IOC's decision: (clean) Russian athletes can compete under neutral flag at PyeongChang Olympics

toddlj said:
I try not to discuss politics here, but FYI, Trump is not currently being evaluated solely on the economy (the trajectory of which he inherited from his predecessor.) Current polls show quite the opposite. Polls show people are happy with the economy and unhappy with him nonetheless. To assume he'll enjoy the same treatment from voters as previous presidents did would assume he is the same kind of president, and he is, by his own admission, not.
(But you're right, this is PI argument)
Click to expand...
With variations, in USA elections the "economy and related issues" usually, if not always, win... (just one article but there are many)
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...nomy-is-crucial-to-the-election-in-six-charts
 
Domshabfan said:
it is not number, but who gets to go that is in question...
Click to expand...
I agree. I was responding to @caseyedwards suggestion that Mme. Fourneyon was trying to ban as many Russians as possible, which too me says that the team should noticeably be smaller. All I was suggesting that the size of team was in line with what would have been expected had that process never been place. The composition of that team is a different matter.
 
Tinami Amori said:
ok, got it! a disgruntled employee.... :D https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohs81rDuEz9ioJzAA/giphy.gif


- no... not as "she could" but as "she had to and was obligated according to set and now published criteria".

- if, as you state she hated Russians that much, and "could" at her will, she would have excluded, for example, all top Russian skaters, Med, Zag, T/M ... and yet she did not, because they met criteria.


I have a little secret for you... Russian side received more than 169... due to internal decisions, in the administration and in certain federations, they CHOSE only 169..
Original filing was for 500 (athletes and officials). 389 received invitation (as final list known in early january). 111 did not receive invitations (including athletes Stolbova, Bukin, Ahn, etc, and officials). Russia side filed with only 169 names. So 389 - 169 = 220 names WITH invitations, but not on the final list from the Russian side. Some of the remaining athletes from 220 list, are qualified, eligible, and willing to compete.... but Russia presumably did not submit their names...

It is a mystery, there are discrepancies and questions....and only 1 publication is talking about it...
https://matchtv.ru/olimpijskije_igr...Koreju_389_rossijan_Pochemu_pojedut_tolko_169


neah.... too much drama as such would scare away caseyedwards, and i want him around...:EVILLE:
Click to expand...

Lol you can’t be disgruntled if you leave because of something better.
But fourneyron made the criteria. Where do you thing they critea came from? Fourneyron and her deputies came up with it. She didn’t enforce some preexisting conditions.

skatingguy said:
I agree. I was responding to @caseyedwards suggestion that Mme. Fourneyon was trying to ban as many Russians as possible, which too me says that the team should noticeably be smaller. All I was suggesting that the size of team was in line with what would have been expected had that process never been place. The composition of that team is a different matter.
Click to expand...
And this wrong because speedskating, biathlon and short track teams were all devastated and almost reduced to nothing. Can’t even make relay teams.
 
caseyedwards said:
Lol you can’t be disgruntled if you leave because of something better.
But fourneyron made the criteria. Where do you thing they critea came from? Fourneyron and her deputies came up with it. She didn’t enforce some preexisting conditions.
Click to expand...
I believe IOC and a panel of specialists developed the criteria, and! they are very reasonable... don't dope now, don't have a doping history, show up for scheduled tests, be available for tests, etc... all linked to doping and procedures....and none of your inventions like "the athlete must be active on facebook in promoting fair sport".... :D and looks like Ms. Fourneyron is not the Marquisa De Sadsky..
 
Tinami Amori said:
I believe IOC and a panel of specialists developed the criteria, and! they are very reasonable... don't dope now, don't have a doping history, show up for scheduled tests, be available for tests, etc... all linked to doping and procedures....and none of your inventions like "the athlete must be active on facebook in promoting fair sport".... :D and looks like Ms. Fourneyron is not the Marquisa De Sadsky..
Click to expand...
The panel of IOC specialist was fourneyron and her deputies!

