there is an effort to rejuvenate it. The RG turned out such luminaries as Kurt Browning, Sale and Pelletier and Kristi Yamaguchi trained here also. And of course many more.
|
|
|
Post by tristanfan on Apr 27, 2015 18:03:55 GMT -5
Just saw a quote from Charlie White where he is musing about getting back into competitive skating to try for the 2018 Olympics. I hope they don't; skating moves ahead so fast and it is unlikely that Davis and White would repeat their magic moment. Sometimes, I think, it is difficult for former champions to realize that they should retire at their peak and stay retired.
|
|
|
Post by Firedrake on Apr 27, 2015 19:59:16 GMT -5
Why not come back for one more try? That is one thing I have noticed about American Olympians in many sports, they appear in one Games and never again. Many Canadian figure skaters competed in numerous Games and won many medals. Same thing for Russia (and the Soviets), Japan and a number of other countries. Why is it that Americans seem to be one shot and gone?
|
|