Tonya Harding's skating

[lulu]

SNIP

Great post.

[bardtoob]

When Tonya was well trained during any period of her skating, her programs looked distinctly modern. She could have performed her 1993 Skate America SP today with a few upgrades within her grasp (ie changing the required 2F to a 3F) and had no problems scoring well.

[VIETgrlTerifa]

When Tonya was well trained during any period of her skating, her programs looked distinctly modern. She could have performed her 1993 Skate America SP today with a few upgrades within her grasp (ie changing the required 2F to a 3F) and had no problems scoring well.

That was beautiful. If only Tonya had skated like that at 1993 Nationals, and kept up a similar pace for 1993 Worlds, so many things would have been different.

[leafygreens]

I don't know about ISU, but for sure, she had critics from FSUers because she is bad at steps and doesn't have any other turn then the three turn...LOL

Why do people say Oksana only had a 3-turn?

[Vash01]

When Tonya was well trained during any period of her skating, her programs looked distinctly modern. She could have performed her 1993 Skate America SP today with a few upgrades within her grasp (ie changing the required 2F to a 3F) and had no problems scoring well.

I saw it live. I had forgotten it completely (too many years have elapsed). Thanks for the link. I have to admit I was never her fan, but I respected her powerful jumps and spins. She was a little underappreciated, IMO, in general (may be by me too). It is just sad how she ended up out of FS.

[briancoogaert]

Why do people say Oksana only had a 3-turn?

Because that's true. Look at any of her programs, you'll never see any rocker, counter, brackett, loop...and so on. Just three-turns.

[Mafke]

Why do people say Oksana only had a 3-turn?

Because that's the only one foot turn she ever did in competition?

(If there are examples of her doing other turns I'ld like to know)

Supposedly she saw Brian Boitano practicing bracket turns and had no idea what one was.... and this was AFTER she won olympic gold.

I'll just repeat my well-worn observation that Bonaly and Baiul were poster children for the importance of figures training.

Would it really have been so difficult or expensive for the ISU to institute elite (junior and senior) international figures tests (similar to the figures part of competition) that a singles skater had to pass once a season (or even once) before being eligible for ISU competition. More skaters would have gotten the benefit of figures training without the ongoing costs of having to master two mostly separate disciplines.

[briancoogaert]

I'll just repeat my well-worn observation that Bonaly and Baiul were poster children for the importance of figures training.

Surya Bonaly competed under figures (1989 and 1990 Worlds) and tried some brackets in her step sequences.

[Alex Forrest]

I saw it live. I had forgotten it completely (too many years have elapsed). Thanks for the link. I have to admit I was never her fan, but I respected her powerful jumps and spins. She was a little underappreciated, IMO, in general (may be by me too). It is just sad how she ended up out of FS.

I was in Dallas for this too. It's strange because in my memory I found her heavy and plodding. Her spins stood out, for sure. But this tape is a reality check. Harding was a strong skater. And she probably should have won that competition, had she not had her skate or blade issue.

[Mafke]

Surya Bonaly competed under figures (1989 and 1990 Worlds) and tried some brackets in her step sequences.

Watch here if you dare for all too brief glimpses of Surya doing figures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ECupWBess

On the other hand, she knew they were on the way out and wasn't expecting to be a contender until they were phased out so (I think) she just accepted low placings for a couple of years. Had she had to continue to work on them it would have done her a lot of good.

[briancoogaert]

Watch here if you dare for all too brief glimpses of Surya doing figures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ECupWBess

On the other hand, she knew they were on the way out and wasn't expecting to be a contender until they were phased out so (I think) she just accepted low placings for a couple of years. Had she had to continue to work on them it would have done her a lot of good.

I'm not saying she was good at them. But she knew what was a counter, a loop...
It seems Oksana Baiul never heards about it before the show with Brian Boitano you were talking about.

[leafygreens]

Supposedly she saw Brian Boitano practicing bracket turns and had no idea what one was.... and this was AFTER she won olympic gold.

I was curious when and where this was said.

I have a hard time believing Oksana never learned any sort of figures, since she started skating before they were abolished. Her early-teen skating years were rather tumultuous (lack of coaching, etc). The Ukraine being a newer country may not have had a strong system of federation testing in place (Moves, figures - I don't know). However, she certainly skated earlier as a child, when figures were being skated regularly. I just don't see how she never learned only a 3 turn and nothing else. She probably learned more as a child, but never practiced as a teen because of her lack of structure. That's my guess.

[Vash01]

I was curious when and where this was said.

I have a hard time believing Oksana never learned any sort of figures, since she started skating before they were abolished. Her early-teen skating years were rather tumultuous (lack of coaching, etc). The Ukraine being a newer country may not have had a strong system of federation testing in place (Moves, figures - I don't know). However, she certainly skated earlier as a child, when figures were being skated regularly. I just don't see how she never learned only a 3 turn and nothing else. She probably learned more as a child, but never practiced as a teen because of her lack of structure. That's my guess.

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. I read about the 'Boitano encounter' on fsu but I don't recall where/when this took place- was it at the 94 Olympics? The 6.0 was not as heavy on footwork as the COP is, so I can see a skater not incorporating every turn (or many turns) in the choreography. As you wrote, it's possible that she learned it early as a child, when figures were still a part of the competition, but did not practice them later. Afterall she was just 15 when she won the world title, so she did not have that much time to learn new things, and jumps were the name of the game.

[manleywoman]

If memory serves, you don't get to brackets until the 4th test. She could have trained up just the first few tests.

[gkelly]

Well, she (Baiul) was training in the Soviet Union. My understanding was they didn't have tests, they just learned whatever figures they needed for their level of competition that year. I have no idea whether they actually competed figures domestically below junior level (i.e., as required for international competition).

Anyone who knows better, please correct me.

In 1990 (last year of international figures) Baiul would have been 12. How was she being trained? In what format had she been competing before then and at what level? How was that training affected by the upheavals in her personal life and the end of international school figures competition at that time, and by the end of the Soviet Union a couple years later?

[Coco]

Maybe someone invented this story after watching the step sequence in her Olympic SP.

[bardtoob]

All I know is that all the skaters that have the same training as Oksana and Viktor end up with step sequences and field moves (now call transitions) of the same quality.

[bardtoob]

Now, the technical content of this program is really something else.

1987 NHK Tonya Harding SP

[Mafke]

Well, she (Baiul) was training in the Soviet Union. My understanding was they didn't have tests, they just learned whatever figures they needed for their level of competition that year.

That was my understanding too. I think it may have been part of why the USSR was all for getting rid of figures even though they helped soviet skaters more than hurt them in international competition. They didn't want the expense (and ice time) for something they didn't really use domestically.

Since Baiul would have been about 10 when the decision to axe them from ISU competitions was made it's reasonable to think that they wouldn't have been part of any international competition she would ever be in and so any training she had in figures would have been discontinued then.

[bardtoob]

I also really liked this program, which she always seemed to perform very well.

Tonya Harding (USA) - 1991 World Figure Skating Championships, Ladies' Original Program

It is so nice to see her get properly rewarded in this particular performance, even getting 5.9s from both the Chinese and Yugoslavian judges in both marks when she was 4th in a draw of 32.