USFSA Review of Michael Weiss' Season

[PAskate]

The USFSA is doing a series of reviews of various skaters' seasons. The first skater up for review is Michael Weiss.

http://www.usfsa.org/news/2002-03/weiss-recap.htm?siteid=983

[haribobo]

Fab! :) Well Michael has had a very complete season. Let's see how the rest are going to go....

Goebel-- injured half the season, skates horribly at Nationals, skates awesome at worlds! Whee! :) All's well that ends well.

Jahnke-- got married, as a wedding gift, his wife gave him a triple axel. Skates at Liberty Open, minor int'ls, Sectionals, takes advantage of the freaky situation at Nationals to win bronze with a great free skate. Goes to Worlds and has the skate of his life in the QR, then his clock struck midnight and his jumps desert him. :/ To be continued next season...

Kwan-- wins Skate America, goes to school and skips the season until Nationals, skate awesome at Nationals, back to school, skate awesome at Worlds. Yay!

Hughes-- skips the GP with an injury, skates "clean" at Nationals with a bunch of cheated jumps to get her back to Worlds...where she has a bad QR and then actually gets dinged for her cheats in the SP and FS, finishing 6th overall. The Olympic champ gets kicked to the curb, left to ponder her future in the sport. I can't imagine any more World medals for flutzee-cheaty now that the judges are suddenly on to her. Strange sport. Why do they suddenly care about cheated jumps in 2003?

Cohen aka Dr. Cohen-- Wins everything in sight, skates competitions like she is teaching a class on extension and positioning and choreography, unless she has to compete against MK, who puts the voodoo jinx on her with "The Feeling Begins" SP which brings out Sasha Hyde aka SashaSplat TM. :??

L/T-- Naomi chills with her bf while she's injured, gets misdiagnosed so she can chill with her bf more. Suddenly they remember they are supposed to compete at Nationals and manage to win it. 4CC and Worlds are no fun as they lose to the more prepared and more fun B/A. Peter wearing jean jacket walks past haribobo at the MCI Center at Worlds...the curse is lifted? :lol:

B/A-- kick butt, rise up the rankings, beat ppl they have never beaten before. All is well in the B/A camp. Happy happy joy joy.

G/P-- they get a couple of 7th place finishes on the GP, maintain their spot at Nationals, skate at 4CC. Ho hum. We're bored, let's switch coaches.

S/D-- injuries mess up their GP season, they have a fairly rotten nationals but manage to pull out the win, skate nasty Pink Panther program at exhibition with Tiff wearing pink costume with tail which puts her on People magazine's worst dressed list for 2003. ;) Dump the program in favor of sexy Frozen program by Madonna, wow the voidy-ness! Blow their SP at worlds, skate awesome free program that should have beaten the bronze medalists, skate sexy exhibition program. All is well with the king and queen of UD.

I/B-- breakout season....do pretty well on GP, she bashes knee Nationals, somehow they recover for 4CC but don't skate well there, manage a respectable 10th at Worlds. Making progress.

O/L-- debut season on the Grand Prix has them at the bottom step of the ladder trading blows with the German and Ukrainian pairs. :) Skate a strong free program at Nationals, well strong jumps anyway. 4CC not great, Garrett loses his 3toe and they crash and burn at their first worlds. Now have time for some much needed summer school classes with John Nicks, Meno/Sand, and Sasha Cohen about skating pretty. Let's hope they enroll. ;)

Can you tell I'm procrastinating? Time to write those papers. :evil:

[coco]

I am so feeling your pain....I'm reading your posts instead of writing papers!!!

[manleywoman]

You forgot something regarding G/P...

They have an embarrassing and unfortunate costume issue, resulting in my husband closely following a fuzzed out blur on the television set to see if the cameraman slips up during their Free Dance. Once Free Dance is over, G of G/P hikes up costume to solve aforementioned equipment problem.

[Angel01673]

Originally posted by haribobo
Fab! :) Well Michael has had a very complete season. Let's see how the rest are going to go....

Goebel-- injured half the season, skates horribly at Nationals, skates awesome at worlds! Whee! :) All's well that ends well.

