Sweetness and Light

[Spider68]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88519364

Frank Deford piece on NPR yesterday was right on the mark. Hope link above works and stays up for a while.

In particular, women's figure skating, which was once the most popular female sport on TV, has plummeted in the ratings as the tiny teens have taken over the sport, jumping about the ice but unable to display the grown-up grace and elegance once displayed by Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill and Kristi Yamaguchi.

I agree with Mr. Deford's comment - watch less skating because each season is a new slate of flash-in-the-pan "jumping bean baby ballerinas" and fragile male skaters that lack longetivity due to hip injuries from quads. Miss the days of beautiful edges, quality jumps, judging on a 6-scale with no benefit of instant video replay for the judges, artistry...and maturity. We killed the sport when we eliminated school figures.

[Samskate]

Amen! Couldn't agree more.

[Skittl1321]

While I agree eliminating figures from figureskating was a huge mistake, I completely disagree about not having instant replays being better.

All too often judges were sat too far away to see properly, looked down when a skater did something good or bad, and the scores did not reflect the program performed. With instant replays flutzes aren't counting as lutzes like they used to- skaters have to do that jump intended.

I miss gliding maneuvers and really incredible scratch spins, but I prefer the new scoring system- where a huge lead in the short program actually benefits you better than a tiny one. The scores you recieve matter, and the elements you complete make a difference, to an extent I do think the new system has reduced back room dealing. 6.0 was completely subjective. Yeah, the judges couldn't hold up a skater who fell on everything they tried- but they held up plenty of skaters on reputation alone. To me, that is NOT a sport. That's like going to an art gallery and picking the best painting. Artistry is not the only thing about figure skating- and certainly not competitive figure skating- athletics, which should be objectively measure as in other sports- are a big part too.

As for "baby ballerina's" I love watching Mirai and Caroline skate. They look great on the ice. Some of the older girls right now (Alissa excluded- she has spectacular artistry) just don't.

[Spider68]

As for "baby ballerina's" I love watching Mirai and Caroline skate. They look great on the ice.

Any odds on whether or not they will be back next season? ;)

[Skittl1321]

Any odds on whether or not they will be back next season? ;)

Unless a major injury takes them out I don't think any of the younger players will be disappearing before the olympics. Caroline seems to have some injury issues, but I haven't hear any new that Mirai or Rachel Flatt have.

[smelltheice]

I have just finished watching the world champs ladies long program and you really could see the difference in the quality of the performance from an emotional maturity point of view between the "16 year old just old enough to be there" skaters and the more seasoned campaigners who have that depth of experience that are a joy to watch as opposed to virtual kids throwing out element after element that may be technically impressive but if I wanted technical content at the expense of the artistic depth that should be there, I will wait until nasa enters a robot to do the job with perfect dodecahedron axles and spins that create a whirlwind!! Sara Meier from Switzerland was once again overlooked by the judges in favour of big, flash jumps but the performance was absolutely breathtaking. She had the undivided attention of all 8000 people in the audience. It was the same with Jessica Dube and Bryce davison. The performance was superb but they were relegated to the bronze medal position and the artistic mark soooooo did not tally with the quality of the performance.

[crayonskater]

I like the new system a lot. I think the focus on points allows skaters that would have been ignored in favor of established names to grab the judges' and the world's attention.

One can see how many different countries are represented in the top ten as opposed to ten years ago, and how many of those names are better known than they would have been. It never used to matter how close you were to third place after the short program, because you were most likely mathematically out of contention. Now that the ninth place skater could be on the podium, she has to be noticed.