U.S. Men in 2018 - articles & latest news

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If you won Juvenile at Junior Nationals, you are still a national champion. However, Nathan never won Juvenile or Intermediate - he was 10th and 3rd in Juvenile and 2nd in Intermediate.

I hate silly inaccuracies like that.
Nathan is a two time novice and junior champion, which means he's actually a 6 time champion. I suppose they are only including his senior and junior titles.
 
... what I find funny about the commercial is that it shows Nathan (or possibly a body double??) falling a bunch of times on easy stuff, like a double lutz and a flying spin. I guess they wanted to show how tough skating is, but I think it is very unlikely that Nathan's falling on such easy things in practice...

It wasn't a real training session with the lighting set up like that. :) It seems to me that Nathan was asked to fall on something on purpose as part of filming the segment. Obviously then he's not going to choose a quad to fall on and hurt himself, if indeed it was Nathan falling and not a body double. Under the circumstances, falling on a double and a camel spin are probably safer options.

Only diehard fs fans pick up on the unrealistic details, which in this case don't really make much difference. The commercial was just trying to get across the idea of striving hard, failing, continuing to get back up and put in the hard work, and eventually landing macho quads and breaking records.

Jason was perfection but honestly I was tired of the same old same old long program genre from him. Riverdance was so exciting but he never really stepped out of his comfort zone for the long program again.

Check Jason's quotes. He's been 'stepping out of his comfort zone' for several years now, trying to chase down the almighty quad. Like Jason said, he decided to simply be himself at 4CCs, and thus he went back to a recent program he loves and has had success with.
 
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He's done the 3Z-1L-3S from the start of his first senior season. He did a 3F-1L-3S a handful of times as a junior, but it hasn't made an appearance, at least as far as planned content.

He probably could gain more points by tacking on combos on both 3As.

But he would be money ahead, IMO, to ease up on the choreo in the way that would make the quad consistent. Part of his issue this season is that he try to take on two pretty hard programs AND integrate a quad. There's a happy medium between crossovers and jumps and choreographed packed programs.

Yeah I know he's done it always, but I meant that that was the first occasion it was his final jump - it used to be earlier in the programme probably because it's a big combo, but I think they realised after that event that he was capable of doing it at the very end ;)
 
Here is an astonishing New York Times Magazine article by Patricia Lockwood about Jason and American men's figure skating.

Figure skating has long been an essentially romantic sport, which more than most others asks you to be in full physical sympathy with the performer — like dance, it tells a story that requires you to follow along. This sympathy is more difficult to achieve now, for one simple reason: A program that contains multiple quads is so demanding that falls are highly probable, and they rupture the sense of continuity the audience experiences in a clean skate. When the skater tumbles down, you tumble with him. Much current writing about male figure skating agonizes about its future: Is the quad good for skating? What happens to the sport when there’s no more room in it for idiosyncratic artists like Brown?
 
Ashtonishing indeed. Not the kind of piece about skating I'd expect to encounter in NYT. Thanks for sharing!
the deranged unicorn gallopings of Michael Flatley
Okay, that was a very inspired turn of phrase! :D
I became obsessed with “Yuri!!! On Ice,”
Ah, of course. Should've guessed. :shuffle:
“No, I don’t like this,” my husband announced as Chen swept over the ice like Darth Vader. “I don’t want tricks. I want a guy wearing a see-through leotard who’s pretending to be a swan.”
LOL (and I mean I'm literally laughing out loud here) :biggrinbo


Speaking of LOLs and astonishing portraits... This story (involving Grant) from Tarah Kayne's twitter made my day :rofl:
Grant & I got our caricatures drawn during the 4CC banquet. We wanted to be drawn as a witch/wizard from Harry Potter BUT there was a language barrier between us & the artist. So we showed him a photo from the film & mimed the swish & flick wand movement..
We did this movement with a loud magical sound effect at the end, which was...lost in translation. We ended up with an uncomfortable, sexualized portrait and can only assume the artist saw “swish and flick” and thought “clearly that’s a whip”.
 
Here is an astonishing New York Times Magazine article by Patricia Lockwood about Jason and American men's figure skating.

Just saw that myself on NYT and rushed here to see if it's been posted. Wow, the writer is a total Jason Brown uber! I admire her courage in writing so unapologetically adoringly of Jason (easily my all-time favorite male skater). Like her, I'm also incredibly sad that he won't be skating at the Olympics. His beautiful skates at 4CC were so amazing, but also so bittersweet. If only, if only...

