Friday, February 19, 2010
Mens figure skating
posted at 4:51 PM | Permalink | 25 comment(s)
A kind of answer to the article I mentioned yesterday is here, the point being that if jumps are to be the defining action in mens skating, it would be like asking international pianists to play only Chopin instead of excelling in several kinds of playing. Just because human beings can train themselves to do wildly acrobatic stunts on ice doesn't mean that's the only thing they should do or for which they should earn approbation. Any more than a "merely" graceful skater would be sufficient. Skating, like gymnastics, is a mixture of two quite different approaches and it is exactly that juxtaposition which makes it both challenging and interesting.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010
2-18
posted at 11:50 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
What a shame that there has to be this kind of nonsensical discussion about figure skating and that the silver medalist was such a poor sport that he felt he had to denigrate the gold medalist because - sneer, sneer - he's too artistic and not gung-ho athletic enough to attempt a quadruple jump (although he did seven triples and landed them all smoothly, more smoothly than the silver guy landed most of his doubles, triples and the revered quad), when it's patently self-evident that figure skating is hugely athletic (imagine the strength and endurance required to do axels and triples and doubles and spread-eagles, etc., etc.) as well as artistic (. . . and where on earth does anyone get off suggesting that artistry minimizes athleticism or do they want to make the same argument about gymnastics and synchronized swimming and even, in a way, dressage, because artistic expression in athletics in simply displaying prowess differently than less flat-out but no less actually).

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