Figure Skating

[Bonny]

I had the wrong day turned on the TV Guide. Oh Well I plan on watching anyhow. Ben & Tanith seem to be working to hard. Your right about Davis/White. They are more natural looking in their moves where Ben/Tanith are just so intense. Have a good evening.

[Momto4FemaleFelines]

I had the wrong day turned on the TV Guide. Oh Well I plan on watching anyhow. Ben & Tanith seem to be working to hard. Your right about Davis/White. They are more natural looking in their moves where Ben/Tanith are just so intense. Have a good evening.

I get days mixed up sometimes, too! Pantry moments!

You know what, I think you hit it on the head in reference to Tanith & Ben...I wonder if their relationship is straining or something these days? Something is just different. I know they switched coaches because they thought they needed to go in a different direction, I'm thinking it might've been a wrong move...

[Bonny]

Poor Joannie that is terrible. Things can change so fast in our lives & loosing a mom has to be the worse of all.

[cassiesmom]

Ice dancing ... Belbin and Agosto are in 4th after the original dance. Davis and White are in second!

How sad for the young woman from Canada. Hopefully she can go on with her performances.

(MT4FF, I heard Andy Rooney describe figure skating on 60 Minutes tonight as a mixture of gymnastics and ballet ... I thought that was pretty insightful!)

[Momto4FemaleFelines]

Ice dancing ... Belbin and Agosto are in 4th after the original dance. Davis and White are in second!

How sad for the young woman from Canada. Hopefully she can go on with her performances.

(MT4FF, I heard Andy Rooney describe figure skating on 60 Minutes tonight as a mixture of gymnastics and ballet ... I thought that was pretty insightful!)

I wasn't surprised that Belbin and Agosto didn't pull up any. I thought their outfits were a little too much and too white! Davis & White are marvelous! You could see Meryl's body positions throughout the program a lot better with her costume than you could Tanith's and some of the other ladies.

I got a kick out of reliving the falls that occurred last year during the OD! I'd forgotten. The worst one was that of Canada's Marie-France Dubrueil and Patrice Lauzon. I had really grown to like them and was hoping they'd win the Gold. I never, ever liked that red head of the Italian team and although I felt bad for her partner I was glad they fell. She needed a reality check, she had an ego and attitude like Plushenko's!

I'm sure Joannie's Mom would want her to go ahead and compete. I hope Joannie can skate well in honor and memory of her Mom and it would be wonderful if somehow she garnered the Gold.

Edited to add: Mickey Rooney desribed figure skating pretty darned well!

[smokey the elder]

Interesting that someone brought up Surya Bonaly. She and Plushenko seem cut from the same cloth. My SO used to call her Surly Bonaly!

[Momto4FemaleFelines]

Interesting that someone brought up Surya Bonaly. She and Plushenko seem cut from the same cloth. My SO used to call her Surly Bonaly!

Surya Bonaly may march to a different drummer, but I don't see her ego being as huge as Plushenko's. I've seen her live several times, she always had a big smile for the crowd...Plushenko always had leers and "look at me" kind of looks. He never seemed to be there for the fans, just for himself.

[Catty1]

Here's what former Canadian figure skating champ Elvis Stojko had to say about the men's skate at this Olympiad. He makes it clear this is not about the skaters at all - it is about the system. Read on.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/van...yhoo&type=lgns

The night they killed figure skating
Elvis Stojko

By Elvis Stojko, Yahoo! Sports Feb 19, 2:00 am EST

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Sorry, Evan Lysacek.

You’re a great skater and all.

But that wasn’t Olympic champion material.

In Thursday night’s men’s free skate, Lysacek skated slow and his jumps weren’t close to the technical ability of defending Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko.

How can you be Olympic champion when you don’t even try the quad? If you’re going to take the quad out, why not take out another triple axel and just have more of the other stuff so the International Skating Union can make it more into an “art” recital.

Plushenko had a great performance. His footwork was great and maybe his spins weren’t quite as good as Lysacek’s, but it wasn’t that big of a difference. He also had a quad toe triple toe that wasn’t even attempted by anyone else. He did both triple axels, so all the jumps were there.

But the judges’ scoring was ridiculous.

Because of it, the sport took a step backward. Brian Boitano did the same thing, technically, in 1988. There are junior skaters who can skate that same program.

And the judges’ scoring probably killed figure skating because kids now are going to see this and say, “Oh, I don’t need a quad. I can just do great footwork for presentation marks and do a couple of nice spins and make it to Olympic champion.” With that type of scoring, you don’t have to risk it. You can play it safe and win gold.

In what other sports do you have to hold back in order to win?

The International Skating Union has taken the risk out of figure skating and it makes me sick.

If Plushenko had made some mistakes, then sure, maybe Lysacek deserves gold. But when you take the risk out of skaters’ programs, it doesn’t compute to me.

And it’s not a personal thing. I like Evan. But when you compare performances and have an outcome like this, the sport is going backward. And it hurts me to say it because I love this sport. But the judges made a mockery of it by giving Lysacek the gold.

I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade because it’s not the skaters’ fault. It’s the system. And the figure skating community wants to control who wins and who loses. And what it does is it makes the component score more valid than the jumps so it can control whatever it wants. And that’s exactly what happened Thursday night at Pacific Coliseum.

How can the sport be put back on the right path? I have no idea. I haven’t even thought about it. It’s not up to me. Because people at the ISU obviously seem to know what they’re doing. Well, they think they know what they’re doing.

For me, the outcome on Thursday night was disappointing.

A few more thoughts on the men’s free skate:

• I thought Daisuke Takahashi was awesome. He tried the quad and he had the guts to go for it, and he should’ve been ahead of Lysacek in that aspect.

• Johnny Weir was great. He should’ve been higher than sixth – above Patrick Chan, who was fifth. Weir outskated Chan. He might’ve skated a little bit slow but he went out there and did his stuff. I feel bad for him.

• People say I’m hammering certain skaters. I’m not. It’s the system I don’t like and if you say I am biased … I already said I am not a fan of Weir’s skating, but he skated well tonight and deserved to be ahead of Chan.

In addition, Takahiko Kozuka – my favorite skater – did not get the points he deserved. He skated great, had awesome spins, the best edges in the competition, was very close with the quad and did a ton of triples.

Figure skating gets no respect because of outcomes like this. More feathers, head-flinging and so-called step sequences done at walking speed – that’s what the system wants.

I am going to watch hockey, where athletes are allowed to push the envelope. A real sport.

Elvis Stojko is Yahoo! Sports' Olympic figure skating analyst.