Jahnke-- got married, as a wedding gift, his wife gave him a triple axel. Skates at Liberty Open, minor int'ls, Sectionals, takes advantage of the freaky situation at Nationals to win bronze with a great free skate. Goes to Worlds and has the skate of his life in the QR, then his clock struck midnight and his jumps desert him. :/ To be continued next season...

Kwan-- wins Skate America, goes to school and skips the season until Nationals, skate awesome at Nationals, back to school, skate awesome at Worlds. Yay!

Hughes-- skips the GP with an injury, skates "clean" at Nationals with a bunch of cheated jumps to get her back to Worlds...where she has a bad QR and then actually gets dinged for her cheats in the SP and FS, finishing 6th overall. The Olympic champ gets kicked to the curb, left to ponder her future in the sport. I can't imagine any more World medals for flutzee-cheaty now that the judges are suddenly on to her. Strange sport. Why do they suddenly care about cheated jumps in 2003?

Cohen aka Dr. Cohen-- Wins everything in sight, skates competitions like she is teaching a class on extension and positioning and choreography, unless she has to compete against MK, who puts the voodoo jinx on her with "The Feeling Begins" SP which brings out Sasha Hyde aka SashaSplat TM. :??

L/T-- Naomi chills with her bf while she's injured, gets misdiagnosed so she can chill with her bf more. Suddenly they remember they are supposed to compete at Nationals and manage to win it. 4CC and Worlds are no fun as they lose to the more prepared and more fun B/A. Peter wearing jean jacket walks past haribobo at the MCI Center at Worlds...the curse is lifted? :lol:

B/A-- kick butt, rise up the rankings, beat ppl they have never beaten before. All is well in the B/A camp. Happy happy joy joy.

G/P-- they get a couple of 7th place finishes on the GP, maintain their spot at Nationals, skate at 4CC. Ho hum. We're bored, let's switch coaches.

S/D-- injuries mess up their GP season, they have a fairly rotten nationals but manage to pull out the win, skate nasty Pink Panther program at exhibition with Tiff wearing pink costume with tail which puts her on People magazine's worst dressed list for 2003. ;) Dump the program in favor of sexy Frozen program by Madonna, wow the voidy-ness! Blow their SP at worlds, skate awesome free program that should have beaten the bronze medalists, skate sexy exhibition program. All is well with the king and queen of UD.

I/B-- breakout season....do pretty well on GP, she bashes knee Nationals, somehow they recover for 4CC but don't skate well there, manage a respectable 10th at Worlds. Making progress.

O/L-- debut season on the Grand Prix has them at the bottom step of the ladder trading blows with the German and Ukrainian pairs. :) Skate a strong free program at Nationals, well strong jumps anyway. 4CC not great, Garrett loses his 3toe and they crash and burn at their first worlds. Now have time for some much needed summer school classes with John Nicks, Meno/Sand, and Sasha Cohen about skating pretty. Let's hope they enroll. ;)

Can you tell I'm procrastinating? Time to write those papers. :evil:


I know this is probably just supposed to be all in fun, but IMO your comments about L/T and Sarah were uncalled for, especially when they are unfactual and biased. They both battled injuries, Naomi's caused by overtraining, not an excuse to chill with her bf, you don't even know how frustrating her injury has been to naomi and peter. They have both went through some really tough times this season, obviously more than you can imagne, and it just pisses me off to see people "making fun" after they have been thorugh, and overcame so much. And Sarah's triples may have been cheated, but it was still enough to earn her spot on the world team.

[haribobo]

Sigh. I knew someone would be upset by this clearly *all in fun* post. The whole thing was a sorta fairytale synopsis of the season, writing a story around a few events that happened. :/ And I know L/T are hardworking and the injury must clearly have been difficult for them to deal with. I know it wasn't a fabricated story. Perhaps I shouldn't have said what I said about L/T, but it WAS just a joke. Maybe not a funny one. :(

What did I say about Sarah that was uncalled for? I never said she didn't deserve her spot on the world team, and it is TRUE she cheats her jumps.

