Why Don't Women Do Footwork Sequences Equal To The Men?

[Peter G]

[color=green:a1d9b57f04]Alexei does brilliant footword, as does Evgeny. Abt impresses me at times as well. I think I've seen Honda do good footwork. Sandhu has had some great moments, Klimkin too the rare times I've seen him. There's a handful of other men that have decent footwork sequences in their programs.

So what's up with the women? Why does no great footwork sequence come to mind? Or do the women do spiral sequences and the men do footwork sequences?

I know I've seen Kwan do some decent footwork, but it doesn't stand out like Yagudin's does. With Yagudin, words to describe his footwork that come to mind are forceful, amazing, powerful, energetic, precise. These words don't make me think of any of the women.

If it's true that men more often do footwork sequences and women do spiral sequences, what do you think of this? Is this sexism? Next year should they ask men to do spiral sequences and for the women to do footwork sequences?[/color:a1d9b57f04]

[essence_of_soy]

Actually, if you can check out the Japanese women, they all do terrific footwork sequences. Sato, Suguri, Ito, Inoue, Yaginuma, Kashihara, Onda, Arakawa....the list goes on. I guess it has to do with the terrific speed these skaters seem to gather more than anything. Quite possibly, footwork is given the same amount of emphasis in the East as say, layback spins and spirals are in the States.

Good question, though.

[icenut84]

I think Irina Slutskaya has the best footwork out of the current crop of eligible ladies. Apart from her amazing all-on-one-foot sequence, she did a brilliant circular sequence at the end of her Don Quioxte (sp?) last season.

[lBrokenAnkle]

I agree, I think it would be neat to see more spirals from the men and footwork from the women.

As for who does the best footwork, I still am not good at identfying what is good and what is "smoke and mirrors" I do think Emmanual's footwork looks good, and I think Todd's last year was better than he had ever done before. People forget this, but Elvis did a one foot footwork sequence in his 1999 SP, All Alone which was awesome.

Yuka's footwork is so precise, I will watch for the other Japanse women, thanks for the tip

Laura

[Peter G]

Thanks icenut, for reminding me about Irina's one-foot sequence. That definitely is a good example of footwork in women's skating.

So do we like to see the girls do pretty spirals and the boys do aggressive footwork. Must they both stay in their place and do what girls and boys are supposed to?