The Skating Lesson

Wyliefan

Ubering juniors against my will
Messages
44,090
I wonder if we should move the topic to the Russian thread. It's not really about TSL anymore.
 

Karen-W

How long do we have to wait for GP assignments?
Messages
36,388
I guess Diana announced (according to TSL) that she & Gleb will not be at the Russian test skates:

Here is the link to Diana's IG story - https://instagram.com/stories/di__d...ource=ig_story_item_share&igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

IG translation says they haven't been able to complete the necessary paperwork for Gleb to legally leave and return to the US, which makes sense since they did get married less than 6 months ago.
 

tony

Throwing the (rule)book at them
Messages
17,697
I fully expect at some point the announcement of them skating for the US, granted everything else falls into place. I shared with several members of this board what I had heard from a long-time friend concerning a conversation they had at Miami Airport with Tutberidze (that they will skate for the US-- there's no reason to question said source and there was no language barrier issue), and just a few hours later, they had also shared the story with Dave/TSL. Seeing how Tutberdize went after Dave, I'm glad I wasn't the one who broke the news :lol:

So all of these other things happening are just convenient 'oops' until things are either situated or completely finalized.
 

tony

Throwing the (rule)book at them
Messages
17,697
tony, you so full of shit.
You have no conscience, no honor.
You don’t respect others, because haven’t achieved anything yourself.
Your statements humiliate the people around you.
Shame on you.
Thank you. :lol: I mean, Dave probably did deserve it for many of the other things he's done, but he was relaying a message that came straight out of her mouth in this case. And if she's going to talk about it openly, I'm not really sure what she expected.
 

Frau Muller

From Puerto Rico…With Love! Not LatinX!
Messages
22,159


IG translation says they haven't been able to complete the necessary paperwork for Gleb to legally leave and return to the US, which makes sense since they did get married less than 6 months ago.

I can vouch for this. It’s very difficult for a Permanent Residency applicant to be granted “parole” to leave the US during the 2 years or so while awaiting a decision on granting the Perm Residency/Green Card. After our wedding, DH (Russian) couldn’t return home to see family for a little over 2 years until he had his interview and a decision was made.
 

On My Own

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,066
Thank you. :lol: I mean, Dave probably did deserve it for many of the other things he's done, but he was relaying a message that came straight out of her mouth in this case. And if she's going to talk about it openly, I'm not really sure what she expected.
Well tbh I think a lot of the loudmouths from US Figure skating deserve it, I'd shout it at all the American commentators during the Olympics lol. I enjoyed Eteri saying it, even though she's a terrible person herself. I think she expected him to suddenly stop being gossipy for a second or two, for some reason.
 

Karen-W

How long do we have to wait for GP assignments?
Messages
36,388
Well tbh I think a lot of the loudmouths from US Figure skating deserve it, I'd shout it at all the American commentators during the Olympics lol. I enjoyed Eteri saying it, even though she's a terrible person herself. I think she expected him to suddenly stop being gossipy for a second or two, for some reason.
Well, no, I don't think she expected the person who talked to her at the Miami airport to share it with others in the skating world, and certainly not Dave Lease. I don't know who DL/tony's shared source is, but, clearly, that person didn't think the conversation with Eteri was confidential at the time. At least, not until it was widely broadcast to the skating world. And, let's be real here, had tony shared the info here, DL would have come across it and started making calls/sending texts to get someone to corroborate the info, and he still would have reported it on TSL.
 

Rukia

A Southern, hot-blooded temperamental individual
Messages
21,759
I fully expect at some point the announcement of them skating for the US, granted everything else falls into place. I shared with several members of this board what I had heard from a long-time friend concerning a conversation they had at Miami Airport with Tutberidze (that they will skate for the US-- there's no reason to question said source and there was no language barrier issue), and just a few hours later, they had also shared the story with Dave/TSL. Seeing how Tutberdize went after Dave, I'm glad I wasn't the one who broke the news :lol:

So all of these other things happening are just convenient 'oops' until things are either situated or completely finalized.
I can't believe you missed out on getting an epic Eteri diss-post. For shame.
 

