luni, martie 25, 2013

SBS Documentary on Yuna Kim


This must be figure-skating-love. I've just spent an entire hour watching a documentary about Yuna Kim. In Korean; and I'm not at all familiar with Korean language... One thing is sure, though: this is a wonderful documentary, with recent footage from London, and I'll watch it again an again (especially if someone manages to provide an English translation....) Until then, Yuna is beautiful and expressive; and I particularly liked her laughter at the end of the video (and, yes, I'm curious what she says; so I'd love to have an English translation; at least to her short interviews here and there, during the documentary).

This is it.

Part one - currently unavailable.

Part two.



Part three.



Part four and the last - currently unavailable.

ISU World Team Trophy 2013: these are the teams.


Update: WTT will be available on the ISU skating channel: http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/site/index.html

Photo: FB account of Yukari Moriike 

It's official; according to the ISU website these are the teams (and skaters) competing at the World Team Trophy 2013.

Canada 
Patrick CHAN
Men
Kevin REYNOLDS
Men
Gabrielle DALEMAN
Ladies
Kaetlyn OSMOND
Ladies
Meagan DUHAMEL / Eric RADFORD
Pairs
Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE
Ice Dance

China
Nan SONG
Men
Han YAN
Men
Zijun LI
Ladies
Kexin ZHANG
Ladies
Cheng PENG / Hao ZHANG
Pairs
Xiaoyang YU / Chen WANG
Ice Dance

France
Florent AMODIO
Men
Brian JOUBERT
Men
Lenaelle GILLERON-GORRY
Ladies
Mae Berenice MEITE
Ladies
Vanessa JAMES / Morgan CIPRES
Pairs
Nathalie PECHALAT / Fabian BOURZAT
Ice Dance

Japan
Takahito MURA
Men
Daisuke TAKAHASHI
Men
Mao ASADA
Ladies
Akiko SUZUKI
Ladies
---
Pairs
Cathy REED / Chris REED
Ice Dance

Russia 
Maxim KOVTUN
Men
Konstantin MENSHOV
Men
Adelina SOTNIKOVA
Ladies
Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA
Ladies
Tatiana VOLOSOZHAR / Maxim TRANKOV
Pairs
Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV
Ice Dance

United States of America
Max AARON
Men
Jeremy ABBOTT
Men
Gracie GOLD
Ladies
Ashley WAGNER
Ladies
Marissa CASTELLI / Simon SHNAPIR
Pairs
Madison CHOCK / Evan BATES
Ice Dance

Some thoughts on the teams: unlike the previous edition, when everyone that mattered in figure skating was here, World Team Trophy 2013 will have its huge absentees: the recent gold and silver medalists in London (Canada) - Meryl Davies and Charlie White, on one hand, and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, on the other. We all know Scott's opinion on WTT; last year, while waiting for the scores, he mumbled: "I hate this competition...". So, when it comes to ice dance, we'll have another duel to watch, between the French couple Pechalat&Bourzat and the European Champions (and bronze medalists at the Worlds), Bobrova&Soloviev. This will be their second encounter after the Worlds. But Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje will surely have their say in the ice dance competition; I'm curious to see whether they'll be placed between the French and the Russians or below.

Another interesting duel will be in pairs event - Tatiana Volosozhar&Maxim Trankov and Megan Duhamel&Eric Radford. I have already put my money on the Russians.

Girls-girls-girls. I believe Mao Asada will finish the season in force; but the Russian girls and Ashley Wagner are not to be underestimated. Gracie's programs are exquisite (though she's lacking consistency); as it is the free program of the Chinese wonder girl, that Zijun Li, made of porcelain.

