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http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/figure_skati ng/news?slug=es-thoughts021810&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Oh, Elvis Stojko, drinking the same Kool-Aid as Yevgeny Plushenko. Although I can understand the disappointment, I don't share it. I don't think that Evan Lysacek winning gold is a betrayal of all things Olympic. I don't think it's a move backwards for the glorious sport of figure skating, and I don't think it was all *that* surprising.
I haven't watched figure skating in years. I gave it up because of disgust. My annoyance, however, was a result of a trend in opposition to Stojko's prediction for the abandonment of figure skating by the Youth. I thought the focus was too much on the jumps. What I had found was that figure skating had begun to sacrifice artistry and musicality in favor of the quad. It was all that anyone could talk about and watching skaters move from one end of the rink to the other in preparation for that daunting and unreliable quad was disappointing because it seemed like a lot of the in-between content was being left out. There was more prep time required and if they fell, well alot of people didn't recover.
I fell in love with figure skating in the first place because it was a combination of strength, skill, power grace and beauty. It's amazingly complex and subtle, but then you had these bursting jumps that, when properly placed, enhanced the choreography magnificently. Watching the men's competition had become all about who could land a quad and who could do it in competition. I got tired of watching jumping beans in a jumping competition because figure skating was never all about the jumps.
( Hey! Mambo! )
Oh, Elvis Stojko, drinking the same Kool-Aid as Yevgeny Plushenko. Although I can understand the disappointment, I don't share it. I don't think that Evan Lysacek winning gold is a betrayal of all things Olympic. I don't think it's a move backwards for the glorious sport of figure skating, and I don't think it was all *that* surprising.
I haven't watched figure skating in years. I gave it up because of disgust. My annoyance, however, was a result of a trend in opposition to Stojko's prediction for the abandonment of figure skating by the Youth. I thought the focus was too much on the jumps. What I had found was that figure skating had begun to sacrifice artistry and musicality in favor of the quad. It was all that anyone could talk about and watching skaters move from one end of the rink to the other in preparation for that daunting and unreliable quad was disappointing because it seemed like a lot of the in-between content was being left out. There was more prep time required and if they fell, well alot of people didn't recover.
I fell in love with figure skating in the first place because it was a combination of strength, skill, power grace and beauty. It's amazingly complex and subtle, but then you had these bursting jumps that, when properly placed, enhanced the choreography magnificently. Watching the men's competition had become all about who could land a quad and who could do it in competition. I got tired of watching jumping beans in a jumping competition because figure skating was never all about the jumps.
( Hey! Mambo! )
