<p>Sorry, my last message, which I can no longer edit, was about the Men’s Hockey Tournament. </p>
<p>Did anyone catch the women’s Xcountry race yesterday? I never thought cross-country skiing could be so exciting.</p>
<p>Pairs skating and ice dancing have different rules and skill sets. Simply, ice dancers don’t do the pairs tricks and are judged more on skating close together, in time with the music, and in sync with each other. Some of that pairs fancy stuff like lifts and tosses is not allowed.There’s a lot more to it but that’s the basic difference. </p>
<p>Bromfield – Ice Dancing is dancing on ice – the partners should spend a good deal of time skating hand-in-hand or very close to each other, and very complex footwork and twizzles (spins that move down the ice) done in perfect unison are key elements. Another difference is that in dance, the man can’t lift the woman higher than shoulder level, and the lifts in dance tend to be much harder and much more intricate with many changes of position and interesting entrances/exits to the lifts. In contrast in pairs lifts, the requirement is that the lady be immediately thrust up into the lift with the man’s arm or arms (more credit if it is just one arm) held upright and fully extended. </p>
<p>Ice dancing basically has a full program of footwork – very, very tough. The top teams move at an amazing speed – they cover the length of the rink in a few seconds. They also skate using their edges much more powerfully. Those are two things that are almost impossible to see on TV. When you’re lucky enough to see a live competition with highly ranked international skaters, you can very clearly see major speed/power/quality differences between teams ranked 1-3, 7-10, and 15-18, for example, but it is a lot harder to see the differences between more closely ranked teams. There are also a lot of arguments – just as today – should Davis & White be ranked before or after Virtue & Moir. (They’re both fabulous teams, and in my eyes, both markedly better than any of the teams below them.) I feel really lucky to have seen all but two of the top 9 teams skate live at one time or another. </p>
<p>Lovely story here: <a href=“Heekin-Canedy Embraces Her Adopted Country - WSJ”>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303945704579386383650716084</a>
;)</p>
<p>Bromfield, the easiest way to quickly distinguish them is that pairs skating has jumps (they jump into the air and rotate 2 or 3 times), throws (the man throws the woman and either catches her or she lands like 20 feet in front of him) and lifts (the man holds her above his head). Pairs also has spins, sit spins, and the death spiral.</p>
<p>Dance also has lifts but the man can’t lift her above his head. The spins in dance are much slower and are called “twizzles.” In the short program, the couples have to execute prescribed choreography like foxtrot or quickstep. The judges look for edges – skating on the side edge of the blade – and how deeply the knees are bent. Couples should be very close together in the ballroom segments, and total synchronicity is essential. </p>
<p>Who is the idiot woman asking Bode Miller the same stupid question over and over at the end of his race? Good lord. Whomever she is, she should be fired from broadcasting forever.</p>
<p>That was one of the most awful cases of insensitivity I have EVER seen. So painful to watch - what was she thinking??!! Omg, I’m so angry about that! </p>
<p>nBC outdid themselves interviewing Bode Miller. I know he has not always been the most sympathetic athlete in years past but to keep pressing him on his thoughts related to his brother’s death was painful to watch. Instead of enjoying a hard won medal, he broke down on camera. </p>
<p>Yes, rotten treatment of Bode Miller. </p>
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<p>I watched it (know one of the US skiers on the women’s relay team). It was very exciting! I enjoyed the men’s this afternoon as well. Norwegians just don’t have it this week. And the French… what!!! So far everyone is testing clean, but cross country skiing does have a long history of doping… and the French have come out of nowhere to medal or almost medal in both the relays… More power to them if it was a clean performance, but it is very unusual.</p>
<p>If ice dancing, why not land dancing? I see every bit as much athletic skill at dance competitions as I am seeing here. “Twizzles?” Seriously?</p>
<p>Also, re curling: I get that it is a traditional Scottish pastime. But really, an activity with two brooms and something resembling a primitive Roomba cannot really be called a sport.</p>
<p>Twizzles may have a silly name, but they are HARD. Pretty sure none of us could do them, let alone in synch with another person. Just take land dancing and add a narrow blade, that makes it harder… But maybe you are right – I wouldn’t mind seeing ballroom dance added to the summer Olympics! I will say that ice dancing is much more entertaining now than it was 25 years ago – they would NEVER have skated to crowd-pleasing music back then. It was all serious music. More fun to watch for the crowd now, I think.</p>
<p>Lol re: curling. It is very big in the state I live in, but I think we are the “hotbed” for the US. Not a good Olympics for the US team, but we did win bronze in 2006.</p>
<p>Ice dancing really doesn’t look like all that much on TV but it’s the edges and the closeness of the couples that make it incredibly difficult. But, I agree that pairs skating is much more fun to watch. Try a twizzle, sometime. It’s hard.</p>
<p>intparent, I am sure I couldn’t do ANY of the Olympic sports! I can barely stand on ice skates, let along “twizzle” in them.</p>
<p>Curling is big in my state, too (which I believe is adjacent to yours). There are a number of local curling clubs but I haven’t known anyone to try it.</p>
<p>I don’t personally know any curlers, either… but it is in our newspapers every once in a while. I did go cross country skiing this morning (maybe in your state, just across the border from ours…). I can DO it, but I can tell you my racing times (when I used to race) sure weren’t anything like Olympic times. But I do love it, and have been inspired watching them this week. I think it was good for my technique to see them this week. :)</p>
<p>My dad used to call the music the Russians skated to “tractor music” back when they always won ice dancing. At least they finally got rid of “compulsory dance” where they all did the same moves for a whole dance. Ugh. Like watching paint dry.</p>
<p>I find ice dancing is way more fun to watch than pairs: they dance, instead of doing tricks and falling. Ice dancing, snobo cross, short track speedskating and HOCKEY are my favorites. </p>
<p>My little sis loves curling. She has fallen in love with a Norwegian curler we’ve nicknamed Dreamy McNorway: <a href=“http://www.sochi2014.com/en/athlete-thomas-ulsrud”>http://www.sochi2014.com/en/athlete-thomas-ulsrud</a></p>
<p>Curling reminds me of shuffleboard…</p>
<p>Agree with the above re: Bode Miller interview. What was wrong with that interviewer? She isn’t trying to get an accused murderer to break down, for goodness sake!</p>
<p>Lol @ Dreamy McNorway.</p>
<p>Real curling involves beer. Lots of it. Without the beer it’s pretty boring.</p>
<p>I like ice dancing better. It’s just no fun watching people try to make quintuple axles and ending up on their butts. I like all the new x game events. They are much more fun to watch than the traditional sports. </p>