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Tinami Amori

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Surely you jest dear. There has NEVER been a balletic Russian ladies single skater. They have either been gymnasts on ice or no-style sloppy truck drivers.

It is not "sour grapes" to make these statements. All we want to see is dynamic,mature artistry set to classical music--not cluttered reductive programs with plastic-faced coaches of which you seem to be so fond of.

-BB
It is very very sour grapes to make these statements, especially when it is out of the blue comments about Russians in the US Ladies topic. It is very obvious that some like you are bitter over the fact that at present US and Canadian ladies can not compete with Russians and Japanese... Better spend your energy on thinking how US/Canada can catch up instead of yapping and finding faults with the Winners.
 

AxelAnnie

Like a small boat on the ocean...
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It is very very sour grapes to make these statements, especially when it is out of the blue comments about Russians in the US Ladies topic. It is very obvious that some like you are bitter over the fact that at present US and Canadian ladies can not compete with Russians and Japanese... Better spend your energy on thinking how US/Canada can catch up instead of yapping and finding faults with the Winners.
I kind of think that why the US can't compete with the Russian ladies has less to do with ballet/non-ballet, with deficient jumping skills. This is from someone who loves a fabulous sweeping spiral, and an elegant layback. But the world moved on with COP, and the Russian ladies adapted and learned to win.
 

kwanatic

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It is very very sour grapes to make these statements, especially when it is out of the blue comments about Russians in the US Ladies topic. It is very obvious that some like you are bitter over the fact that at present US and Canadian ladies can not compete with Russians and Japanese... Better spend your energy on thinking how US/Canada can catch up instead of yapping and finding faults with the Winners.
Speaking for myself personally, my grapes aren't sour. They're sweet and tangy. :p

I'm not really stressing when it comes to the Americans. That's something the USFS needs to figure out, how to produce more competitive skaters. And the Canadians...ever since Kaetlyn Osmond left there has been no need to mention them.

But there's nothing wrong with pointing out the good and bad points of the Russians' domination of the ladies' field. I admire the work they are putting in and marvel at what they are able to do on the ice as well. It's amazing and exciting. However, that doesn't negate the fact that these amazing feats come with a price and that price is the loss of what drew some people to skating in the first place. I don't want to watch a jumping competition; essentially, that's what it's turned into. A quad or 3A lasts for a few seconds...what about the rest of the program? The thing that upsets me is when well-rounded skating, a full performance, is blown away by one or two jumps.

Also, were the scoring done correctly, it might be easier to accept. Not to pick on her, but quite frankly Trusova receiving anything over a 7.50 in PCS is utter bullshit. Too often skaters with higher technical content receive completely unwarranted and ridiculous boosts across their PCS. It's okay for a skater to hit 80+ in TES and be around a 61 or 62 in PCS if that's what they're putting out. It's so unfair for the skater with the beautiful thought-out choreography and emotional performance to be scored less PE/IN/CH than the person who gave a perfunctory stone faced performance devoid of any emotion but managed to land a quad or two. Corridor scoring has become more and more ridiculous over the years to the point it is completely out of control.

Every now and then someone reminds me why I loved figure skating. Mariah's FS at nationals last year comes to mind and more recently Rino Matsuike :love:. For the most part though, I'm just nowhere near as invested as I used to be and a lot of that has to do with the direction skating has gone in over the past 5 or 6 years.
 

Brenda_Bottems

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It is very very sour grapes to make these statements
If you continue to call me "sour grapes" I may resort to calling upon the @homosexuals for backup.

It is very obvious that some like you are bitter over the fact that at present US and Canadian ladies can not compete with Russians and Japanese...
I would rather beautiful lyrical seasoned skaters like Mariah Bell represent my country and place 7th,rather than robotic reductive gymnastics-on-ice placing first and helped by a broken and convoluted scoring system.

Cheers.

-BB
 

Tinami Amori

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If you continue to call me "sour grapes" I may resort to calling upon the @homosexuals for backup.


I would rather beautiful lyrical seasoned skaters like Mariah Bell represent my country and place 7th,rather than robotic reductive gymnastics-on-ice placing first and helped by a broken and convoluted scoring system.

Cheers.

