Help with research paper on figure skating?

[xofivebyfive]

Freshman year I came on here and asked about Geometry in skating and got a tremendous amount of help, and I got an A+ on my project, the only A+ in my class so thank you! I'm hoping to shoot for another this year? ;)

Okay, here's the deal. I have to do a research paper for school, 10-12 pages on some kind of health/fitness/sport related subject, so naturally I chose skating. I have an outline of the information I need to get, but I was just wondering what major events, info, interesting, weird, freaky, spectacular things have happened in skating's history or with a skater or anything like that, that I can put into this paper. I need fluff people. LOL.

I'm going to mention the Kerrigan/Harding incident but I really don't know much about skating history. I know most of you are older and might remember some interesting things. AND if there is any information on skating history on the web that you can lead me to, that would be great because I need citations.. haha. I don't want you to do all the work for me, I'm just having a hard time processing and dealing with all the information.. so I'm going to use you all as my sorters. Thank you so much!

[mandypants]

I have the "Encyclopedia of figure skating" by John Malone at home. It's kinda outdated but it has a lot of good snippet type info in it if you're looking for tales of the unusual or spectacular regarding skating. So, maybe check Amazon for figure skating encyclopedias or your local library (although I've noticed they seem to lack in the figure skating dept.grrrrrr)

You could also try the USFSA website. Don Korte's website and there are many others out there. Wikipedia could prolly lead you to a bunch of other links, as well.

You may want to narrow the topic of your paper a little. I mean, it just seems very broad a topic to cover in just 10-12 pages. Just some ideas.. Jump physics, Discuss how many times "Carmen" has been used and by whom thru the ages, Why so many male figure skaters go bald (you think I'm kidding, don't you???)... the list is endless but I think you could make your job a whole lot easier by narrowing the subject down a little.

HAve fun with it "_

[Mrs Redboots]

There is Figure Skating: A History (http://tinyurl.com/2bj4zf) (always reminds me of Hogwarts: A History!) which is pretty brilliant and covers adult skating, too - there I was reading it, all serious and everything, and quite suddenly there is a picture of a dear friend of mine at the first Mountain Cup!

Also Lynn Copley's wonderful The Evolution of Dance on Ice (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Figure-Skating-History-Evolution-Dance/dp/0963175815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196251979&sr=8-1) which was published in 1992 so a bit out of date now, but still totally fascinating.

[Clarice]

Maybe cover injuries that have occurred in skating - you could start with St. Lidwina becoming the patron saint of skating because she died of skating-related injuries, and go from there. There have been several spectacular falls in pair skating over the years, as well as a lot of hip injuries among elite skaters - Rudy Galindo, Tara Lipinski, and Michelle Kwan come to mind. Perhaps you could talk about safety features, like how the boot companies are trying to redesign boots to minimize the stress from jumping, and why pair skaters don't wear helmets despite the risks.

[jskater49]

If you are going to cover injuries you have to include Randy Gardner's heart breaking groin injury in the 1980 Olmpics. He and Tai Babylonia were the reigning World Champions, had a real chance to win and he had a groin injury--he took a pain relieving shot which numbed him to the point that he couldn't skate and they had to withdraw after the warm up. Oh I cried my heart out for them.

j

[xofivebyfive]

Yeah I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to narrow it down more, injuries and rehabilitation sounds good to me.

[Morgail]

I think Naomi Nari Nam just had hip surgery in Aug or Sept. Didn't she have some other injuries that essentially ended her singles skating career? I can't remember what exactly.

[Moto Guzzi]

Maybe you could include Paul Binnebose's head injury. Here are some articles that will give you more information:

http://www.bikashbose.com/dream.htm
http://www.udel.edu/PR/experts/helmet.html
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/winter/2005-01-12-notebook-helmets_x.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_19991205/ai_n9961319

[doubletoe]

You might want to mention the few women who have actually managed to land a triple axel or a quad salchow in competition. That might educate a few of those people who say, "Oh, you ice skate? Can you do a triple axel?" :lol:

You can find this information on www.wikipedia.org
But offhand, I think these are the only women who have landed jumps that are over 3 revolutions:

Triple axel: Midori Ito, Tonya Harding, Mao Asada (at a VERY young age!), Kimmie Meissner, Yukari Nakano. There may be one more, but if so, I can't think of it right now.