Once again, in the men's event it will be Patrick Chan against Daisuke Takahashi. Last year, the Japanese won; and many considered the outcome as the real result of the Worlds in Nice. Mr. Takahashi pulled out an incredible performance at the World Team Trophy, achieving also his Season Best. One thing is sure: the men's event in WTT will have the characteristics of a World final, with Florent Amodio, Brian Joubert, Nan Song, the young Han Yan, Takahito Mura... It will be nice to see Jeremy Abbott and his beautiful programs in Tokyo, as it will be interesting to watch the young Mr. Kovtun performing; at the Worlds in London (Canada), Maxim was knocked down by responsability. One final word regarding Konstantin Menshov. It's a pity (and, in fact, a shame) the Russian Federation overlooked Mr. Menshov this entire season. Konstantin wasn't part of the team in Zagreb, as it wasn't in London. For him, WTT comes as a consolation prize - but, surely, this is not enough for a skater who had wonderful programs (and results) throughout the beginning of the season. Coming from a country that tries to make history by sending Evgeni Plushenko (31 years old) at the Winter Games in Sochi, Menshov should have benefited by the same treatment; he should have been allowed to compete internationally this season even if he's already 30 years old. 

Let the World Team Trophy begin. 
11-14 April 2013.

Until then, two memorable performances from last year.





















joi, martie 21, 2013

Worlds 2013: let's have a recap, shall we?


The facts: last week, in London (Canada), Patrick Chan won his third World title; a consecutive one, after Moscow-2011 and Nice-2012. As it happened last year, this too was a controversial win. In many's opinion, the real winner of the Worlds in Nice was the Japanese Daisuke Takahashi, while the true champion of this edition is considered the wonder boy from Kazakhstan, Denis Ten. Frustrating as it is to have a World Champion surrounded, every year, by controversies, it's even more frustrating to acknowledge the fact that in five years time only the statistics will remain; and the history of figure skating won't very much care about the scandals or the silver/bronze medalists. 
 
Something needs to be done with the ISU judging system - there's a chorus of voices saying this. So, here's a recap of the most powerful points of view, coming from the media, the skaters and ex-referees.

March 15-16. Examiner.com
Jackie Wong for Examiner.com describes the current situation, "Chan takes third career gold in controversial win over Ten at Worlds", and, a day after, comes back with the analysis:

"Judges are supposed to assess the current performance in front of them - not past performances, not practices, not the warmup that immediately preceded the skate. That practice, unfortunately, gets overlooked. It happened during the 6.0 era and it continues to happen today. Watching the two performances again, it is clear that Ten skated a program that was unmatched in his emotional involvement, character expression, and dedication to music. (...) Chan started off wonderfully. But with each mistake, his performance diminished - shoulders started slumping, movements were not completely finished, the attention to the audience and to the music went away. It's not to say that he tanked. But he skated a program that, in the realm of Performance/Execution and Interpretation, were much more pedestrian than they were marked". 

Wong is categorical: "Ten won the night, and he did enough to make up his short program deficit. No doubt about it". And I totally agree with his conclusion: in the current scoring system, "Cleanness is not rewarded enough and mistakes aren't penalized enough. There just isn't enough of a range of penalties to properly separate the egregiousness of mistakes".

This is the point from where ISU should build the change of the system;  the key-idea to start from.

March 16-17. USA Today
Christine Brennan is pretty severe (and I agree 100%) when stating, in USA Today, that "figure skating is dying, and judges can't prop it up".
Here's a quote: "Then there were the problems with judging. You've definitely heard this before. And you'll hear about it again, probably at next year's Olympic Games. In the men's long program here, Patrick Chan, the reigning two-time world champion skating in his home country, fell twice and made sloppy errors on two other jumps but nonetheless was propped up by the judges and given the world title. A delightful but basically unknown 19-year-old from Kazakhstan named Denis Ten performed far better and should have won. Pity the poor fan who turned on this event (perhaps in Latvia), watched one guy fall all over the ice and the other perform beautifully, saw the man who made all the mistakes win the gold medal and tried to begin to figure out what happened. And skating wonders why it's losing whole nations of viewers?"
A day before, you might feel an acute feeling of frustration in Brennan's writing: "Nothing much has changed in figure skating. Reputation still reigns supreme. The judges still make decisions based on what they hoped to see, not on what actually happened. If it's not a completely fixed result, it's so flawed as to leave one wondering why they even bothered to watch". The article in "USA Today" is full of harsh conclusions: "If a judging decision like this happens next year at the Sochi Olympic Games, when far more people will be watching, it just might drive away most of the sport's remaining spectators". And here's another one; a bitter one: "He (Patrick) also said he was "very optimistic" about the future, especially the Olympic Games next February. He should be. He clearly has friends in all the right places, starting with the judges' table".

