Russian Figure Skater tests positive for drugs - delays ceremony for team medals

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canbelto said:
Back in the day I remember nylons for women coming in three shades: "Suntan" (a hideous orange color), "nude" (usually a way too light for most skin tones color), and black. It wasn't a good world for women whose skin tones weren't those colors. I imagine it was even worse with skating tights.

Thankfully nylon colors have gotten much better.
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They also came in white because the nurses needed to wear those as part of their uniform.

Yes….total thread drift. LOL!
 
Coco said:
Shout out to my mom, who from our couch in the late 80s, said "you know, some people would call that comment racist," when Dick Button said Debi Thomas had "street smart musicality."
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I’m not old enough to remember that one, but I am eagerly looking forward to the explanations of why Debi Thomas never actually experienced racism in her career because they let her win all those medals.

(What’s a Valieva?)
 
barbk said:
My memory is that many of the French skaters (except for the ice dancers) had some really awful skating skills & some fabulous artistic qualities. Phillipe Candeloro? Laurent Tobel? Not great in the skating skills sense, but incredible showmen. Tobel was regularly invited to perform at exhibitions even when he did not finish highly in the competition. Laetitia Hubert and Marie-Pierre Leray were often not great to watch. Surya Bonaly had some fantastic jumps but visibly poorer skating skills than her leading contemporaries (Chen Lu, Yuka Sato, Michelle Kwan, Nicole Bobek). Maybe it was just that it was a lot more visible in the arena rather than on TV? Like Candeloro and Tobel, she was an amazing exhibition skater.

I do remember her getting rousing receptions at COI.
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I can't imagine that, though. Perhaps pre-1992? Surya seeming like she had visibly poorer skating skills than her competitors in an arena after that seems like a huge stretch. Seeing her live, she had presence galore and excellent power, she by no means looked out of place in that zoomed-out experience - in fact I think she came across better than on tv, honestly.

And remember we are talking 1990s choreographic difficulty - Yuka Sato's footwork at the end of her 1994 long program was just about the footwork in that pre-Kwan era that would hold up now. I am with millyskates that after a certain point that argument about her skating skills just doesn't hold.

ETA: #millyskate I appreciate your synthesis of insights into Surya here so, so much :)
 
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Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she? (February 23, 2022) by Phil Hersh:
www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com

Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she? — Globetrotting by Philip Hersh

As of now, Kamila Valieva is eligible to compete at the World Figure Skating Championships in late March. The Court of Arbitration for Sport decision that allowed Valieva to compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics despite her ongoing doping case remains in force for all events, according to Travis Ty
www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com
 
Sylvia said:
Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she? (February 23, 2022) by Phil Hersh:
www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com

Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she? — Globetrotting by Philip Hersh

As of now, Kamila Valieva is eligible to compete at the World Figure Skating Championships in late March. The Court of Arbitration for Sport decision that allowed Valieva to compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics despite her ongoing doping case remains in force for all events, according to Travis Ty
www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com
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I guess Eteri wants to earn that cash. I would rather see Tuk.
 
soogar said:
I guess Eteri wants to earn that cash. I would rather see Tuk.
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That article gives no indication on whether or not the Russian Fed and Eteri plan to send her. It just states that she is eligible to compete, which we knew already.

That being said, I would far rather see Tuktamysheva instead as well, especially to avoid another circus that is just detrimental to all the other competitors.
 
Coco said:
Shout out to my mom, who from our couch in the late 80s, said "you know, some people would call that comment racist," when Dick Button said Debi Thomas had "street smart musicality."
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I remember Button saying that Debi has “a street-smart personality”…during Debi’s SP in Calgary 1988! I took it as ignorance or well-meaning idiocy…not malicious racism.
 
Stephanie said:
That article gives no indication on whether or not the Russian Fed and Eteri plan to send her. It just states that she is eligible to compete, which we knew already.

That being said, I would far rather see Tuktamysheva instead as well, especially to avoid another circus that is just detrimental to all the other competitors.
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Perhaps the Russian fed will use the early-March Russian Cup Invitational event as a skate-off? They’ll want to see if Valieva’s head is back on and if Tuk is ready.
 
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Frau Muller said:
I remember Button saying that Debi has “a street-smart personality”…during Debi’s SP in Calgary 1988! I took it as ignorance or well-meaning idiocy…not malicious racism.
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Skating is a very genteel and polite sport, so the racism they do in public isn’t usually the kind people are most likely to identify as “malicious.” Doesn’t mean it’s not racism, and doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.
 