But at least he has vowed to skate on, so I look forward to more incredible programs from him. "Hamilton" really grew on me this year! I had grave misgivings the first time I saw it in a grainy video at a club competition. By now I really look forward to it when he is about to skate it. But I think we just saw the last of both Hamilton and The Piano, didn't we? No WTT this year, I assume...
 
Just saw that myself on NYT and rushed here to see if it's been posted. Wow, the writer is a total Jason Brown uber! I admire her courage in writing so unapologetically adoringly of Jason (easily my all-time favorite male skater). Like her, I'm also incredibly sad that he won't be skating at the Olympics. His beautiful skates at 4CC were so amazing, but also so bittersweet. If only, if only...

But at least he has vowed to skate on, so I look forward to more incredible programs from him. "Hamilton" really grew on me this year! I had grave misgivings the first time I saw it in a grainy video at a club competition. By now I really look forward to it when he is about to skate it. But I think we just saw the last of both Hamilton and The Piano, didn't we? No WTT this year, I assume...

Well, he’s the first alternate for both the Olympics and Worlds, so although it’s unlikely, there’s a tiny chance he’ll compete again this season.

As to Hamilton, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him perform the show version in Stars on Ice.
 
The NYTimes article is great. I love how it starts about Jason, flows into talking about how it feels to watch a great skate, talks about the Yuri!! anime program and then moves to a general conversation about the men's sport today and our team. She structured it very very well!

In the 2012 movie "Trouble with the Curve", Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams talk about the "Pure Sound" in baseball - it actually takes the movie to another level during the final half an hour (there's some basic story problems, but it's worth watching even if you don't like baseball). Patricia Lockwood's beautiful words on skating brush up against that same feeling. Some of the nicest prose I've seen in a while.
 
Nah, I think Nathan Chen is really cool under pressure. He's been that way his entire career. It's been the physical injury hurdles, bone-growth issues as an adolescent, boot issues more recently and other outside factors that have been the biggest hurdles he's had to overcome. He's quite strong mentally and he has a laid-back, no-nonsense personality. Not much seems to faze him. He's focused on his goals and he and Raf seem to be communicating better than when they had a rough patch a couple of years ago.

I agree he is strong mentally. I am not dissing him in anyway. Just that being at your very first worlds as the favorite to win, would be a nearly impossible situation for anyone. I am sure it impacted him somewhat, no matter how tough he is. He has much more experience now.
 
I agree he is strong mentally. I am not dissing him in anyway. Just that being at your very first worlds as the favorite to win, would be a nearly impossible situation for anyone. I am sure it impacted him somewhat, no matter how tough he is. He has much more experience now.

Nathan was one of the top favorites to win Worlds 2017. No one was dissing Hanyu and Javi that dismissively and neither Shoma nor Boyang Jin, nor Patrick at that point either. And sure there was all the buzz about Nathan having landed 5 quads at Nationals and again at 4CCs to win in a close battle against Yuzuru. I'm sure Nathan was experiencing a lot of welcome excitement and nervous energy, without a doubt. But debuting at senior Worlds is something Nathan had been striving for his entire career, so it was likely a positive and energetic feeling of being on the path of attaining his long-held goals. Plus, he'd been beating guys older than himself for his entire career. If there was any negative anxiety Nathan was feeling in Finland, it was most likely about the uncertainty surrounding his ability to be able to rely on his equipment: namely his boots.

I don't think you were dissing Nathan at all with your comments. That's a fair view on your part. I just happen to disagree with you. Some athletes are able to manage their nerves better than other athletes. And some athletes' personalities are also better equipped to handle the hoopla that comes with success, than the personalities of other athletes. Every person is unique unto themselves. And IMO, Nathan is a different breed of human animal/ sportsperson.

For example, knowing that he couldn't really rely on his boots, Nathan still went out there in his Worlds debut no less, and he tried his best, having put together a last-minute strategy of how he might be able to compensate with unsteady boots. I don't think that some athletes would have been able to muster the courage to even have gone out there for fear of embarrassing themselves in boots that were at that point extremely unreliable and unpredictable. Not only did Nathan go out there, he didn't worry about the prospect of falling, nor the reality of falling. He simply got back up and went full guns blazing for his strategy of trying for six quads! Are you kidding me?! Who else does that? No one else yet. The point I'm trying to make, and Nathan already demonstrated is: "I don't give up. No matter what happens." Nathan wasn't worried about butterflies, nor about unsturdy freakin' boots. He was after competing his best, doing his business, making it as hard as possible for his competitors, while staying fully focused on what was within his own power. Many competitors would have simply downgraded, hesitated and faltered on every jump, or flinched and not tried even two quads, let alone a sixth after falling on some jumps because of those dang boots.