And - I might add - if you're not Patrick Chan, this is hard to deal with when preparing the Olympics.

March 17. Reuters
"Glitzy Gala cannot hide figure skating warts", states Steve Keating for Reuters, starting his article with - well deserved - irony for the new (and old) World Champion (and, as things go, probably the already decided winner of the Olympic title; sorry, Patrick, but this is where you stand under the current attitude towards you - hence, the word "Chanflation"). 
Keating writes: "With a scoring system that is harder to understand than the theory of relativity and offers about as much transparency as a Papal conclave, figure skating still struggles to connect with the average fan, particularly in North America where their numbers are on the decline. That confusing system allowed Canada's Patrick Chan to claim a third consecutive world championship title on Friday despite hitting the ice more times than a toddler learning to skate. The routine was so dreadful that Chan spent the next two days apologizing profusely to fans for his performance but he certainly did not apologize for the win". 

March 18. despre-toate-si-despre-nimic.blogspot.com
I quote from myself now; I was staying awake (in Bucharest, Romania) all night, in order to see Men's free program and I fall asleep in frustration; bitter frustration. I named my article: "What about the audience, Mr. Cinquanta?".
Here you are: "Just a few days ago, in London (Canada), Patrick won his third World title after another not-so-convincing performance. Favorite of the home crowd, Patrick only needed to do his exercise in order to win the event; he was first and far ahead the other skaters after the short program. Instead, the Canadian fell on his Triple Axel and Triple Lutz, had a hand down on his Triple Salchow in combination and doubled another Lutz. „I was tired”, said Patrick to his coach, while waiting for the scores. And when these came – and Mr. Chan took the lead over the Spanish Javier Fernandez – it was another victory of the scoring system over the figure skating’ admirers and long-time watchers. As one of my friends has put it (a huge figure skating fan), it is as if this particular judging system is anti-audience. It really doesn’t reflect people’s taste and choices.(...) Introduced in order to eliminate the potential subjectivity of the judges – they have been, during the years, under intense scrutiny, accused in some cases of making deals, in order to favor one or the other – this new scoring system managed to make the audience completely disappear. It is as if figure skating became a closed affair, between the skaters and the judges; nothing less, nothing more. Now it’s not about the final impression of the program, about the best performance of the night in terms of jumps, art, emotion; it’s about adding 3.21 points from there, another 5.59 from there, 4.73 from there, 7.38 from there... Minus 2 points – and here’s your champion, ladies and gentlemen. Is this the right thing to do? We got rid of the old system – because, they say, it was subjective and vulnerable to abuse – and we have a new one, devoid of emotion; devoid of the audience’ voice". 

Sonia Bianchetti: opinion on the Worlds
Sonia Bianchetti was even more severe with the ISU scoring system on her website. After all, she has been a judge, official, rule maker and Olympic referee for 40 years. 
Here are some excerpts from her analysis; I underlined the key-phrases: "In each event there were some outstanding programs but, once again, I found it very disappointing and distressing to see many top and talented skaters all mess up their programs and mar them with too many falls. This was particularly evident in the men's event, where the skaters are more or less obliged to try to execute quads if they want to get a result, even when they know that the chances of standing up are poor. But they do not care because a fallen jump, or a jump landed on two feet, still brings a lot of points. And this is just an aberration of the IJS. What we witnessed in London could be the straw that will break the camel's back. Let's hope that it will push the ISU to take the necessary steps to stop this massacre. The solution is simple: just change the rule and say that a jump marred by a fall or landed on two feet has no value, as is the case for spins, for instance, when the required number of revolutions or positions is missing or the required position is not attained".

