Canada declares war on Switzerland

[Serb]

If the Russians were literate, they may've read the new figure skating rules that everyone else did.

These rules are a huge step backward. But the judges didn't even follow these rules. That ref's decision was a bullsh!t.

There's a reason only the Russian was doing the quad, and the reason is the new rules this year favoured NOT doing it.

Japanese skater tried, but failed. Sure there is a reason why only Plusheko tried and did a quad (a four+three cascade actually). And that reason is - nobody else can do it.
Plushenko is the best figure skater of our times. That is obvious to anyone who know the sport. He has been robbed.

If you don't like my opinion, maybe you'll trust more to a Canadian champion (actually a seven times Canadian champion). You can hardly find a better expert.

Elvis Stojko
Elvis Stojko is a three-time world champion figure skater and two-time Olympic silver medalist for Canada. Stojko, who also won the Canadian national title seven times, is providing commentary and analysis for Yahoo! Sports during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver:

The night they killed figure skating

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.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/figure_skating/news?slug=es-thoughts021810&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

[Serb]

Hey Serb, your POV on Plushenko and the scoring is all wrong and every bit as prejudiced as you claim the judging to be.

Figure skating is much more than doing tricks. It's also about performance, about choreography, about emotive and interpretive skills - connecting those big jumps to the other program elements with smooth, creative transitions. Not to mention spins and footwork. It's interesting that Plushenko himself admits that he ignores transitions (one of 5 key scoring elements) in his program. In his own words (on absoluteskating.com)...



Yvgeny skated two strong programs this week, but his accustomed artistry was lacking, his footwork was desultory at best, and his program lacked cohesion. His time away from the sport definitely showed; this was not the Plushenko of years past. He is a very strong technical skater, but was bested - and fairly - by another technically strong skater with a superior artistic presentation of an intelligently back-loaded program.

In short, Lysacek deserved the win. IMHO.

The guy who really benefited from bad scoring: the Frenchman, Lambiel, who skated poorly in both the short and free skates, yet was still given 4th.

The guy who REALLY got screwed in the scoring (in both the short and free skates) was (the Fabulously Flamboyant) Johnny Weir, who skated clean in both events, with only one minor bobble (hitting some bad ice during a spin), yet was scored lower (6th!!) than several skaters with obvious, major flaws in their routines. His level of difficulty hurt him, but it should not have been to this degree. IMHO.

To be clear: Plushenko and Lysacek were very close. One was stronger in presentation, creativity and artistry. The other had a quad. Both skated without flaw under enormous pressure. Yes, it could have gone either way. To claim that Plushenko is somehow a victim of poor or prejudiced judging is something only a Russian - and one who does not know figure skating very well - would say. The "landing a quad" competition is only a small part of things, and is only a big advantage if everyone is attempting them. Triples in combination, especially in the 2nd half of the program, score nearly as well.

I feel that the three medalists were fairly and correctly ranked. And was not at all surprised to see Plushenko pouting, which he does whenever he doesn't win.

Blah-blah-blah how many times you have won the WC or got an Olympic silver?
I preffer to trust the Canadian champion Elvis Stojko on that (see the article above).
You aren't an expert for me. He is.
Though I agree the judges not only killed Plushenko, but Johny Weir too (guess why?).
Damn Patrick Chan has fell and they have placed him higher, 'cause he is Canadian.
160+ points after all his faults and falls... that's not sport. It's bullsh!t and disgrace.

p.s. And Lambiel is not French, but Swiss.
An expert, my ass. If you don't know such skater as Stephan Lambiel and where he is from, then the level of your expertise falls below the floor.

[Serb]

Do you guys really expect intellectual consistency from a Russian? The older generations were nothing to write home about on the intelligence front (thanks to their inferior Slavic genes) and those of the younger generation like Serb are all retarded thanks to Chernobyl. Russia is the stupidest country on earth.

Kiss my inferrior part, you American nazi.

[Guynemer]

It is nice to see you admit your inferiority, Serb. Didn't think you had it in you.

[Serb]

By saying "kiss my inferrior part, you American nazi" I meant "you can kiss my ass, Mr. Amercan Hitler".

[Ben Kenobi]

Why do you want him to kiss your feet?!

[Ben Kenobi]

Brian Boitano did the same thing, technically, in 1988

Stojko is spot on. Canadians invented the Quad, and to see the Olympic Champion not doing the Quad is pathetic. As much as I'd like to say that this new crop of Canadians has it, Chan is hopeless. I'd rather they marked him down for falling so that Chan gets the point that his performance is simply not good enough.

[Serb]

Brian Boitano did the same thing, technically, in 1988

I guess it's obvious he meant a Lysacek's program.