So once again nope, I do not think 2017 Worlds for Nathan Chen was about him being nervous to compete, or lacking experience. Nathan soaks up experience and the lessons he learns from his experiences like a sponge. As a consistent champion at every level from novice to senior, Nathan is more experienced and steady in his mindset than most skaters!

Sure Nathan has another year of competitive battles under his belt, but that's not why he's generally calm, steady and fearless. He's always been fearless and determined. If you look at his young career, his main setbacks have been related to dealing with injuries involving bone growth problems during his adolescence. Again, I think he's learned how to control his nerves, because he's clear about what he wants to achieve and he's always been confident in his abilities. Add to that Nathan being trained by one of the best coaches and technicians in the world, coupled with Nathan's own strong competitive personality and love of jumping -- Whoa! I mean I think going forward to the Olympics (the ultimate competition of all) it will be for Nathan more a matter of logistics, strategy and the ubiquitous outside factors that are those uncontrollable aspects everyone has to deal with. Those athletes who are able to control everything within their control (such as their nerves) are usually ahead of the game.
 
Here is an astonishing New York Times Magazine article by Patricia Lockwood about Jason and American men's figure skating.

Figure skating has long been an essentially romantic sport, which more than most others asks you to be in full physical sympathy with the performer — like dance, it tells a story that requires you to follow along. This sympathy is more difficult to achieve now, for one simple reason: A program that contains multiple quads is so demanding that falls are highly probable, and they rupture the sense of continuity the audience experiences in a clean skate. When the skater tumbles down, you tumble with him. Much current writing about male figure skating agonizes about its future: Is the quad good for skating? What happens to the sport when there’s no more room in it for idiosyncratic artists like Brown?

Wow, thanks for sharing. This is very thoughtfully and beautifully written by obviously a fan of skating. But she also seems like a young fan. I love so many of her passages, as well as her references and parallels to Lin-Manuel and his inspired, incredible and unexpected Hamilton creation. I am going to have to revisit this piece and soak it up in all of its intricacies and evocatively complex references to our sport.
"The night of the short program found me in a state of hyperventilation, on the verge of vomiting up my own heart. Watching sports in real time has always been torturous to me, because on some fundamental level I believe that if I don’t hope hard enough, the athlete will never get off the ground. This is a tremendous responsibility, and I apologize to all the athletes I have let down."

Meanwhile, LOL, what does she mean by: "The audience begins to clap as well as its overwhelming Caucasity will allow." :lol: ;)

And this descriptive passage is just cool and spot-on -- But there are a number of illuminating and expressive passages:
"[Nathan Chen] is interesting to watch not just because he is a once-in-a-generation athlete, but because he skates as if he is totally alone, the way Richard Burton acted. On Jan. 6, [Nathan] finished nearly 41 points above the amnesia-inducing Ross Miner, who skated stunningly to a Queen medley to take second place. Vincent Zhou, a 17-year-old up-and-comer who juxtaposes personal sweetness with quads like needles, finished third."

I love the 'Richard Burton acting alone' comparison to Nathan and his single-minded focus. I suppose Lockwood means with her 'amnesia-inducing' descriptor that watching Ross skate at his best, makes us forget everything except enjoying his performance. And that 'personal sweetness' phrasing is a very apt description of Vincent's personality and his current skating style. His long limbs may give the impression of 'quads like needles,' but only the first amazing quad-lutz triple in his fp was precision-like and beautiful in its execution. The under-rotated ones Vincent had trouble threading seamlessly.

I really would love to see more writing on figure skating and its current scene and unending drama from Patricia Lockwood. I looked her up to find out more about her background and her writing:
https://luxuryactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/Patricia-Lockwood-Priestdaddy.jpg
As I suspected, Lockwood is young, and obviously very talented.
https://luxuryactivist.com/books/summer-reading-the-top-5-books-to-read-during-your-holidays/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31920820-priestdaddy
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317744/priestdaddy-by-patricia-lockwood/9781594633737/

Priest Daddy, is Lockwood's memoir of growing up with a weird father in the midwest. She's also written two well-praised books of poetry. She definitely comes across as a poet in the NYT piece on Jason Brown. It would be cool to see Lockwood write a book of poetry on the subject of figure skating altogether. :)
 
It means she's a racist, engaging in stereotypes that demean everyone.