On My Own

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,066
Well, no, I don't think she expected the person who talked to her at the Miami airport to share it with others in the skating world, and certainly not Dave Lease. I don't know who DL/tony's shared source is, but, clearly, that person didn't think the conversation with Eteri was confidential at the time. At least, not until it was widely broadcast to the skating world.
I think it's just too big of a story to not make its way out of someone's mouth. But I don't really see why she'd bash Lease if she knew who the source was? Why not just attack that person then? To me, it definitely looked like she hadn't expected Lease to blurt it out at the time, even if she didn't mind it being spread within the USFS network of insiders. Anyway, maybe it's good that I don't know the inner workings of this woman's mind.
 

Rukia

A Southern, hot-blooded temperamental individual
Messages
21,759
I think it's just too big of a story to not make its way out of someone's mouth. But I don't really see why she'd bash Lease if she knew who the source was? Why not just attack that person then? To me, it definitely looked like she hadn't expected Lease to blurt it out at the time, even if she didn't mind it being spread within the USFS network of insiders. Anyway, maybe it's good that I don't know the inner workings of this woman's mind.
To be fair to Eteri (a phrase I don't ever wish to say again), I'd take a chance to bash dl if handed it on a platter 🤷‍♀️
 

Sylvia

TBD
Messages
80,354
Google translation:
Figure skater Diane Davis has revealed that she and her ice dancing partner Gleb Smolkin will not compete in the US Challenge Cup.
On Monday, American journalist Dave Leese reported that Davis and Smolkin have become representatives of the US Figure Skating Association and will take part in the selection for the national team. Later, the Director General of the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) Alexander Kogan called this information nonsense, recalling that Davis and Smolkin are members of the Russian national team. Davis later announced that they would not take part in the test skates of the Russian team, which will be held on September 24-25 in Moscow. Both skaters are in the USA.
The US Challenge Cup will take place from 22 to 25 September.
...
* The activities of Meta** (social networks Facebook* and Instagram) are banned in Russia as extremist.

"Another confusion in the minds and hearts of Russian fans was introduced by American insider David Leese."
Machine translated excerpts from Boris Khodorovsky's opinion column:
To speculate about the possible transition of the Davis/Smolkin duo to the US team based on their participation in the Challenge Cup is simply a manifestation of incompetence. The rules for transferring from one federation to another are clearly spelled out by the ISU, as well as the time frame when such a transfer can be made. Unlike Artur Dmitriev, Jr., who did not play for the Russian national team for many years before his debut at the last US championship, Diana and Gleb represented our country at the Beijing Olympics.
It is clear that the dancers did not seek to overcome all the difficulties with logistics in order to be attacked by reporters in Moscow.
However, Russian dancers will not perform at the Challenge Cup, as Davis informed. It seems that the negative background created by the American insider has affected. But is it worth paying such attention to the information coming from him? And even more so to draw some far-reaching conclusions.

[Disclaimer posted at the end:] The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.
I wonder if we should move the topic ... It's not really about TSL anymore.
On the contrary! ;)

ETA: I didn't correct the typo "Leese" above because that's how Лиз comes out in the Google translation ;) (I've also seen it transliterated as "Liz").
 
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clairecloutier

Well-Known Member
Messages
14,559
To speculate about the possible transition of the Davis/Smolkin duo to the US team based on their participation in the Challenge Cup is simply a manifestation of incompetence.

:rofl::rofl:

Khodorovsky's response manages to be both negative yet complimentary ["David Lease, the American insider"]. :lol:
 

mtnskater

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,208
Most of the time I feel like the Skating Lesson is just a waste of time because of the gossipy, super biased approach to the sport. When I do listen I have it on in the background when I’m getting ready or cleaning house, etc.