There's more to it. Patrick Chan is a victim of the system; but, as Mrs. Bianchetti pointed out, a happy and lucky one: "No doubt his (Patrick) skating is very good and he glides and moves well on the ice. Still, his placement and the marks he was awarded in the PC, in my opinion, are definitely not acceptable. How could he be placed ahead of Javier Fernandez and Yuzuru Hanyu, who executed flawless programs of a very high technical and artistic standard? And this is not the first time that this has happened. It has become "normal". I am speechless. Surely it is not Patrick's fault if the judges continue to overmark him. He is the lucky and happy victim of a judging system that, thanks to secret judging, allows the judges to carry on unpunished".  

I won't be ending this without some very powerful (and immediate) reaction coming from skaters on twitter. Here they are:

Todd Eldredge 
"No disrespect to Patrick but a skater shouldn't be able to fall twice & get such high PCS".

Johnny Weir
Immediately after Patrick' scores: "SERIOUSLY?"

And after:
"This judging is ridiculous and the only reason people buy it is because it's in North America. Imagine the outcry if it were Russia+Plush!?"  
"My world champion is @Tenis_Den. No question. Congratulations. Everyone should be feeling some Kazakh pride! #Молодец"

Evgeni Plushenko
"Patrick Chan did not win, but his figure skating federation! This is my opinion, as a man who knows the figure skating". 
And, immediately after:
"Denis Ten won this World Championshi.

And Denis Ten answer, always on twitter:
"Spasibo bolshoe, Zhenya! Skoreishego vyzdorovleniya!". Namely: "Thank you very much, Zhenya! Get well soon".
 
Different comments on Facebook
(I'm not sure if they want their names here, so I'll just use the initials...)

TW: "I hate that the IJS and ISU have screwed up figure skating so badly that it probably cannot be fixed or be appealing to audiences and the world media. I hate that arena's are empty or near empty. I hate that the national governing bodies won't stand up to OC at ISU and his bunch of gangsters who have ruined this sport. I hate that people's livelihoods and parents hard earned money are wasted on a sport that now, can lead to no where. Most of all I hate that ISU is so disconnected to the skaters who have to follow their stupid rules and secret judging panels. Denis Ten is an amazing athlete. I hope something comes from all his hard work and congratulate Frank for being such a great coach". 

NS: "the only problem is that there is not ONE person within the sport of Figure Skating who will stand up in front of the press and the world, and cry out for change to rescue Figure Skating. It's nice to see articles like this from Ms. Brennan, but what is required is a prominent voice within the skating world to take a public stand. Without internal support within the sport against this decline in Figure Skating, it is simply a matter of time until this sport becomes more and more unpopular and irrelevant".

DF: "I've often wondered if the most simple reason why skating has lost so much of its popularity is because of the scoring system. It makes sense to have a quantitative aspect to how skating is judged, but the qualitative aspect has been, and I suspect always will be, biased. That being said, even though the 6.0 system was just as biased as CoP, it made more sense. Also, CoP is far more demanding of the skaters and results in cookie cutter programs that have lost their aesthetic beauty. The most beautiful moment for me from this world championships were the steps leading up to Kim Yu-na's triple flip in her free skate. I know that seems silly, but she has such beautiful carriage and flow over the ice. I miss that about figure skating. I miss Kwan's spiral, Boitano's spread eagle and Sasha Cohen's... well just about everything from her was beautiful. CoP is killing the sport".

MB: "As a mother of a young skater, it is so hard to explain that even though you work hard and put out a clean program your scores may not reflect what was left on the ice. Skating now has become a numbers game. The beauty and grace is disappearing".