  • The invitation list will be determined, at its absolute discretion, by a panel chaired by Valerie Fourneyron, Chair of the ITA. The panel will include members of the Pre-Games Testing Task Force: one appointed by WADA, one by the DFSU and one by the IOC, Dr Richard Budgett.
  • Athletes must have undergone any other testing requirements specified by the panel to ensure a level playing field.
 
toddlj said:
Trump is an exception. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...ic-unpopularity-triumphs-over-prosperity.html
Click to expand...
NYorker is known to be left-leaning, and very bias against trump, it, along with many other publications intentionally give this issue a negative twist in form of "opinions", each in their own inconsistent form and set arguments. Few publications do manage to be honest:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/anal...-trump-economy-blasting-off/story?id=52632659

caseyedwards said:
The panel of IOC specialist was fourneyron and her deputies!

  • The invitation list will be determined, at its absolute discretion, by a panel chaired by Valerie Fourneyron, Chair of the ITA. The panel will include members of the Pre-Games Testing Task Force: one appointed by WADA, one by the DFSU and one by the IOC, Dr Richard Budgett.
  • Athletes must have undergone any other testing requirements specified by the panel to ensure a level playing field.
Click to expand...

..... i see.... :D..... they invited highly qualified specialists, such as doctor Budgett, and other chemists, laboratory and procedural specialists to evaluate athletes' hair cuts and eye color.. (so glad you found a better job and left that Russian company, i like to see my fellow Russians' businesses succeed).
 
Tinami Amori said:
Some Russian media is having a blast with a "flag" issue, writing articles like "The West is afraid of the Russian Flag".
http://www.telegraf.lv/blog/post/flag-kotorogo-boitsya-mok-felyeton-prognoz

With Putin's elections coming up in a few weeks, the issue with the Olympics is certainly swaying public towards patriotism, those who, in spite of the fact that Putin will win, were considering voting for the opposition... :D... and the hope that at least some notable percentage will vote against Putin is dwindling across the country, based on blogs, forums, chats in regional and municipal areas outside of Moscow.... ;) ... when one gets lemons, one makes lemonade.
Click to expand...
Why don't they just make Putin dictator for life and dispense with the elections?
 
BlueRidge said:
My question is that this seems like a special case situation, so does it necessarily lead to any future sanctions? I see no process in place for that.
Click to expand...
This is an IOC policy and process. It won't impact anything outside of the Olympics.

Now the ISU could decide to do something about the situation in Russia but (a) they have given no indication they will do so and (b) they would come up with their own policy & procedures.

Btw, up-thread it was mentioned several times "why was this done at the last minute" or "why wasn't this done in the summer." I wondered myself but realized recently that it's because most sports don't pick their Olympic Team until the last minute. So the IOC didn't know which athletes would be put forth until rather late in the process. I'm not sure what could be done about that.
 
I don't know a lot about the whole 'doping' issue in sports, except for what I've read in mainstream media over the years. But having looked at the recently posted documentaries including (Icarus on Netflix), that's very damning evidence. And the fact is there are suspicions going back very far re state-sponsored doping by Russia in a number of Olympic sports. There was also the horrific doping in communist-led East Germany of female swimmers, detailed in another documentary. And the doping suspicions regarding the former 'heroic' British track star Olympic athlete, are mind-numbing.

What I saw in Icarus is very scathing against the Russian Putin-led government. But this doping had been going on prior to Putin's regime too. Of course Grigory Rodchenko (former head of the Russian sports lab) is no angel. But he was part of the extensive Russian system of doping to gain athletic performance advantages. Putin and his regime decided to pull Rodchenko out of a Russian prison to lead the Sochi athlete doping effort because of his chemical background, knowledge and expertise in how to fool WADA. And he was only thrown in prison in the first place because a rival chemist was angered by Rodchenko's knowledge and effectiveness in the art of getting away with doping.

And then of course, as information began to be leaked and WADA made some attempts to crack down, Rodchenko became worried after being asked to resign from the lab. He decided it was best to leave Russia before he was put out of commission for good (i.e., killed and have it made to look like a suicide or an accident or natural causes). Unfortunately, he left his family behind in order to avoid suspicion that he was not planning to return. And he was saved by his fortuitous connection to the American documentary filmmakers (who originally were only making a film about the prevalence of doping in bicycling). The producer and director of Icarus landed on a Russian minefield, and they handled it well.

