What's Old Is New Again: New Articles Re: Figure Skating History

SkateGuard

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The latest Skate Guard blog looks at the story of Bruce Allan Mapes, Skating's Unknown Inventor:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/10/bruce-allan-mapes-skatings-unknown.html

Some fascinating articles of interest to skating history buffs:

Piece on Zimbabwe's new ice rink: http://www.herald.co.zw/ice-skating-takes-harare-by-storm/
KARE piece on Paul Wylie running the 10 mile: http://www.kare11.com/news/olympic-...10-mile-after-near-death-experience/329841464
 

Frau Muller

From Puerto Rico…With Love! Not LatinX!
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The second of this week's trio of Skate Guard blogs, The Cold War On Ice, looks at Peggy Fleming's history making television special filmed behind The Iron Curtain at a time when U.S. and Soviet relations were at their frostiest:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/09/the-cold-war-on-ice-peggy-fleming.html


Thank you for this. What a treat, too, to see Kirov Ballet stars Elena Evteeva & Nikolai Kovmir dance the adagio in Swan Lake!
 

SkateGuard

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Glad you enjoyed this one, Frau Muller... Love the name by the way! Really trying to include more stuff from the 60's, 70's and 80's in some of the future blogs. :)
 

SkateGuard

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The latest Skate Guard blog, Rethinking Ice Dance History: Progress And An Exhausted Argument, explores the Torvill and Dean and Duchesnay era's and the ISU's attempts to curb an avant garde trend in ice dancing in the late eighties and early nineties:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/10/rethinking-ice-dance-history-progress.html

Also of interest to skating history buffs... this brand new ABC News interview with 1992 Olympic Gold Medallist Kristi Yamaguchi:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/video/lightning-round-kristi-yamaguchi-42624693
 

Shyjosie

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The latest Skate Guard blog, Rethinking Ice Dance History: Progress And An Exhausted Argument, explores the Torvill and Dean and Duchesnay era's and the ISU's attempts to curb an avant garde trend in ice dancing in the late eighties and early nineties:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/10/rethinking-ice-dance-history-progress.html
Thank you for revisiting the golden era of ice dancing. The obstacles the artists had to face after changes upon changes implemented by the ISU were tremendous. Kudos to the creative skaters, coaches and choreographers who dared to push the envelope.
 

Seerek

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SkateGuard

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Thank you for revisiting the golden era of ice dancing. The obstacles the artists had to face after changes upon changes implemented by the ISU were tremendous. Kudos to the creative skaters, coaches and choreographers who dared to push the envelope.

I can't imagine it wouldn't have been easy for ANYONE coaching or doing choreography during that period. You definitely had a choice to make - follow the rules or follow the herd.

I know this wasn't discussed in the article but like a few other skaters in that area, the late Suzanne Morrow was going to medical school (veterinary) while competing in eligible skating through 2 Olympic cycles. Very impressive, IMO.

Suzanne Morrow Francis' story was altogether amazing IMO - have a bio on her and Wally Diestelmeyer on the way in the coming months!
 

SkateGuard

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Great article! I like this quote "Never lose sight of the fact, that it is better to do a less difficult thing well than a difficult thing badly."

Glad you enjoyed this one! I like that particular quote from Mr. Nicholson as well... certainly seems fitting in today's IJS culture, doesn't it?

The latest Skate Guard blog takes a look at The 1965 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Lake Placid, New York:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/10/the-1965-us-figure-skating-championships.html
 

SkateGuard

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The latest Skate Guard blog explores an absolutely bizarre missing persons case from the fifties with a figure skating connection, The Disappearance Of Helmut Gräf:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/10/the-disappearance-of-helmut-graf.html

Another recent article on a historical missing persons case with a skating connection is this fascinating New York Daily News piece on the 1917 disappearance of Ruth Cruger:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...917-manhattan-disappearance-article-1.2805184
 

SkateGuard

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Shyjosie

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"It was like a painting that moves you to ecstacy without even distinguishing the colours. Just stunning."...It's always so interesting (and telling!) when well-known skaters talk about the upcoming stars of the scene.
Thank you, dear Ryan, for yet again a well-written and entertaining entry.
 

alchemy void

Post-its for the win.
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Joining in to let you know how much I enjoyed the 1990 Worlds recap, too! It was really engaging and an enjoyable read. :respec:

All the local photos and anecdotes just enhanced it even more. And it also was a great introduction to Chris Bowman's LP here. :eek:
 

SkateGuard

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"It was like a painting that moves you to ecstacy without even distinguishing the colours. Just stunning."...It's always so interesting (and telling!) when well-known skaters talk about the upcoming stars of the scene.
Thank you, dear Ryan, for yet again a well-written and entertaining entry.