And, finally, Monica Friedlander, figure skating writer for years: "The scoring system has destroyed the artistry in skating (and in most languages, figure skating is actually called "artistic skating.") And the same system that has done that, is also allowing for totally political judging, with no one accountable for anything. The judges and the rest of us don't watch the same thing happening on the ice. When that happens, how can the sport survive? It's rotten with corruption from within. We need to reclaim it from the ISU". 

Denis Ten, on the other hand, is happy: he won a silver medal for Kazakhstan, the first World medal in the history of figure skating in his country. And he wrote back to his fans on his facebook account: "THANK YOU SO MUCH for your support. I am so proud to attain a new achievement for the figure skating history of Kazakhstan! It was my dream, my goal and without you - it wouldn't come true. (...) Take care and always believe in yourself! Remember that you can always go beyond expectations. It is possible. I checked. :) Lots of love, Denis".


I first saw Denis in Torino, in 2010. He was incredibly talented and I said to myself back then: "This boy is great". I saw him a month later in Bucharest, skating in the "Kings on Ice" show: he was wearing a ballerina tutu and the audience loved him.
Last year in Nice, I had a happy encounter in the elevator: he and his coach were going to the practice rink, at the fifth floor of a building; so was I and a friend. We were probably, five or six people, sharing the same elevator; and Denis sat in a corner, quite shy, while his coach, Mr. Frank Carroll said laughing: "I'm with a cat from Kazakhstan here...". Everyone laughed, Denis laughed too. And now, at the 2013 Worlds Figure Skating Championships in London, Canada, for me and for many, the "cat from Kazakhstan" was the real winner of the gold medal. 

(A bonus for the Romanian readers: a story about the Worlds coming from the news agency Mediafax).

luni, martie 18, 2013

What about the audience, Mr. Cinquanta?


Picture this: skaters performing their programs – beautiful, intricate programs – in an empty arena. No one’s cheering, no one’s clapping. No one’s there. Seems like an impossible scenario? Trust me, it isn’t. The public doesn’t understand the scoring system; and, sooner or later, full of questions and frustrations, might leave the ice rinks for good. As many examples have shown, the scores seems to be going in a different direction than the choice of the audience – and this could very well be the end of figure skating as we know it. Simply put, the audience doesn’t connect anymore with the ubiquitous line: „Ladies and gentlemen, these are your medalists”. Frankly, in many cases, they’re not. The scoring system is faulty – and something needs to be done in order to address that.

by Florentina Ţone, journalist and blogger
http://despre-toate-si-despre-nimic.blogspot.ro/

Where we stand now: along with hockey competition and opening/closing ceremonies, figure skating events are the most expensive when it comes to the Olympics. Tickets cost an arm and a leg – somewhere between 495 and 627 euro for men’s free program next year in Sochi (depends on who’s selling: Sochi Organizing Committee or a specific Authorized Ticket Reseller). But, really, will the public continue to spend huge amounts of money on the tickets, getting in return bitter and incomprehensible scoring experiences? The lesson to learn is that: ladies and gentlemen, figure skating officials, don’t take the audience for granted; you might be wrong.

The scores don’t seem to represent what we’ve just seen on the ice
Let’s begin with a sure thing: with the new scoring system (adopted by ISU in 2004, in response to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games figure skating scandal, involving the pairs’ event), figure skating became a very complicated sport. Even long-time watchers are having difficulties in understanding the scores received by a specific skater. In theory, the algorithm is known: we have the technical marks, on one hand, and the program components, on the other hand. Each technical element receives a number of points; and the components are, also, divided in categories: skating skills, transitions, performance/execution, choreography, interpretation. We know the rules; but when it comes to summing them up, the scores don’t seem to represent what we’ve just seen on the ice. In many cases, there’s a huge gap between the judges and the public when comes to the final result. And when this happens, there are many surprised and inquiring faces in the arena; and it might also be a lot of hissing. Is this the right direction in figure skating?