What I mostly find is TSL is just horrible to the U.S. skaters who seem to be the skaters they most dislike. Last week they trashed Isabeau Levito endlessly saying her skating had no merit whatsoever except for pretty positions. And she will lose it all as she grows, even though she grew three inches recently and still has her jumps. TSL acts like U.S. ladies have no one when we have the current reigning World Junior champion and World Junior bronze medalists moving up to senior, which I for one am quite excited about following. They used to trash Alysa Liu endlessly and said she grew too big for the sport and her dad had the wrong egg donor. You would never think she was a world bronze medalist hearing them talk.

Then this week when all the skating news internationally was all about Ilia Malinin’s quad axel, TSL even used his picture and name as the lead in for the episode, and then completely forgot to even mention it until they were about to sign off 1.5 hours later. This after every major news source reported on Ilia’s achievement and it was even in the trending news stories in Apple news. Saw a big article in The Guardian and other world wide news sources. TSL dissed Ilia saying he has nothing going for him except the quad axel :rolleyes: I remember they used to do the same thing when it was Nathan versus Yuzu in the last quad leading up to the Olympics. TSL always predicted that Yuzu would win….and yet he never did, even down to the Olympics predictions last February. I never heard them give Nathan his due as one of the greatest skaters of all time in his own right. It was always….this time Yuzu will win. I like to hear different view points if they are respectful of others abilities but the way they trash great skaters they don’t care for is pretty sad.

Also TSL prefers to draw a moral equivalency to Russia and the U.S. in regards to the war in Ukraine, which I find extremely troubling. Probably because Dave likes getting attention in the Russian media so why offend them? So all in all it’s peace out for me and TSL. I’m really enjoying Polina Edmunds, This Week in Skating, Santee on Skates and some other skating podcasts much more these days.
 

Seerek

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,782
Yes, TSL is pretty "anchored" when it comes to opinions of skaters once they appear on their radar as juniors.

If they didn't like them then, they won't like them now, and will never like them in the future.

Pretty rough listening if you fall on the "wrong side" of fandom.
 
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mtnskater

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,208
Yes, TSL is pretty "anchored" when it comes to opinions of skaters once they appear on their radar as juniors.
Pretty strange to me because my opinions of skaters change as they evolve too. Some promising juniors don’t pan out and some you never thought would go anywhere blossom later. Makes being a fan of the sport fun to follow changes and growth. Michelle Kwan was way down in her initial junior events. I remember Javier Fernandez before he got the right coaching team. OTOH I thought Caroline Zhang, Adam Rippon and Michael Brezina would rule the world when they were juniors. So many examples. 🤷‍♀️
 

Foolhardy Ham Lint

Well-Known Member
Messages
6,279
Well, no, I don't think she expected the person who talked to her at the Miami airport to share it with others in the skating world, and certainly not Dave Lease. I don't know who DL/tony's shared source is, but, clearly, that person didn't think the conversation with Eteri was confidential at the time. At least, not until it was widely broadcast to the skating world. And, let's be real here, had tony shared the info here, DL would have come across it and started making calls/sending texts to get someone to corroborate the info, and he still would have reported it on TSL.
Confidentiality, be damned!

For some reason I have a mental image similar to the famous 'coming out' episode on Ellen where DeGeneres announced that she was gay over the public address at LAX.

 

On My Own

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,066
I don't like TSL, but to be honest, I have disliked pretty much all American skating commentary since Dick and Peggy stopped. I find it irritating, extremely biased, and composed of grating personalities. I did like Charlie and Tanith, but funnily they seem to care less about doing commentary, maybe because it's so overdramatic? The entire Olympic commentary from Tara and Johnny was obnoxious, and Ashley Wagner has to be the worst commentator I've ever listened to, not just in sports and not just in English (and I didn't even actively seek for any of it, and I'm not living in the US so it wasn't the first option available to me). I'd like them to cultivate some modicum of empathy and likeability, but it seems unlikely, and it only motivates me to ignore the twitter and youtube accounts that may post clips of what these people are saying.

I don't mind differing opinions, and don't think commentators "should" be unbiased - but these people are abhorrent and have turned obnoxious stan twitter bitchiness into commentary, and it's gross.
 
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