Let's nitpick from figure skaters

[leafygreens]

No over-the-skate tights, illusion spins, or swordfighting allowed!

Why?

Also, I don't get the hate for OTB tights.

I hate Risport and Edea boots.

Are Edea's what Gracie wears? With the white heels? They are soooo distracting and ugly looking.

[TheIronLady]

I want to see a skater get disqualified one day because they take too long to get to the starting position after their name is called. They only have a minute.

I want to see the judges disqualified one day for taking too long to do their scores.

[julieann]

I want to see the judges disqualified one day for taking too long to do their scores.

I would rather have accuracy over speed.

[Aussie Willy]

I would rather have accuracy over speed.

Anyway it is usually the technical panel that takes a long time, not the judges.

[TheIronLady]

I would rather have accuracy over speed.

I was joking, because Aussie Willie thinks judges should throw out skaters like Oksana Baiul who take longer than one minute.

[Tony Wheeler]

Yep and if they don't get to their starting position within one minute after that they are considered to have withdrawn from the event.

Is this a newer rule? I remember Sarah Meier was an offender of the minute rule a few seasons ago and they just started playing her music as soon as she went over the limit, even though she wasn't quite prepared.

[skatak]

It's not something I hate, it's more something I've come to get use to... well, I do NOT appreciate skaters that seem unable to hold a landing jump after a jump for more than a few centimeters. They feel the need to do a counter backstroke (like if landing backward on the right outside edge, they will to a backstroke to the left), maybe not to fall splat.
I've named it 'Kwan stroke', as she was the first on to do it regularly.

[Aussie Willy]

I was joking, because Aussie Willie thinks judges should throw out skaters like Oksana Baiul who take longer than one minute.

Hmmm not sure what this has to do with anything. And it is not the judges it is the referee

Is this a newer rule? I remember Sarah Meier was an offender of the minute rule a few seasons ago and they just started playing her music as soon as she went over the limit, even though she wasn't quite prepared.

Not sure when it came in. A couple of years ago I think. It is in the current rules on Page 14 under Call to the Start
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/...-0-file,00.pdf

[RobinA]

Lack of toe point, lack of toe point, lack of toe point. I KNOW modern skates don't allow for a great pointed toe as per ballet, but lately it seems more and more skaters aren't even trying, and it just looks ugly.

Shredded custumes, plastered smiles, ugly spins just to get points.

And finally, and this is not the skaters' fault, tots who can do a zillion rotations in the air who are touted as the next best thing. Anybody who has been around skating for more than, say, four years, knows that these spinners rarely, if ever, survive puberty, so GET OFF IT!

[Aimless]

One of my pet peeves is a skater giving up the performance the minute the music stops. Most top skaters don't do that, they maintain the mood or character of the music through the bows. It's especially jarring when the performance hasn't been too good and the skater goes from the last pose to visually beating him/herself up. I even recall one ice dancer who fell in the middle of the program and cried and pouted all the way to the end. Skaters have to realize they are performing, much like actors, and you don't slip out of character until you go offstage.

Indeed---I was going to make this point if no one else had. It can't help the impression that the judges have and it's very tiresome and deflating for the audience.

[kiss-n-cry]

deleted

[kiss-n-cry]

My personal nominee for Most Unsightly Move was a kind of deep squat that Agnes Zawadski did in the middle of one of her programs last year (to slinky cool jazz accompaniment IIRC, which made it even more bizarre). And, no, I don't know the official term for it.

I was thinking to myself: "My God, woman, a rink is not a Third-World privy".

That move is my biggest personal pet peeve! I believe it has been referred to as a cantilever or cossack position, but I can't remember for sure. It seemed to be more prevelant in ice dance, i.e B&B and Punsalan & Swallow (the race car FD from 1991). Just not attractive, at all, even it it fits the music. The only time I liked a skater using the move was Jeff Buttle in his Nagoyquatsi FP.

[DORISPULASKI]

Besti squat, named for Natalia Bestemianova & Andre Bukin, who did lots of them.

I destest it, except when used as a base position for a man in a dance lift.

[arakwafan2006]

Are Edea's what Gracie wears? With the white heels? They are soooo distracting and ugly looking.

YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Akiko Suziki wears them as well with those crazy designs on them...