Hmmm, maybe lighten up and read some of her poetry first, as well as her memoir before labeling her. :p The C word is just as made-up as the N word in referring to human beings, but we maybe aren't used to the C word being mocked in lighthearted contexts. ;)
 
This article captures so much of why it was Jason who brought this Toller fangirl, and so many of my contemporaries, back to watching skating. The ending, of course it's poetic, but it is sooo true......

".... Jason Brown goes, slicing brightly through a parallel universe where the quad doesn’t hold sway and everyone is standing, stamping, breathing white clouds with him, just wishing that it might go on. It is not possible to exist in this feeling all the time. This is not one of our capabilities — but look, the body says, lifting up into its improbable upper air, look, I’m doing it. Here is my world, for just one minute. It’s this way, and you’re living in it."
 
Sounds like she's calling the audience stiff white people. Which, to be fair, is a lot of skating audiences. *clutches pearls*

I found the article interesting but pompous.

Well, she’s a poet, so maybe that’s an occupational hazard? ;)

And I agree with your understanding of her comment on audience.
 
Jason was perfection but honestly I was tired of the same old same old long program genre from him. Riverdance was so exciting but he never really stepped out of his comfort zone for the long program again.
I, too, miss the excitement of Riverdance and The Question of U. But maybe he is showing more of his own personal style. This season, his short program has a different kind of excitement, which I have of late, really enjoyed. Still, I would love to see him choose music that allows him to express the passion and energy that he was able to express with Riverdance. What would that music be?
 
I half love the article, because I love Jason. But I also half hate it, because the writing is so needlessly florid. (I'm sure the author could find a more appropriate adjective.) I spent more time trying to understand if "amnesia-inducing" is really a complement or if she is subtly trying to insult Ross than enjoying her appreciation of Jason's skating.
 
I half love the article, because I love Jason. But I also half hate it, because the writing is so needlessly florid. (I'm sure the author could find a more appropriate adjective.) I spent more time trying to understand if "amnesia-inducing" is really a compliment or if she is subtly trying to insult Ross than enjoying her appreciation of Jason's skating.

:lol: I did a double take as well, but it's a compliment to Ross from the context, and then comes trying to figure out what is meant by Lockwood's unexpected train of thought. :p Still, I find Lockwood's writing about figure skating honest and interesting, because there's so little writing about figure skating that takes this uniquely individual approach. Clutching my pearls over everyone who's getting the slightest bit uptight over Lockwood's frankly tongue-in-cheek reference to the C-word. :rofl: If you check out her book cover pic, Lockwood is apparently a member of that 'lofty' designation herself, unless I'm completely mistaken and she's some other variety of human, or mixed with unique ethnic variations, as are most humans in any case. :drama: That's probably partly Lockwood's point: she's seemingly sticking pins in superior presumptions, all the while sticking her own neck out to write how she feels, no matter how florid, presumptuous or pompous others perceive her to be. She seems to bravely aspire for the right combination of words unique to her own imagination, never fearing that she might fail the mark. Hmmm, that's kinda similar to the courage some athletes display on the ice, as a matter of fact (only substituting fluid and precise moves for 'words.') :)

This article captures so much of why it was Jason who brought this Toller fangirl, and so many of my contemporaries, back to watching skating. The ending, of course it's poetic, but it is sooo true......

".... Jason Brown goes, slicing brightly through a parallel universe where the quad doesn’t hold sway and everyone is standing, stamping, breathing white clouds with him, just wishing that it might go on. It is not possible to exist in this feeling all the time. This is not one of our capabilities — but look, the body says, lifting up into its improbable upper air, look, I’m doing it. Here is my world, for just one minute. It’s this way, and you’re living in it."

Someone so young who can write like that knows how to see clearly, how to be honest, how to be an astute observer and a disciplined writer. She obviously understands the rules and she knows how to break them, like the best artists. From what I've read about her so far, she seems like the kind of fearless young person the world needs. And boy can we use more of her voice in the underwhelming sphere of analysis and writing on figure skating!

While I might see a few things somewhat differently than Lockwood, it's freakin' wonderful to read something this graceful, evocative and honest written about figure skating and above all about Jason Brown. IMO Lockwood comes the closest so far to understanding and voicing in a way that closely matches Jason's skating what many of us (whether we are fans of Jason or not) are feeling about the changes quad-almighty have wrought to this sport and to the men's discipline.

Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J61k2XjRryM
Exhibit B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtbZP688V9w
Exhibit C: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M9SOBF4Af4
Exhibit D: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZxDCfgVfTc
Exhibit E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JK6iHE6oQg
Exhibit F: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkd2OBpy2lA
Exhibit G: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PpgaGnMLRk
Exhibit H: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEDyIIpwslQ
Exhibit I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTM1rpnqoTw Lord of the Quads ... game changer

And uh, memories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z79TMsYRnEc Curry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD5VNcWh79Q Cranston
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCa9xlpMOE Cousins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwUfx-fLg1s JMPetkevich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMRW1HmNiVI Bowman (at his best)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUbtHsxF3Zk Bowman montage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk_IXnlbd1U Boitano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSCr-A8T5qQ Orser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiCaXo5dxs Barna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY7OqWJ1A88 Wylie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV0FLL5j_Ok MMitchell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdWF-_lA4Ic Galindo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFurTW8OHxM Eldredge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QewAP6vweWk Kulik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s94ymL4eeVc Delmore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6zeIUH3rHg Yagudin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQXiiknXAH8 Goebel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhFvPHB_aKg baby Weir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbzfIXTm0Mw Jahnke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAsNpBJbk0 Savoie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4bYwkmccnk Rohene (blazing talent)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnwC2kBaESQ Verner (quirky fun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-UxKhsJdZs DTakahashi cyber swan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hOgpzmj4Lc Miner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XT82NgCuzo Dornbush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjMDghOETe8 Dornbush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLTw8A79EKQ baby Rippon (Japan Open)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jljuph8ISAQ Abbott
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQpZu3HDjpE Schultheiss (brilliant)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5E027T7bs DTakahashi (he should have been in first place after this)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cloWKqYzbpA Chan (quad revolutions ... the beginning)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOlXuWQzYL4 DTakahashi - the maestro, he should have won that year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-1AI1fXdiE Alex Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXqbfzY5HHk DTen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnqHYxIp1gc Kozuka :respec:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYfPjBgj5c Machida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zci-qpfNcNs Vasiljvevs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-BohqgaYY0 Hanyu (first sp world record)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEeGXke8Ncg Jahnke (so lovely to see 11 years after the 2004 linked fp)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVEbviSMf4I Delmore (U.S. Open Pro)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FyUIfXKyHI Farris :encore: :saint:
 
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There's an article in Variety about lyrics being now allowed that focuses on the music choices made by Adam and Jimmy Ma

Triple Axel for What: Olympic Figure Skaters Spin to Songs With Lyrics for the First Time
http://variety.com/2018/music/news/olympics-figure-skating-music-1202680624/

The article also explains the copyright/licensing thing:
“There’s an exception to the copyright act that allows for music to be reproduced at live events without a sync license,” says Steve Winogradsky, a veteran music attorney and author of “Music Publishing: The Complete Guide.” “But when music is played on television, publishers can collect broadcast fees. Part of the money that NBC pays as blanket licenses would go to the publishers and writers of the track.” Broadcast fees are less than sync fees. But several countries will have to pony up.
 
^^ Interesting, and thanks for sharing @nimi. Obviously and unsurprisingly, right off the bat the article title itself is wrong since skating to music lyrics has been allowed for several years. It will only be the first time at the Olympics I believe. I forget when lyrics were first allowed, but I think it was shortly after the last Olympics.

It's a hoot too that Lil Jon (creator of Turn Down For What) found out about Jimmy Ma's routine and thought it was so cool and unusual to see figure skaters performing to hip hop. :p Ah well, Lil Jon is very far behind the news when it comes to figure skating, since last season Hubbell/Donahue also skated to a small edit of Turn Down For What, not to mention all the other hip hop music selections chosen by other ice dancers. Maybe Lil Jon needs to see H/D's cool SD from last season, or not if it means the music will be muted on most H/D vids of that famous performance! :drama:

OTOH, I think Lil Jon's lack of knowledge about figure skating's cool vibe points out ever more glaringly how uncool and behind-the-times the people are who run the sport, particularly in terms of not knowing how to promote the sport and the skaters to much better and wider advantage. There are endless promotional possibilities, including somehow collaborating with the extreme ice skating movement, which is rather underground right now, but would surely appeal to a wider audience, especially among young people.

ETA:
Here's 'Patrick Commentates Skating' rendition of Nathan Chen's SA sp, 'Nathan Chen is Cooler Than You':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIcvytSLTc

I think Nemesis theme stands for battling quads as well as rivals, although it's true that 3-Axel can be a challenge for Nathan too. ;) Still, to be absolutely honest, Nathan is the kind of skater and champion who would thrive under any rules and conditions and in any era. He's that talented, determined and original.
 