You're too sweet! I loved Minenkov's quote as well... Keeping in mind that he was a skater that Christopher Dean put on a pedestal when he was coming up the ranks, what a huge compliment to him as a choreographer!

What a great description of that glorious performance!

I didn't like "My Fair Lady".
Beautifully performed though it was, it was a throwback to another era.

Personal opinion? Gotta agree with you on this one in most respects... Lovely, well-skated program but it didn't even come close to resonating with me like "Missing" did. Not even on the same page.

Thank you so much for these retrospectives. They are wonderfully written and so thorough that I'm living these events as if I was there.

You're too kind! I'm trying to throw a couple of these in a month to mix things up and they're really so interesting to put together. You really get a sense of the time by going back to the primary sources. I was sifting through some first hand accounts from another event for a future blog about an event in the early 1900's that was held outdoors in the bitter cold and in hearing how the competitors kept warm to skate their figures, you could almost feel the chill coming off the page.

Joining in to let you know how much I enjoyed the 1990 Worlds recap, too! It was really engaging and an enjoyable read. :respec:

All the local photos and anecdotes just enhanced it even more. And it also was a great introduction to Chris Bowman's LP here. :eek:

So glad you enjoyed reading it! I have a whole whack of material I didn't even include including some interesting quotes from skaters about their thoughts about the end of figures. One of my favourites came from Oleg Protopopov: "As a discipline, for this sport probably it is a good skill to do the figures. Unfortunately nobody sees this. To spend a lot of money to show figures to just nine people what you can do, I think it is not the best way. If you do eight hours of free skating each day, you will die."
 

Seerek

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The latest Skate Guard blog takes an in-depth look at the stories, skaters and scandals of the only World Championships ever held in Atlantic Canada... The 1990 World Figure Skating Championships in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2016/11/the-1990-world-figure-skating.html

Well done! Worlds must have a big deal at the time for CBS to air the ladies free program live (in the East Coast) on the Saturday evening (they may have also aired live in 1987 in Cincinnati - not sure).

In many ways, 1990 was a watershed year, cause you had the debuts for future World champs Kavarikova/Novotny and Yuka Sato, plus future World medalists Philippe Candelero, Slava Zagorodniuk and Kuchiki/Sand.

It was not known at the time, but 1990 Worlds was also the last year that East and West Germany competed separately. The ISU allowed the combined entries earned in Halifax from both countries in each of the disciplines to be number of berths allocated for the unified Germany at the 1991 Worlds in Munich.
 

SkateGuard

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Well done! Worlds must have a big deal at the time for CBS to air the ladies free program live (in the East Coast) on the Saturday evening (they may have also aired live in 1987 in Cincinnati - not sure).

In many ways, 1990 was a watershed year, cause you had the debuts for future World champs Kavarikova/Novotny and Yuka Sato, plus future World medalists Philippe Candelero, Slava Zagorodniuk and Kuchiki/Sand.

It was not known at the time, but 1990 Worlds was also the last year that East and West Germany competed separately. The ISU allowed the combined entries earned in Halifax from both countries in each of the disciplines to be number of berths allocated for the unified Germany at the 1991 Worlds in Munich.

Can't speak to coverage down in the States in 1987 versus 1990 but definitely agree it was a time of shift definitely. It's interesting how many top skaters stuck it out past Calgary (Gordeeva and Grinkov, Fadeev, Leistner, Landry, Wynne/Druar come to mind) but opted to turn pro prior to Albertville. EXCELLENT point re: Germany and thank you for mentioning it! When the two countries combined, it certainly made for some interesting results at the German Nationals in the years that followed... particularly in the women's event with Witt coming back in 1994 and Szewczenko rising up around the same time.
 

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