From @manleywoman interview with Rohene Ward: https://manleywoman.com/episode-67-rohene-ward-part-1/

I was a junior at the age of 13 so I was giving interviews and things, and my coach was like, uh, you have to watch the way you speak, you can’t talk like this, you can’t talk like that. And that’s when I finally recognized, well, I was black, and in a sport that was predominantly white. And there was something wrong – well, not wrong, but there was just something not, you know, that I wasn’t exposed to....Because I wasn’t just a little kid anymore, it was, like, well, he’s black. As a black male, it’s interesting, but that’s what was being said to my coach. Like, you’re staying in the same hotel room as him? He’s a 15 year old black male....We were kicked out of skating clubs because of me and my behavior, or my “lack of” discipline and too much talent. Like, I walked around with smiles on my face all day, and I could be on the ice and have fun and chit-chat and still get my job done, and to them, they thought that I was undisciplined and didn’t work because I did opposites. Well, my coach told me to do, and I’m glad she did. They thought I was goofing off, but she knew what she was doing. And she tried to keep those things away, but it’s hard to keep those things away when you’re compared to OJ Simpson. It’s like, those are the kinds of things I didn’t realize at that age, but when I was 15 it was constant. [snaps fingers] Constant.
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millyskate said:
But what mum wouldn't when 80% of what they were saying was absolute nonsense and claiming your beautiful daughter didn't meet their standards of elegance.
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A mum who had a clue about figure skating would have been able to see this for herself from a mile away. The only excuse for a mum who had a clue about figure skating and dismissed it was that she had blinders on, which made her useless in a fundamental way.
 
Karen-W said:
Good lord... way to send a huge red flag warning to WADA, the IOC, and the ISU there, you idiot.
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Well, Bobrova served a doping suspension b/c of meldonium. Since this mess started, I assumed Zhulin, like Eteri, found a 'substitute' for meldonium for his skaters. He/his doctor is just smarter about timing doses. I wonder if the full truth will ever come out, a la Rodchenkov. Or East Germany.

:mad:
 
Coco said:
Shout out to my mom, who from our couch in the late 80s, said "you know, some people would call that comment racist," when Dick Button said Debi Thomas had "street smart musicality."
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That's before my time but I'm surprised Dick Button would say that. I think we need another word besides racist though. I think racist means when someone does something on purpose. John Wayne was a horrible racist. Many times though people just don't know any better, if you point something out to them they will probably feel bad and maybe change how they think or act in future.
 
KaoriFan said:
That's before my time but I'm surprised Dick Button would say that. I think we need another word besides racist though. I think racist means when someone does something on purpose. John Wayne was a horrible racist. Many times though people just don't know any better, if you point something out to them they will probably feel bad and maybe change how they think or act in future.
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Unconscious racism is still racism. Microaggressions are harmful.

But, I agree that there are more productive and less productive ways to address such racism. Being confrontational, judgmental, and accusatory probably is not the most productive way. I've been to multiple unconscious bias trainings and I think you can lead people to see their racism and address it without causing the person to immediately shut down. Instead, they will engage, learn, and better themselves and their words and conduct.

I suspect that lots of people, including not just Dick, didn't even see Dick's racism.
 
Button said the 'streetsmart musicality' at 1988 Nationals, not the Olympics. It was during Thomas' Carmen program and she was skating wonderfully. Button always was a big supporter of Thomas, with that said, that doesn't mean that what he said wasn't racist. However, I remember watching it live when he said it and I honestly never thought about it being racist (doesn't mean it wasn't), I just thought it was the gayest, campiest thing I had ever heard (I say that as a gay man and former skater) and thought it was hilarious. My friends and I for years after would say it back and forth to each other when talking about skating because it was so camp. Actually one of my friends texted me last week while watching the FD and quoted that line.
 
KaoriFan said:
That's before my time but I'm surprised Dick Button would say that. I think we need another word besides racist though. I think racist means when someone does something on purpose. John Wayne was a horrible racist. Many times though people just don't know any better, if you point something out to them they will probably feel bad and maybe change how they think or act in future.
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I think a better word is "clueless" or "insensitive." I agree, it's different from the John Wayne type of racism.

A good example of this Dick Button type of cluelessness is Jimmy Stewart who tells a story about the time he said something really, really stupid:

 
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