Apparently though figure skating was not really one of the sports where there was a heavy focus on doping. And why should it be? It seems to me that there probably was no doping focus on figure skating by the Russians until Irina Slutskaya became ill and she was later officially approved to take a specific medicine for her condition that otherwise would have been banned. Possibly, thereafter other figure skating athletes with medical issues were given drugs that weren't necessarily banned at the time, such as meldonium. It's unclear whether Russian figure skaters were made to take part in the ongoing extensive doping, or were given doping substances in drinks (e.g, electrolyte-restoring sports drinks) without their knowledge. Who knows? Possibly figure skaters who had some physical problems or who were slow in recovering stamina were being helped without their knowledge? This is speculation. What isn't speculation is the widespread government effort led by Putin and his sports czar, Vitaly Mutko, in conjunction with a KGB operative middleman who communicated with the chemical lab specialist colleague of Rodchenko who was killed shortly after Rodchenko fled Russia.

I feel sorry for the Russian athletes and the Russian people living under this strict regime. It's too bad all the defensiveness and denial going on too. People likely fear for their lives and thus convince themselves that lies are truth.

Certainly the current U.S. political 'regime' is a laughing stock of the world and quite difficult to deal with for many Americans. But the difference is that Trumpster can't do whatever he wants. Still there's political corruption and attempts to brainwash citizens in the U.S., but there's also free speech and some checks and balances in the U.S. government. And also, although individual U.S. athletes have engaged in doping practices, it's certainly not state-sponsored, nor state-approved and condoned. I think the documentary Icarus, is also quite damning of WADA and of IOC officials who have a tendency to turn the other way in dealing with Russian officials down through the years. And currently, there's obviously been IOC accommodation and ongoing negotiation with Russia in face of the blatant lying by Russian officials.

Such a sad and depressing state of affairs. For many years though, the Olympic movement, while still bright and aspirational for many idealistic athletes, is in reality way too commercialized, full of OTT media hype and overly focused on country 'medal counts.' It's less about the spirit of sportsmanship and striving to do one's best in the pursuit of athletic excellence, than it is about patriotic boosterism. But as figure skating fans, that latter bit, is not the significant reason why we watch. We actually care about all of the skaters on a human level simply because of how we've gotten to know them through years of watching them compete, and because we love figure skating.
 
Last edited:
Tinami Amori said:
NYorker is known to be left-leaning, and very bias against trump, it, along with many other publications intentionally give this issue a negative twist in form of "opinions", each in their own inconsistent form and set arguments. Few publications do manage to be honest:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/anal...-trump-economy-blasting-off/story?id=52632659



..... i see.... :D..... they invited highly qualified specialists, such as doctor Budgett, and other chemists, laboratory and procedural specialists to evaluate athletes' hair cuts and eye color.. (so glad you found a better job and left that Russian company, i like to see my fellow Russians' businesses succeed).
Click to expand...
Hair and eyes? What? That’s not true at all? It’s very serious how they are keeping so much hidden and secret.
aftershocks said:
I don't know a lot about the whole 'doping' issue in sports, except for what I've read in mainstream media over the years. But having looked at the recently posted documentaries including (Icarus on Netflix), that's very damning evidence. And the fact is there are suspicions going back very far re state-sponsored doping by Russia in a number of Olympic sports. There was also the horrific doping in communist-led East Germany of female swimmers, detailed in another documentary. And the doping suspicions regarding the former 'heroic' British track star Olympic athlete are just mind-numbing.

What I saw in Icarus is just scathing against the Russian Putin-led government. But this doping had been going on prior to Putin's regime too. Of course Grigory Rodchenko (former head of the Russian sports lab) is no angel. But he was part of the extensive Russian system of doping to gain athletic performance advantages. Putin and his regime decided to pull Rodchenko out of a Russian prison to lead the Sochi athlete doping effort because of his chemical background, knowledge and expertise in how to fool WADA. And he was only thrown in prison in the first place because a rival chemist was angered by Rodchenko's knowledge and effectiveness in the art of getting away with doping.

And then of course, as information began to be leaked and WADA made some attempts to crack down, Rodchenko became worried after being asked to resign from the lab. He decided it was best to leave Russia before he was put out of commission for good (i.e., killed and have it made to look like a suicide or an accident or natural causes). Unfortunately, he left his family behind in order to avoid suspicion that he was not planning to return. And he was saved by his fortuitous connection to the American documentary filmmakers (who originally were only making a film about the prevalence of doping in bicycling). The producer and director of Icarus landed on a Russian minefield, and they handled it well.