-BB
Yeah, right! The "robotic" Russian without quad and 3A's won JW 2019 from an American with quad and 3A...... :rofl:
 

Sylvia

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Alysa Liu is one of 4 new athletes invited to be a part of Team Toyota (joining Nathan, a member since the last Olympic cycle November 2019, and the two of them are the only figure skaters): https://www.instagram.com/p/CITFPMyggFk/

Related article:

Mariah Bell is on the cover of the December 2020 issue of Skating magazine: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbOYCAHGs6/
More photos from her cover shoot with Jay Adeff:
 
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Frau Muller

From Puerto Rico…With Love! Not LatinX!
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Alysa Liu is one of 4 new athletes invited to be a part of Team Toyota (joining Nathan, a member since the last Olympic cycle November 2019, and the two of them are the only figure skaters): https://www.instagram.com/p/CITFPMyggFk/

Related article:

Mariah Bell is on the cover of the December 2020 issue of Skating magazine: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbOYCAHGs6/
More photos from her cover shoot with Jay Adeff:
And the ridiculous, now-unrealistic, unjustified (post-puberty) hyping of Liu continues!
 

DreamSkates

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Surely you jest dear. There has NEVER been a balletic Russian ladies single skater. They have either been gymnasts on ice or no-style sloppy truck drivers.

It is not "sour grapes" to make these statements. All we want to see is dynamic,mature artistry set to classical music--not cluttered reductive programs with plastic-faced coaches of which you seem to be so fond of.

-BB
Compare Sasha Cohen to any Russian single ladies skater. That is my comparison level.
 

Coco

Rotating while Russian!
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And the ridiculous, now-unrealistic, unjustified (post-puberty) hyping of Liu continues!

I don't think it is necessarily unjustified. As a two time US Champion, she deserves it on that alone. She should grab that dough while she can.

I hope she has good people around helping her deal with expectations, etc. Very smart that her daily coach is someone with a strong ice dance background.
 

edgefairy

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Gracie's interview on Polina's podcast is so interesting, they really get into the deep details of her comeback and speak on the adjustments of her body changes affecting her consistency with training and competing last year. Not your typical cookie cutter answers for this, highly worth listening!

 

Tinami Amori

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Bradie Tennell's article on US Figure Skating Fanzone (it's from Dec 03, but i did not see it here on the last 3 pages, if it has been posted already, pls let me know).
 

UGG

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Polina’s podcast isn’t that good although I only listened to 2 episodes. The interview with Gracie was interesting (because of Gracie’s answers) but the one before called Rewarding Athletes was all over the place and pretty terrible. I felt like she was secretly whining about not getting endorsements when she was 15
 

AxelAnnie

Like a small boat on the ocean...
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Polina’s podcast isn’t that good although I only listened to 2 episodes. The interview with Gracie was interesting (because of Gracie’s answers) but the one before called Rewarding Athletes was all over the place and pretty terrible. I felt like she was secretly whining about not getting endorsements when she was 15
I enjoyed Polina as a skater. But now, when I hear her name, all I can think of is those hideous GWTW curls!
 

VGThuy

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I was never a Sasha Cohen fan but ladies skating these days makes me truly appreciate her posture, line, toe point, and straight back with controlled arms. Of course, her skating back then made me truly appreciate the Japanese skaters she competed against due to their buttery edge quality. Whoever is on top makes you miss someone else unless you’re their uber.
 

Frau Muller

From Puerto Rico…With Love! Not LatinX!
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22,098
I never got a sense of flow from Sasha. Watching her live, she didn’t cover the rink. Always seemed tight and “over-Pilate’ed.” More impressive in still photos. She hit lovely positions...but little freedom of FLOW. She got lucky silver medal at Olympics.
 
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kwanatic

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That look wasn’t great. I always wondered if she had a different program if she could have had a better chance of maintaining her lead. Gracie killed it in the LP so who knows.
With Gracie skating well in the FS, I doubt it. Don't forget that was the year worlds were in Boston. The USFS wanted Gracie as champ and would have settled for Ashley; I seriously doubt Polina was anywhere on that list at all. She had strong consistency a lot of the time but she lacked that star power Gracie and Ashley had. With the media attention and the sport focusing in on the US for worlds, they 100% preferred to have Gracie out front for marketing purposes. So when Gracie knocked her FS out of the park the judges did what they needed to do to make sure she landed in front. On paper Polina probably should have won that year--she was the only one who skated cleanly in both segments. I do remember Polina's FS was particularly dreckful that year:sick:...but even with a better program (and despite having an 8 point lead coming in) I don't think she could have beaten Gracie that night.
 
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