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^^ Interesting, and thanks for sharing @nimi. Obviously and unsurprisingly, right off the bat the article title itself is wrong since skating to music lyrics has been allowed for several years. It will only be the first time at the Olympics I believe. I forget when lyrics were first allowed, but I think it was shortly after the last Olympics.
I don't understand what is wrong. This is the first time -Olympic- Figure skaters (*assuming a dancer is not a skater) will be using lyrics.

The article states exactly what you say: "That’s because the International Skating Union, which governs the sport, didn’t allow lyrics in skating programs until just after the 2014 Olympic Games."


Of course, this discounts ice dance as a discipline entirely, as they've been using lyrics for a very long time, including at the Olympics
 
I don't understand what is wrong.

Yes, I mentioned the fact that it will be the first time for lyrics used allowed to be used across the board in skating programs at the Olympics. The article title is still misleading though and should be more specific. It's not enough that what's meant is indirectly explained within the article. I also noted in my post that lyrics across the board were introduced sometime after 2014 Olympics. So what's not to understand?

The point is that the media usually gets details about figure skating wrong or slightly off and misinterpreted quite often because it's a niche sport that has been traditionally elitist and thereby difficult for the media and casual audiences to understand. And my larger point is quite unmistakably that the people who run figure skating are uncool and out of touch with how to promote the sport in more effective and unique ways. Much less do they know how to effectively disseminate accurate information about the sport. I can think off the top of my head about a number of things e.g., that U.S. fed could be doing to beneficially promote the sport in the U.S. in this new day and age, instead of waiting every four years for interest to be ratcheted up aimlessly in the media (for hype purposes which extend to only a handful of athletes).
 
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Here is an astonishing New York Times Magazine article by Patricia Lockwood about Jason and American men's figure skating.

Figure skating has long been an essentially romantic sport, which more than most others asks you to be in full physical sympathy with the performer — like dance, it tells a story that requires you to follow along. This sympathy is more difficult to achieve now, for one simple reason: A program that contains multiple quads is so demanding that falls are highly probable, and they rupture the sense of continuity the audience experiences in a clean skate. When the skater tumbles down, you tumble with him. Much current writing about male figure skating agonizes about its future: Is the quad good for skating? What happens to the sport when there’s no more room in it for idiosyncratic artists like Brown?

I gush about Jason a lot too, but here are two things I was highly uncomfortable with in this article:

1. The cheap shots at Nathan and Ross weren't necessary. Whether she is trying to claim otherwise or not, they were insults.

2. I'm not at all comfortable with the tone of the article that seems to suggest that Nathan and Vincent, in particular, are somehow less deserving because they don't skate like Jason. To me this article comes across as rather sneering at the "jumpers".
 
I gush about Jason a lot too, but here are two things I was highly uncomfortable with in this article:

1. The cheap shots at Nathan and Ross weren't necessary. Whether she is trying to claim otherwise or not, they were insults.

2. I'm not at all comfortable with the tone of the article that seems to suggest that Nathan and Vincent, in particular, are somehow less deserving because they don't skate like Jason. To me this article comes across as rather sneering at the "jumpers".

I think it’s important to remember that what you, personally, perceive as sneering or a cheap shot may not have been what the author intended - and as you know, she responded to some of those perceptions/ questions in the comments. I think that when we react strongly to something, though, it’s hard not to say, I don’t care what she says or how she explains it, I know how her words made me feel so I know what she really means, and it’s not what she says.

The other thing is, people are drawn to different things, opposite things. I think it’s good to accept that without feeling like it somehow diminishes you or what you believe.

I’m guessing, though, that if she’d watched that FS performance of Max’s at 4CCs - which I don’t think she would have done before her deadline - she would have found something admirable there even though he’s a “jumper”, because there was something transformative in his performance that was beautiful and moving in a different way than Jason’s - and she seems to be interested in transcendent experiences. JMO.
 
The thing to keep in mind with the NYT piece is it's essentially a personal essay, IMO. It was really about Lockwood's personal reactions to the skating she sees. I don't think it was meant to be a comprehensive assessment of men's skating, but more her personal reflections. (Although she alludes to other writing about men's skating.) I didn't really love the piece, and there were quite a few turns of phrase that rubbed me the wrong way. But it's okay that she has the opinions she does. Mine may be a bit different.

I do think it's nice that NYT published a piece like this about skating, even though I don't agree with all her viewpoints.
 
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