Apparently though figure skating was not really one of the sports where there was a heavy focus on doping. And why should it be? It seems to me that there probably was no doping focus on figure skating by the Russians until Irina Slutskaya became ill and she was later officially approved to take a specific medicine for her condition that otherwise would have been banned. Possibly, thereafter other figure skating athletes with medical issues were given drugs that weren't necessarily banned at the time, such as meldonium. It's unclear whether Russian figure skaters were made to take part in the ongoing extensive doping, or were given doping substances in drinks (e.g, electrolyte-restoring sports drinks) without their knowledge. Who knows? Possibly figure skaters who had some physical problems or who were slow in recovering stamina were being helped without their knowledge? This is speculation. What isn't speculation is the widespread government effort led by Putin and his sports czar, Vitaly Mutko, in conjunction with a KGB operative middleman who communicated with the chemical lab specialist colleague of Rodchenko who was killed shortly after Rodchenko fled Russia.

I feel sorry for the Russian athletes and the Russian people living under this strict regime. It's too bad all the defensiveness and denial going on too. People likely fear for their lives and thus convince themselves that lies are truth.

Certainly the current U.S. political 'regime' is a laughing stock of the world and quite difficult to deal with for many Americans. But the difference is that Trumpster can't do whatever he wants. Still there's political corruption and attempts to brainwash citizens in the U.S., but there's also free speech and some checks and balances in the U.S. government. And also, although individual U.S. athletes have engaged in doping practices, it's certainly not state-sponsored, nor state-approved and condoned. I think the documentary Icarus, is also quite damning of WADA and of IOC officials who have a tendency to turn the other way in dealing with Russian officials down through the years. And currently, there's obviously been IOC accommodation and ongoing negotiation with Russia in face of the blatant lying by Russian officials.

Such a sad and depressing state of affairs. For many years though, the Olympic movement, while still bright and aspirational for many idealistic athletes, is in reality way too commercialized, full of OTT media hype and overly focused on country 'medal counts.' It's less about the spirit of sportsmanship and striving to do one's best in the pursuit of athletic excellence, than it is about patriotic boosterism. But as figure skating fans, that latter bit, is not the significant reason why we watch. We actually care about all of the skaters on a human level simply because of how we've gotten to know them through years of watching them compete, and because we love figure skating.
Click to expand...

So true. Regime change is considered bad because of Iraq but surely Russians would be very happy if US and nato did all it could to kill putin and get a new givernment of liberals or invade Russia and overthrow putin or impose total embargo’s banning all Russian gas from Europe
 
^^ In this current day and age, the Russian people are going to be the ones who have to do the overthrowing, not NATO, and most certainly NOT the U.S. :drama:
 
caseyedwards said:
Hair and eyes? What? That’s not true at all? It’s very serious how they are keeping so much hidden and secret. So true. Regime change is considered bad because of Iraq but surely Russians would be very happy if US and nato did all it could to kill putin and get a new givernment of liberals or invade Russia and overthrow putin or impose total embargo’s banning all Russian gas from Europe
Click to expand...

Donny, put down the phone.
 
What is the status of coaches being allowed to attend? I have read some google translated articles saying no coaches who participated in Sochi are allowed to attend? Is that the case for all sports or just select sports?
 
toddlj said:
Pretty much every pollster in the nation, left right and center, all show terrible numbers for Trump.
Click to expand...
to be short. realistic polls show even split by party lines ~~ 70/30 for either one, nothing new. i'll end my part here, since it's getting off topic too much. if you have another comment, pls do so.
aftershocks said:
^^ In this current day and age, the Russian people are going to be the ones who have to do the overthrowing, not NATO, and most certainly NOT the U.S. :drama:
Click to expand...
yes, but it probably be a different process and dynamics than "west" expects.

Re WADA and its role: we had an interesting conversation at dinner tonight about how WADA will handle the soon to be "genetic/DNA alterations", "sports gene hunting in specific groups" and "designer babies".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wtWRnZUtRQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu7lF575t74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6IFWBH6_fs
 
Tinami Amori said:
to be short. realistic polls show even split by party lines ~~ 70/30 for either one, nothing new. i'll end my part here, since it's getting off topic too much. if you have another comment, pls do so.

yes, but it probably be a different process and dynamics than "west" expects.

