And how is this playing out in ice dance? And not to mention it’s not like the US is the most advanced culture when it comes to progress and everybody else is still stuck in feudalism and selling their daughters for a bag on onions and a pig and declaring religious crusades against darker skinned people (at least not so explicitly). Aren’t Canadians even more progressive? And most of Western Europe in many aspects?
Oh Americans politik bigtime. Read Joe Jackson's book. He complains and moans about Russians or other countries politiking but boasts about him and other American judges/officials politiking, particularly at junior events. Although his talk is two speared, as he also praises in other instances the Russians for their politiking and says he wishes Americans were better and more effective at it. And he mocks the Canadians for never politiking which I think is selling them short given that some of the most overscored and overrated skaters/teams ever are Canadian- Elvis Stojko, Sale & Pelletier, Patrick Chan at one point (he is amazing but won so many events with 4 or 5 big mistakes sometimes), Bourne & Kraatz at times, Brasseur & Eisler arguably. It was an interesting read all around. And he really hated Slutskaya, continously calling her truck driver. He compared her to Harding and implied the reason Slutskaya did so much better in her career was Russian politiks vs American lack of politiks and American bias against a Harding type. But that is a flawed example since while Slutskaya might have been overrated a bit at times (and believe me I am not a fan of Irina's skating, lol), she mostly maximized her talent by putting in the hard work, showing up to competitions fits and able to do her jumps (her strength) effectively, and being fairly consistent. And of course she showed super determination coming back when everyone thought her career was over in 99 after 2 straight 4th place finishes at Russian Nationals, and missing worlds, and she instead came back much stronger than before. The kind of thing Harding would have never in a million years had the werewithal to do. Harding definitely had even more raw jumping, athletic, and probably overall skating talent at her best, but did none of the things I just said, and her so called triple axel Jackson spoke off was already in the grave after 1991, in fact for all her jumping talent she rarely did a triple lutz or triple flip cleanly after 92 again, lol! He acts like she wasn't the main culprit for her own underachieving, but then again I guess that makes a better story. I really enjoyed the book, both the insight and comedic hypocricy and flawed logic at times, mixed with elements of truth.
I see.
). Neither skater was ever my cup of tea.
Harding had much more talent and better basics than Slutskaya, but at least Slutskaya was always fit and hard working (perhaps with some assistance from the federation?
I think the more interesting comparison is: which skater is more insufferable today? The anti-vax conspiracy theory-loving Tonya or the generally insufferable and homophobic Slutskaya?
The thing though is FP/M did not win the FD and thus gold medal at the 2001 worlds on the presentation score. Almost every judge they won was on the technical score and their technical scores were overall higher than A&P, who had atleast equally high presentation marks. Which shows a complete disregard for the huge disparity in technical difficulty given that A&P actually skated well that night.
Or the judges who said they didn't see Jamie's single axel (a wide open single that even a blind person could see) in the long program at the 2001 worlds. Where Sale & Pelletier made a major mistake in both programs and corruptly still won over a clean Elena & Anton, a superior team to begin with. Judges can say whatever balogna nonsense they want to justify their marks/results they want.
. Reminds me of a judge who explained that Blumberg/Seibert lost the Olympic bronze in 1984 because they didn't dance to "dance music" and somebody pointed out that Torvill/Dean did a more interpretive dance to Ravel's "bolero" even though "Bolero" is a ballroom dance style, technically. Instead of making some roundabout argument that T/D was doing a "bolero" ballroom dance (does anybody really think that they did?), the judge basically just said Torvill/Dean could do whatever they wanted... probably because they were pretty much ahead of the game. Of course, "Scheherezade" is a ballet, but I guess that's not ballroom. I always thought Davis/White winning the Olympics to "Scheherezade" 26 years later was some sort of poetic justice.You're entitled to whatever narratives you wish to make here. However, as much as I love B&B's 1984 OSP they did make a mistake in it at Worlds and the judges marked them down for it.
Was Anton not clean at 2001 Worlds? Their triple twist did have that crashy-landing and cleaniless here can be questionable using IJS standards... and Elena really had to hang on for their second throw, but it was completed.
No, @guignardfabbri expressly cited 2001 Worlds.
Okay, but not in any Michelle Kwan competed in,My bad. but can we still do the Angela world champion scenario lol.
sorry guniardfabbri
.What about ones Kwan competed but lost in already?Okay, but not in any Michelle Kwan competed in,
I thought about that but I think she needed those silvers and that 2004 Worlds bronze… and the ones I’m willing to let her place lower (like 1999 Worlds) was before Angela Nikodinov became THE Angela Nikodinov I fell in love with. Maybe 2002 but why kick someone when they’re down.
IIRC their twist landing was really, really crashy. I was surprised when B&S didn't win but S&P's free program was surprisingly mesmerizing in person. Under the old system, I'd guess that some judges would have emphasized quality pairs elements over SBS jumps.
The original dances of 1991-1999 were sooooooooooooooooooooooo good. Like, seriously, best format IMO by a landslide. The OSP was too repetitive for most patterns to hold interest, to me at least (there were some good ones intere), but man, the OD...
