Weir. You can always count on him....
Jan. 31st, 2008 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarus... to bluntly say what no one else will admit.
"Figure skating used to have a public persona comparable to the high school homecoming queen or prom queen," the always-controversial Weir noted before the [US Nationals]. "Now our image to the public is the homecoming queen after she got knocked up on prom night and is living on the wrong side of the tracks."
Weir of course, is referring to the 2002 Olympic judging scandal which tarnished the reputation of figure skating worldwide but had the biggest impact in the U.S., where the games were hosted and saw the biggest TV audience.
Personally, I think the the new scoring system is the problem, not the politics. The politics behind the scenes had always been the fun part of figure skating for the audience. We used to know which judge gave which score and have always gone, "Ooo! Look at the low score the Russian judge gave the American skater." Plus the scores were easy to understand. Even in grammar school I knew that 6.0 was better than a 5.7, and grasped the concept that 6.0 was like a perfect "A."
Now we get a score: "244.77."
Huh? What does that number mean to the fans who don't follow skating religiously? I told WG, "Anything over 200 is pro-level." But that applies to the final combined short program and freeskate score, not the short program alone.
Weir and Lysacek's tie this weekend at 244.77 is much more exciting when you know that this is the highest skating score ever. That's how hard they fought each other.
Tickets to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, go on sale this October. Figure skating tickets are as low as $50 for the nosebleed seats. Trust Canada to keep their promise to have affordable tickets so regular people can attend. Figure skating is a great show. Unlike skiing, where you can expect to stand there for an hour only to have a blur rush by ("which guy was that?" -- "I think he was ours"), skating delivers three hours of non-stop entertainment. Even between programs there are always skaters warming up on the ice doing cool jumps (or impressive falls).
Anyhow, I have two shaky and poor quality vids of the US Nationals that have been uploaded to Imeem, I'm just waiting for the confirmation email.
Overwhelmed at school this week. I started my tutoring job and so -- eep. Haywire.
"Figure skating used to have a public persona comparable to the high school homecoming queen or prom queen," the always-controversial Weir noted before the [US Nationals]. "Now our image to the public is the homecoming queen after she got knocked up on prom night and is living on the wrong side of the tracks."
Weir of course, is referring to the 2002 Olympic judging scandal which tarnished the reputation of figure skating worldwide but had the biggest impact in the U.S., where the games were hosted and saw the biggest TV audience.
Personally, I think the the new scoring system is the problem, not the politics. The politics behind the scenes had always been the fun part of figure skating for the audience. We used to know which judge gave which score and have always gone, "Ooo! Look at the low score the Russian judge gave the American skater." Plus the scores were easy to understand. Even in grammar school I knew that 6.0 was better than a 5.7, and grasped the concept that 6.0 was like a perfect "A."
Now we get a score: "244.77."
Huh? What does that number mean to the fans who don't follow skating religiously? I told WG, "Anything over 200 is pro-level." But that applies to the final combined short program and freeskate score, not the short program alone.
Weir and Lysacek's tie this weekend at 244.77 is much more exciting when you know that this is the highest skating score ever. That's how hard they fought each other.
Tickets to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, go on sale this October. Figure skating tickets are as low as $50 for the nosebleed seats. Trust Canada to keep their promise to have affordable tickets so regular people can attend. Figure skating is a great show. Unlike skiing, where you can expect to stand there for an hour only to have a blur rush by ("which guy was that?" -- "I think he was ours"), skating delivers three hours of non-stop entertainment. Even between programs there are always skaters warming up on the ice doing cool jumps (or impressive falls).
Anyhow, I have two shaky and poor quality vids of the US Nationals that have been uploaded to Imeem, I'm just waiting for the confirmation email.
Overwhelmed at school this week. I started my tutoring job and so -- eep. Haywire.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 04:00 am (UTC)In part, it's that rather than starting with a 10 (or a 6) and being marked DOWN for what you do blatently wrong, with these new systems, you start at 0 and get points for each little thing you do, and for how well you do it.
It's like, in the olden days, you could score very well with a not-super-difficult program (relatively speaking) that was skated cleanly, versus someone else with a harder program that had some glitches to the jumps. With the new system, the person with the harder program and the glitches may win over the cleaner program because, as in gymnastics, they had more difficulty.
And while the new scoring system in skating certainly could be improved, it's better than the old 6.0 system. Back under 6.0, I felt that the only thing that really counted was your jumps. You could have the most awesome, difficult footwork and spins in the world, truly innovative, and it seemed not to matter. Now, the new system places firm weight on all the elements of skating. Thus someone like Jeff Buttle, (nice icon, btw) who may have some jump issues, is rewarded for his footwork and spins. And he should be. He's amazing, when he's on, and that stuff's hard.