Re WADA and its role: we had an interesting conversation at dinner tonight about how WADA will handle the soon to be "genetic/DNA alterations", "sports gene hunting in specific groups" and "designer babies".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wtWRnZUtRQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu7lF575t74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6IFWBH6_fs
Click to expand...

Kellyanne likes figure skating??
 
starrynight said:
What is the status of coaches being allowed to attend? I have read some google translated articles saying no coaches who participated in Sochi are allowed to attend? Is that the case for all sports or just select sports?
Click to expand...

No coaches who had an athlete have a adrv are banned. The coaches are not necessarily leaders of the Russian Olympic team in Sochi

  • No member of the leadership of the Russian Olympic Team at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 can be included on the invitation list.

  • No coach or medical doctor whose athlete has been found to have committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation can be included on the invitation list. All coaches and medical doctors included on the invitation list must sign a declaration to this effect.
 
Tinami Amori said:
NYorker is known to be left-leaning, and very bias against trump
Click to expand...
This is very OT, but NYMag is not the same thing as the New Yorker. It is true that Trump is not particularly popular with left-leaning media (or with part of the conservative media, e.g. some of the coverage in The National Review).
 
Tinami Amori said:
With variations, in USA elections the "economy and related issues" usually, if not always, win... (just one article but there are many)
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...nomy-is-crucial-to-the-election-in-six-charts
Click to expand...

(We are all going to get booted out of this thread to PI.)

The polls digging deep on the upcoming 2018 elections show that only some Republicans put the economy first in terms of issue salience. Many put immigration, which is why Trump has to take a hard line on DACA, his base hates it.

And democrats and independents,whose disapproval of Trump is at levels never "achieved" by any other president at this point in his term, don't give him credit for the economy at all.

You're an economy voter, Tinami, but this presidency is an anomaly and you're in the minority this time.

Now, back to skating. Is it really true that Putin is keeping himself distant from these controversies when he was so involved in Sochi as a platform for Russian greatness?
 
PRlady said:
(We are all going to get booted out of this thread to PI.)

The polls digging deep on the upcoming 2018 elections show that only some Republicans put the economy first in terms of issue salience. Many put immigration, which is why Trump has to take a hard line on DACA, his base hates it.

And democrats and independents,whose disapproval of Trump is at levels never "achieved" by any other president at this point in his term, don't give him credit for the economy at all.

You're an economy voter, Tinami, but this presidency is an anomaly and you're in the minority this time.

Now, back to skating. Is it really true that Putin is keeping himself distant from these controversies when he was so involved in Sochi as a platform for Russian greatness?
Click to expand...

There is no putin distance from this! Sports is still state controlled so he must be involved in all sports administration. He’s funding all the CAS challenges and also funding all the careers of those banned for life who are being treated as totally innocent and he’s planning a banned games.
 
MacMadame said:
Btw, up-thread it was mentioned several times "why was this done at the last minute" or "why wasn't this done in the summer." I wondered myself but realized recently that it's because most sports don't pick their Olympic Team until the last minute. So the IOC didn't know which athletes would be put forth until rather late in the process. I'm not sure what could be done about that.
Click to expand...
I read that the Russian Olympic committee gave the IOC a long list of potential Olympic team members back in summer 2017. It contained hundreds of names (for example, Lipnitskaya was on it). So, the IOC had months to screen each athlete. Sure, the final team was picked only recently, but the IOC knew the candidates already. No "last minute" excuse.
 
Domshabfan said:
I guess the other CAS appeal didn't go well for the Russians, the verdict on those cases are due on Tuesday or Thursday.
Click to expand...

Which other CAS appeal was that? (Chrome is not offering to translate the Russian twitter feed, so not sure if that says anything more than appeal to the Swiss court. Bad Chrome.)
 