Patrick Chan at the Worlds 2012: a controversial win
Case study: World Figure Skating Championships in Nice, last year. In the men’s event, the audience felt that the Japanese skater Daisuke Takahashi was the winner of the evening. In the free skate, Mr. Takahashi pulled out a fantastic program, both technically and artistically; a program beautifully choreographed by Pasquale Camerlengo on „Blues for Klook”, suiting Daisuke like a glove. It poured with flowers on the Japanese; the audience was happy and enthusiastic, and so was Mr. Takahashi. 



Then the Canadian Patrick Chan took the ice – Mr. Chan, considered (for some years now) the wonder-boy of figure skating, given the rich content of his programs and his team’s ability to build for him programs which take 100% advantage of the new judging system. But, surprisingly, Mr. Chan was less convincing; he pulled out a very difficult program, but seemed to be in a rush, managing to fall in the middle of his exercise, while attempting a double Axel. At the end, he didn’t seem to be the winner. The audience – an international audience, to be clear – saw Patrick Chan as a silver candidate. But, given his scores, Mr. Chan was given the gold. And the arena started to hiss; and people continued to do that even during the medals’ ceremony, when the judges’ representative came to congratulate the medalists. Chan stated later he hadn’t heard the hissing, he hadn’t felt the disappointment of the public.

It is as if figure skating became a closed affair, between the skaters and the judges
Just a few days ago, in London (Canada), Patrick won his third World title after another not-so-convincing performance. Favorite of the home crowd, Patrick only needed to do his exercise in order to win the event; he was first and far ahead the other skaters after the short program. Instead, the Canadian fell on his Triple Axel and Triple Lutz, had a hand down on his Triple Salchow in combination and doubled another Lutz. „I was tired”, said Patrick to his coach, while waiting for the scores. And when these came – and Mr. Chan took the lead over the Spanish Javier Fernandez – it was another victory of the scoring system over the figure skating’ admirers and long-time watchers. 


As one of my friends has put it (a huge figure skating fan), it is as if this particular judging system is anti-audience. It really doesn’t reflect people’s taste and choices. So, here’s the question: when did the public lose his powers when it came to figure skating? After all, those marks given for presentation – in the old 6.0 system – seemed to have very well reflected the general impression of the watchers. The answer can’t be but this one: the gap between judges and the public started (and continued to grow) with this new ISU judging system.
Introduced in order to eliminate the potential subjectivity of the judges – they have been, during the years, under intense scrutiny, accused in some cases of making deals, in order to favor one or the other – this new scoring system managed to make the audience completely disappear. It is as if figure skating became a closed affair, between the skaters and the judges; nothing less, nothing more. Now it’s not about the final impression of the program, about the best performance of the night in terms of jumps, art, emotion; it’s about adding 3.21 points from there, another 5.59 from there, 4.73 from there, 7.38 from there... Minus 2 points – and here’s your champion, ladies and gentlemen. Is this the right thing to do? We got rid of the old system – because, they say, it was subjective and vulnerable to abuse – and we have a new one, devoid of emotion; devoid of the audience’ voice.
And here’s another annoying detail. Whenever someone asks: “What is it about those scores? I don’t get them”, there’s always an answer like: “You should study the scoring system before asking your question; you clearly don’t understand it (it – the system)”. This is obviously true: bud when did a sport become mathematics? What about the joy of watching figure skating and sharing the emotion? Where did all these things go?

