Recent content by barbk

I had a skull fracture & concussion as a pre-teen while skating. I was not OK mentally or balance-wise for months, and I wasn't trying to get back on the ice. I have a bunch of students who have earned concussions during sports, and their recoveries are usually not swift either. Our state has a...

Yes, but...in past Olypics, the teams had to line up long before the ceremony began. Like, hours before.

Isn't Davis going to do the Team event? How's that going to work?

Gwendal Peizerat was walking right ahead of me leaving the hotel, and geez was he ever tiny despite skating very big. I ended up sharing an elevator for a few floors with Kwan, her dad, and two security folks. She was just as tiffed off the ice as on. I just wished her good luck. I forgot about...

That was a wild and wooly worlds. Tonia Kwiatkowski replaced Nikodinov and finished a very respectable 6th. Anna Rechnio had a fantastic SP. Loved, loved, loved it. Shizuka Arakawa finished in 22nd in her first trip to Worlds, just above Lucinda Ruh who went from 10th in the short to 24th in the...

The biggest and most helpful change would be if they got serious about tech to determine rotation/edges. The variances between technical teams is Grand Canyon-like.

In past years, skater were free to practice elsewhere during the Olympics...Tara did, Sarah Hughes did, and I'm pretty sure there were a lot of others.

Leaving jumps aside, footwork sequences have become slow and boring...and they go on for a LONG time. I'm also confused about why anyone thought slumping/skidding on the ice as a spin ends was a good idea. I'd also get rid of any credit boost for a three jump combo/sequce vs. a two jump...

I'm confused (nothing new). Why does France sending them to pairs open up 2 slots for Poland?

She is all kinds of fabulous.

The Trying Triad?

Looking at 4CC entries, I realized that Hong Kong has its own entries. Why? I know they are a special administrative region...but Aosta (Italy), Quebec, and Gibraltar all have seemingly similar degrees of idependence and yet don't get separate athlete quotas.

I just watched the segment of Liza Tuktamysheva @Ka3sha posted (and @Sylvia reposted)-- I'm glad she had such a beautiful opportunity. She has been my favorite Russian female skater for more than a dozen years. (Also, interesting and cool to hear Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah sung in Russian.)...

And some of the proposals (Two free programs!, 3 GP events for some skaters!) were tried previously...with issues. I'd be very curious about skater reactions to the notion of off-ice warmup instead of on-ice warmup. They already do off-ice warmup...but getting a sense of how the ice is NOW...

That was a gorgeous costume, but she was stunning in almost everything she wore for skating aside from that chartreuse and purple outfit when she won nationals. I think she was a lot like Kira Korpi or Madison Chock--women who could wear a bedsheet and make it look fabulous.