MacMadame said:
Btw, up-thread it was mentioned several times "why was this done at the last minute" or "why wasn't this done in the summer." I wondered myself but realized recently that it's because most sports don't pick their Olympic Team until the last minute. So the IOC didn't know which athletes would be put forth until rather late in the process. I'm not sure what could be done about that.
Click to expand...
That’s a very bad excuse. The names could have been submitted a long time ago - before Russian nationals. If you submitted the top five pairs and dancers, you couldn’t possibly go wrong. The only two disciplines that couldn’t be forecasted for certain were ladies and men, and they could have been submitted later.
 
aftershocks said:
I don't know a lot about the whole 'doping' issue in sports, except for what I've read in mainstream media over the years. But having looked at the recently posted documentaries including (Icarus on Netflix), that's very damning evidence. And the fact is there are suspicions going back very far re state-sponsored doping by Russia in a number of Olympic sports. There was also the horrific doping in communist-led East Germany of female swimmers, detailed in another documentary. And the doping suspicions regarding the former 'heroic' British track star Olympic athlete are just mind-numbing.

What I saw in Icarus is just scathing against the Russian Putin-led government. But this doping had been going on prior to Putin's regime too. Of course Grigory Rodchenko (former head of the Russian sports lab) is no angel. But he was part of the extensive Russian system of doping to gain athletic performance advantages. Putin and his regime decided to pull Rodchenko out of a Russian prison to lead the Sochi athlete doping effort because of his chemical background, knowledge and expertise in how to fool WADA. And he was only thrown in prison in the first place because a rival chemist was angered by Rodchenko's knowledge and effectiveness in the art of getting away with doping.

And then of course, as information began to be leaked and WADA made some attempts to crack down, Rodchenko became worried after being asked to resign from the lab. He decided it was best to leave Russia before he was put out of commission for good (i.e., killed and have it made to look like a suicide or an accident or natural causes). Unfortunately, he left his family behind in order to avoid suspicion that he was not planning to return. And he was saved by his fortuitous connection to the American documentary filmmakers (who originally were only making a film about the prevalence of doping in bicycling). The producer and director of Icarus landed on a Russian minefield, and they handled it well.

Apparently though figure skating was not really one of the sports where there was a heavy focus on doping. And why should it be? It seems to me that there probably was no doping focus on figure skating by the Russians until Irina Slutskaya became ill and she was later officially approved to take a specific medicine for her condition that otherwise would have been banned. Possibly, thereafter other figure skating athletes with medical issues were given drugs that weren't necessarily banned at the time, such as meldonium. It's unclear whether Russian figure skaters were made to take part in the ongoing extensive doping, or were given doping substances in drinks (e.g, electrolyte-restoring sports drinks) without their knowledge. Who knows? Possibly figure skaters who had some physical problems or who were slow in recovering stamina were being helped without their knowledge? This is speculation. What isn't speculation is the widespread government effort led by Putin and his sports czar, Vitaly Mutko, in conjunction with a KGB operative middleman who communicated with the chemical lab specialist colleague of Rodchenko who was killed shortly after Rodchenko fled Russia.

I feel sorry for the Russian athletes and the Russian people living under this strict regime. It's too bad all the defensiveness and denial going on too. People likely fear for their lives and thus convince themselves that lies are truth.

Certainly the current U.S. political 'regime' is a laughing stock of the world and quite difficult to deal with for many Americans. But the difference is that Trumpster can't do whatever he wants. Still there's political corruption and attempts to brainwash citizens in the U.S., but there's also free speech and some checks and balances in the U.S. government. And also, although individual U.S. athletes have engaged in doping practices, it's certainly not state-sponsored, nor state-approved and condoned. I think the documentary Icarus, is also quite damning of WADA and of IOC officials who have a tendency to turn the other way in dealing with Russian officials down through the years. And currently, there's obviously been IOC accommodation and ongoing negotiation with Russia in face of the blatant lying by Russian officials.

Such a sad and depressing state of affairs. For many years though, the Olympic movement, while still bright and aspirational for many idealistic athletes, is in reality way too commercialized, full of OTT media hype and overly focused on country 'medal counts.' It's less about the spirit of sportsmanship and striving to do one's best in the pursuit of athletic excellence, than it is about patriotic boosterism. But as figure skating fans, that latter bit, is not the significant reason why we watch. We actually care about all of the skaters on a human level simply because of how we've gotten to know them through years of watching them compete, and because we love figure skating.
Click to expand...
Fantastic analysis!!!
 
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