The system creates the impression that certain skaters are unbeatable
And here’s another problem of this judging system: it creates statues, deities, aliens. It creates the impression that certain skaters, certain couples are unbeatable. Over the season, their scores get higher and higher, becoming Himalaya’s of the figure skating. This is, of course, the case of the same Patrick Chan. But this also applies to the American ice-dance couple Meryl Davis and Charlie White: the gap between them and the Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir seemed impossible to close during this entire season, in spite of the Canadians’ efforts. Take, for example, the ice dance final at the Worlds in London: the audience – a Canadian audience this time – felt that Virtue and Moir did everything in order to keep their World title; according to the scores, they didn’t.
On the other hand, according to the same system, both couples – the Americans and the Canadians – seem to be at a distance of ages from the other competitors. In the eyes of the audience and former skaters, the French Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat had a wonderful free program last season, on an Egyptian theme. But, in spite of their strong skate over the season, they remained well behind the couples from Canada and USA. As they remained behind the other Canadians, Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, considered by some to have presented in Nice, last year, the highlight of the free dance’ event – an emotional program on „Je suis malade”.

This Deities-Rule applies also to the Russian Tatiana Volosozhar&Maxim Trankov, skating in the pairs’ event. Second in the World Championships last year, Tatiana and Maxim became better and better this season; and, during the Grand-Prix events, the distance between them and the others, when it came to scores, was tremendous. And the scores were huge in spite of the errors which have really torn their programs apart: at the Grand-Prix Final in Sochi, Maxim fell while preparing to throw Tatiana in the air, for their triple Salchow, and she almost fell too – they needed 17 seconds to get back in the program, as Jackie Wong (Figure Skating Examiner) pointed out. That long and ugly break affected their performance – but you wouldn’t see that in their scores: they’ve won the final over their teammates Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov.

Why should we watch figure skating if (the impression is) the dices are already thrown?
If you ask me, this is bad for the audience. But it’s definitely bad for the skaters; especially for the younger ones. Here’s an example from the Worlds in London (Canada): after an amazing performance coming from Denis Ten, in the men’s final, the boy from Kazakhstan burst with enthusiasm in front of his coach Frank Carroll, when seeing the scores: „Wow! I almost beat Patrick!” If you ask me, he should have been happy for (almost) taking the gold, not for (almost) beating the Canadian... But Patrick, as previously stated, is regarded as a God in figure skating, given the scores he receives. And every other skater wants to defeat Patrick, makes a purpose out of defeating Patrick.  (The Spanish Javier Fernandez managed to claim the gold at Skate Canada, defeating Patrick Chan, mostly because his coach had him jump three quadruples in his free program – a strategy to win over Chan). You may say competition is good, that competition brings the best in a skater, but this is not OK; this is not at all OK. With this kind of attitude as regards him, all that Patrick has to do at the Olympics next year is to show up. The gold will come easily. He could fall twice and still win. But what does this mean for the state of mind of everyone else involved in figure skating? For everyone else watching figure skating? Why should we watch it – or, even better, why should we attend the Olympics, at the expense of our pockets – if the dices are already thrown?

I miss simplicity in figure skating
When I was a child, scoring figure skating was easy. I had a parallel system, invented by me and used in order to get feedback from everyone in the family who was watching the programs. I had a point (●) for „bad” or „so, so”, a circle for „good” (o) and a circle crossed by a line for „very good” (ø). After a skater had finished his/her performance, I would ask mom and dad to state their vote; I was doing the same. My figure skating’ notebooks – and a have a lot of them; I’ve been watching figure skating since I was 7 – are full of these graphic signs. In most of the times, we would pick the right guy/girl/couple. In other words, there was a correspondence between our scores and the official ones. These were simple, good times. Could we, please, get back to that? I miss simplicity in figure skating. 




Note from the author: I've been writing about figure skating for years now (in Romanian); but I've recently decided to switch to English, in order to make my figure skating stories/comments accessible. I've noticed that my blog gets visitors from USA, Canada, Japan, Croatia, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain... and since Romanian language is not that very well known, I've decided to make that change. Figure-skating stories will be written in English; and, at a certain point in the future, there will be a specialized website to host them. Until then, we'll meet here. Thank you for visiting/reading/writing comments/enjoying the pictures I take... (I apologise for the potential mistakes when writing in English - which is not, of course, my native language; I'll try to avoid them).