[-Jrabbit]

If you want a quad-jumping contest, start a new sport.

I never claimed to be an expert, Serb. But my daughter started competitive skating when she was 4 and continued through age 20, and you learn a lot in that time.

Figure skating has always required ALL elements, and the judges scored the men's event consistenly and according to the rules. If you want to argue that the rules are bad, that's a different discussion. The bottom line is, the scoring system was in place and well known (for several years) prior to these Olympics. And Plushenko's program was not optimized for the rules of the competition.

He lost by 1.31 points -- points he left on the table through poor program design. For instance:

1. Do an second quad, he wins.
2. Include the double loop that he had planned at the end of his quad-triple combination, he wins.
3. Execute one more jump, he wins. Lysacek executed 12; Plushenko, 11.
4. Be in good enough condition to to put more jumps into the second half of the program (10% scoring bonus), he wins.

Instead, Plushenko wimped out, putting all his difficult elements in the beginning (a Russian trademark), with only 4 of his 11 jumps after the 2:15 mark. Lysacek, intelligently, backloaded his program, putting 8 of his 12 jumps in the second half.

But Plushenko took three years off, enjoyed his previous success, then got off the couch 9 month ago and came out of retirement. His resulting lack of stamina was his fatal flaw, restricting him to a program that left the door open. He was also obviously off his usual game on both footwork and spins, subsituting upper-body posing for actual skating quality.

Plushenko has a long history of whining and crying whenever he loses. His little tantrums whenever losing (usually to Yagudin) are legendary examples of poor sportsmanship and a total lack of class. The outrage from the Russian skating federation, coaches and politicians shows the same crybaby mentality.

As for Stojko, he's certainly entitled to his opinion. Considering that he was was the first to land a quad combination in competition and lost Olympic gold in Lillehammer through bad judging, it's no surprise. In fact, Elvis never won a World or Olympic title in his career -- basically because he paid no attention to the elements of presentation and artistry that a champion needs. In fact, he had trouble beating counntryman Kurt Browning (artistically gifted but with lesser jumping skills) consistently. He remains bitter to this day, obviously.

If figure skating was just a jumping competition, Stojko would have had his championship. And Plushenko would have won on Thursday. But that's not what figure skating is, nor has it ever been.

Plushenko, while he had no falls, actually lost this competition on execution elements. He lost points on three of his jumps, and one of his spins was a mess. If anything, Lysacek's margin should have been greater -- because somehow, Plushenko was given equal marks on the component (artistic) elements, where he was clearly inferior.

Scoring at these competitions is close, and the rules are well known. To win, you must design your programs to maximize your score, then execute it on the ice. Plushenko's program would probably have won under the old scoring system. But this is 2010 and, with a front-loaded program virtually devoid of continuity and flow, his one quad jump was not enough to overcome a competitor who worked hard on conditioning and technique - while Yvgeny relaxed in retirement for three years.

Lysacek was better prepared and delivered a flawless performance that was optimized for the rules of the competition.

I find it pathetic and sad that Plushenko and his handlers are playing the victim card. Their feeling of entitlement, and their total lack of class, while not surprising, are disappointing, and a stain on both their sport and the Olympics.

[Asher]

Very well said, -Jrabbit.

[Ben Kenobi]

Their feeling of entitlement, and their total lack of class, while not surprising, are disappointing, and a stain on both their sport and the Olympics.

I am not a Pluschenko fan, but I think Stojko is right. I agree that Pluschenko should have been in better condition, but I think he had the better program and should have won gold. Stokjo's comment about how the technical part of the program is identical to Boitano shows how quickly figure skating has fallen over the past while.

[Drake Tungsten]

Kiss my inferrior part, you American nazi.

I'm not going to kiss your dick, dude.

[-Jrabbit]

Stojko is a punk and always has been. Which is cool. I used to admire his macho rebellious streak, thought it was good for the sport. I remember when he was asked about the lack of artistic elements in his programs and he said, "I don't have a feminine side." And I must correct myself - he did win Worlds, 3 times. He was the first of the great quad-triple artists.

So his POV on this issue is clearly preordained. He's free to feel that way, and you're free to agree with him. But that's a rules discussion. The event itself was properly scored.

[Ming]

but I think he had the better program and should have won gold.

What were you watching... He had a quad, and nothing else. Plus, he stumbled his way thought his program. He came in second behind a person who not only had a better program, but somebody who skated an almost flawless program. He should be blaming himself for not being sharp for the final skate.
Instead, he's whining like a stuck pig. Which is fine, because it only makes him look worse

[Japher]

you need a quad to win
you need a quad to win
you need a quad to win
you need a quad to win


see... that makes me more right