[mikey]

Don't worry, haribobo. I thought your post was hilarious!

[Scribe]

I thought it was funny too. Maybe Angel thought you were being sarcastic. Adrian has posted that sarcasm is not allowed on his board.

[sk8pics]

Haribobo,
I sent you a PM.

Funny review-preview, LOL.

Pat

[Angel01673]

Sorry If I was so serious, but could you imagine if Sarah actually read everything about her that people say on the internet? It just bothers me that some people don't realize there is more to her skating than her "cheated jumps"
"skips the GP with an injury, skates "clean" at Nationals with a bunch of cheated jumps to get her back to Worlds"
I thought you were insinuating that she didn't deserve to go to worlds, sorry If I misread that.

"The Olympic champ gets kicked to the curb, left to ponder her future in the sport. I can't imagine any more World medals for flutzee-cheaty now that the judges are suddenly on to her."
I thought calling her "flutzee cheaty" was a bit harsh, how many other giorls flutz and cheat their jumps too? Sasha, Jenny, and Michelle (ocasionally) all flutz Arakawa, Robinson, Nakano, and Nelidina all cheat many of their jumps as well, but no one calls them flutzee or cheaty. I was just so sick of people ragging on Sarah, sorry if I took it out on you. There have been peole that say worse.

Basically what I'm just trying to say is L/T and Sarah have been through heck this season, and to add insult to injury people are making jokes that Naomi was chilling with her boy friend, and that sarah is fat (I know that haribobo didn't say that, but it's just an example) It certiantly wouldn't be fair of me to joke that B/A were out partying and that's why they messed up at nationals, or that Sasha was out with her bf and that's why she had a meltdown at nationals, because I have no clue what they did before nationals. All of these athelets work their butts off, or they wouldn't be where they are, I just think we should show them a little more respect.

[haribobo]

OK. Thank you-- I am hearing you loud and clear Angel. On some level I do agree with you. Perhaps my post was somewhat out of line, even if it was just a joke. No more stuff like this from me in the future.

Didn't mean to turn this into a Sarah thread, but...

And this is not to say she doesn't deserve respect, or name-calling and bashing are acceptable, but here is my analysis of the situation, for what it's worth.

Of the people you named, I think Sarah is the only one that cheats *all* her jumps, all of the time. It's just bad technique that she has. Go watch the tapes in slow-mo. Every single jump she does, just about. But I agree there is a lot of other wonderful stuff in her skating-- like spins, speed, stroking, expression, nice positions, that 3/4 of the other ladies I saw at Worlds did not have. BUT-- to be honest, any other skater with technique like Sarah coming up these days through regionals and sectionals doesn't really get much credit for those cheated jumps, usually. Granted, they aren't as consistent as Sarah, and probably not as excellent overall, but it makes me wonder if Sarah would still be competitive next season if judged fairly against some of the better jumpers and good skaters, such as AP McDonough, BB Liang, and a clean Angela or Ye Bin. 4-5 clean triples still beats 0-1 clean triples in my book...unless the rest of the skating is at a very poor level. The rumor going around is that Sarah is done competing. But if that turns out not to be true, I think she is definitely going to need to relearn her jumps if she wants to get back on that World and/or Olympic podium. Viktoria, Sasha, Sokolova, and Suguri have all pretty much gotten good enough to beat Sarah on most occasions now, since they do have good qualities to their skating along with fully rotated nice jumps. Still, 6th in the world is not a bad spot. But I would imagine it's just not where Sarah wants to be, considering the past success she's had. I guess if she retires, this is all a moot point though.

[Mel On Ice]

On a different note, how refreshing is it to read a review of Weiss' year (USFSA) without it sounding like it is straight out of the Tiger Beat School of Journalism? He's a wonderful skater who would earn so much more respect from skating fans without the self-generated Michael Jackson-style hype.

[Angel01673]

OK haribobo, I'm glad we understand each other now, and thanks for the anaylisis on Sarah's skating ITA with it.

[icyboid]

I really like this new feature, good job USFSA!
This was so well written, I can't wait to read season synopses of the other skaters. :)