Figure skating's not a sport: it's much more than that - Article

[Aussie Willy]

Hmmmm interesting article from Australian newspaper. The writer is commenting on subjectively judged sports, including figure skating, aerial skiing, half pipe, gymnastics and diving. He is quite respectful about it, but does say that subjective judging is an issue because it is not a time or crossing the line first. How can you quantify perfection? And while figure skating fans get their tits in a knot over the detail, for most people outside of it, that is the perception that at the end of the day most people find interesting but don't really think it is sport.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/fig...it-s-much-more-than-that-20180223-p4z1gj.html

Yep I opening up a can of worms here for the usual debates but thought it was worth posting.

 

[misskarne]

This is interesting, because this is one of the few articles of this type that doesn't just narrowly attack skating. The author also points out that the same can be said for other sports that don't face this sort of attack regularly: aerials, half-pipe, slopestyle.

 

[Foolhardy Ham Lint]

Debating skating's worth as a sport will continue until the end of time.

For me, the best summary of its difficulty in a context more people would understand, came from Australia's own Belinda Coulthard Trussell Noonan. Thirty years ago, she compared performing a four minute ladies' long program to playing Australian rules football for 45 minutes, non - stop.

My guess is that given skating's enormous technical advances since then, it would be about 90 minutes of Aussie Rules now.

Too bad 'Top Jump' still isn't around at the ISU Championship level. That was a fun event while it lasted.

 

[Foolhardy Ham Lint]

I'd like to think athletes like Kieran Perkins and Cathy Freeman were some of the most elegant to watch.

It'd be interesting to see how different swimming and running would be viewed if a judged aesthetic component were added to both sports.