Quadruple jumps: Among female skaters, only Miki Ando has landed a quadruple jump in competition. It was a quadruple salchow and I think it might have been at the Junior World Championships several years ago. You will find the info. if you look her up on Wikipeda.

[LWalsh]

I would also mention the 1961 plane crash that killed the entire US world team on the way to the competition.

[Sessy]

elena gedevanishvili tried a quad toe at the junior somethings just a few months before the last olympics, but she fell on it.

tara lipinski's hips taking her out despite being world's youngest olympic medallist?

jevgeni plushenko's records are pretty fancy too. He could do some quads combinations nobody else could, was the first and only man in adult competition to do a biellmann spin, and he's got ridiculously many golds, plus he had like a fifth more points to number 2 at the last olympics, LOL!

and then there's that Russian pair skater who was dropped on her head

Oh yeah. What was that black woman skater's name who did salto's on ice and did one in competition despite knowing she'd be downgraded for it?

[Morgail]

Oh yeah. What was that black woman skater's name who did salto's on ice and did one in competition despite knowing she'd be downgraded for it?

Surya Bonaly, from France (I think - if salto's are the same as backflips!). I used to love watching her skate - she was super athletic.

[sue123]

You could also talk about Sergei Grinkov, the pairs skater who had some sort of heart problem, he died on the ice, I believe.

And for resources, don't use wikipedia as a source, but at the bottom of some wiki pages, they have sources where they got the info from, follow the link to the article or what have you, and site that.

[Sessy]

But if you do cite wikipedia or other internet articles, the proper form is to mention the publisher/writer and name of the article, date of original publishing and URL, followed by "last accessed on" and date followed by a period.
At least that's how I was supposed to do it in my bachelor's thesis (where wikipedia wasn't very cheered on by the way, other internet sources were okay though, and perhaps one of the reasons for that was that I was writing in "Law and Information&Communication Technologies" area.)

[cecealias]

You mentioned Health/Fitness/sport as the topic of your research paper. I wrote the following along those lines:

One of the facts commonly ignored by the general population is that Figure skating can be a LIFELONG SPORT.

In addition, the number of individuals that are learning to figure skate or who are returning to figure skating in the 20-75 age group has grown considerably in the past decade, which is highly significant for a sport that has been classically perceived as "only for children".

Given the tremendous media coverage and obesity epidemic, I think it important to emphasize that Figure skating would be a good outlet to encourage adults back into physical exercise. The last news report I have seen is that 33% of all adults are obese and 66% of all Americans are overweight (please check stats on this)

Obesity is not just simply fat - it is the main contributor to a "Quad" of chronic diseases, namely Diabetes type II , Heart Disease, Cancer and Neurological related diseases. The best medication to combat obesity are not drugs but physical exercise. Studies have shown that Adults in aging populations who exercise on a regular basis do physically better than those who do not. Those who exercise also do better emotionally and mentally because of regular social contact from group exercise or exercise where social contact is promoted.

It is my belief that Figure skating offers both options to the Adult and Aging populations for mental and physical health.

Other resources I'd highly recommend you check out - This would give you a definitely "A" paper IMHO because it would cite sources from recent scientific research supported by NIH/NIAD/NIDDK Grants.

ACSM Exercise and Fitness journal.
http://www.acsm.org

Proccedings from the Society of Experimental Biology
http://www.eb2008.org/AboutEB.htm

Clinical Journal from the American Society for Nutrition.
http://www.nutrition.org/

American Diabetes Association
http://www.diabetes.org/home.jsp

Need more help? PM me.