<p>intparent: agree. Evan was a class act during his interview and Costas was baiting him over and over. (“Just let me read a few more quotes…”) After that, I liked Lysacek even more and Costas even less. I also thought it was kinda weird that Plushenko was winking (did you catch that?) and blowing kisses after his performance. I wondered if he mistook himself for Tom Jones again. </p>
<p>And since my non-professional eye needs glasses, the more I learned about their skating practices, the more I concluded Lysacek was the clear winner. When he practices, Lysacek goes through his routine over and over and over–to the point where others have to TELL him to stop. By contrast, Plushenko only came “back” to skating in December 2009, 6-8 weeks ago.</p>
<p>Just wanted to chime in and say that IMO NBC’s coverage of the Olympics is just awful.
Nothing, or hardly anything is live. Too many interviews and too many commentaries.
I can’t count how many times I have seen Lysacek’s long program - too many
I tuned in yesterday afternoon hoping that I will see women’s 15 K cross country live, only to see another hour of commentaries and re-caps of yesterday’s performances.
Where is hockey, where is curling, where are all the other events? Do we really need to see US athlete’s golden performances that many times???
Anybody else shares my opinion?</p>
<p>I thought Evan was really remarkable in his responses - I think we see a future commentator here! (Although he did look like Ed Grimley.)
And I think I heard only one athlete say he was so happy to race for USA. It was White after the snowboarding competition. Not that I think they should be all nationalistic and everything but a little patriotism in the form of acknowledging their country would be nice - just saying.</p>
<p>Kelowna, I think you need to get back to Kelowna. Although I spent most of the past week in Vancouver, we did catch some of CTV’s extensive coverage when we were not at events. They have events on all day/everyday with their coverage beginning at 7 a.m. Eastern and running most nights through 2 or 3 a.m., especially when there are late hockey games. Every single hockey game has been televised, same with curling, and all cross-country events. My impression is that every event is able to be seen because they are utilizing three branches of the CTV network - CTV, TSN, and RogersSportsNet. The coverage has been excellent for the most part. My only complaint, and admittedly it’s a small one, is that some of the huge contingent of commentators they have in BC are not that great. These are mainly the ‘color’ commentators who are doing interviews and the fluff stories. I would hope that NBC will show tomorrow night’s Canada/U.S.A. hockey game live.</p>
<p>Elvis’ comments showed a lack of analysis. All Pleshenko had to do was perform the other jumps well and he probably would have won as he had a lead going in the long program. There was room for him to not perfectly execute everything. The judges probably are willing to overlook some technical issues on other elements if a skater comes in and nails all the jumps. Pleshenko was wobbly on his other jumps. Elvis is overlooking the fact that Pleshenko didn’t do the triple jumps well. When he says the judging takes the risk out of skating, that’s not true. Looking at Pleshenko’s performance, it was risky for him to do the triples. </p>
<p>I think had Evan skated after Pleshenko, the results may have been different. I believe Evan does a quad, but not as consistently. I wonder if would have tried the quad after Pleshenko hit his.</p>
<p>Oh, how I wished I was in Kelowna right now :)</p>
<p>We are meeting with some friends tonight for dinner and to watch the olympics, but I bet we will be complaining a lot :(</p>
<p>Right now in my neck of the woods NBC is showing some kind of a paid infomercial. Can you believe that? It is Saturday and the olympics are in full swing ! Will check CNBC, thanks Burner .</p>
<p>Plushenko retired after the 2006 Olympics and continued to skate in shows etc. In March 2009, he announced that he had begun training to return to competitive skating in the 2009-2010 season. So, he probably started seriously training at least a year before these Olympics, although he was always skating. </p>
<p>Plushenko, like most competitive skaters, has had numerous injuries. It is, frankly, fairly amazing that he was able to come back and do the sort of jumping he did, after his hiatus and given his injuries. He has stated that he is only able to do a few quads a day because of knee pain. In addition, he lost a lot of weight, and got into very good shape before the Olympics.</p>
<p>Both Lysacek and Plushenko have shown an excellent work ethic and nerves of steel. There is no reason to criticize Plushenko for retiring after he won an Olympic gold and silver medal by 2006 and certainly no reason to criticize him for somehow not training hard enough when he returned in 2009.</p>
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<p>Lysacek last landed a quad well over a year ago in competition and I only remember one time he got credit for successfully landing a fully rotated quad in his career (there might be other times, but not often). He tried unsuccessfully at US Nationals this year and then stopped training it due to foot pain. </p>
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<p>There is no way to file a formal complaint about scoring after the competition is over. The reason why Sale/Pelletier were able to get a gold medal was because a judge came forward to say that her vote had been biased and she had felt blackmailed into voting for the Russians.</p>
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<p>You are correct and I believe that the ISU will probably do something to weight the quad more heavily in the future (maybe give a bonus for landing or attempting it or something like that).</p>
<p>People can disagree on the question of who should have won. However, ice skating has been grappling with the new judging system for several years and there are many many people who feel that it has created a sameness in the programs, a lack of innovation, and a lack of reward for those who try to push the envelope (and many of these people are Americans and some of the people who like the new system are Russians). By trying to set this up as a sort of “cold war” scenario and by making Plushenko, who is supposed to be a fairly nice guy (although a little arrogant) into a villain, NBC is trying to get ratings by enraging the general American public. Personally, I think it does a disservice to the sport.</p>
<p>Does it? What does the sport need to survive? It needs interest and there has been precious little in figure skating for several years. Interest provides a money stream or there is no sport. Sometimes a little controversy is what saves a sport. I agree it does a disservice to the sport on other levels but without money and interest, the sport can be as pure as the driven snow and if no one cares, then it withers.</p>
<p>I guess I would prefer a better way to make the sport more interesting and relevant than ginning up artificial controversies. Because if you go down that road, the best way to raise interest would be to whack someone’s knee again.<br>
Personally, I think that there are lots of things that US Figure Skating could do to generate more interest, but it would take a real change in the mindset of the people there and some new events and new rules (Xtreme skating, anyone?). I don’t think that the new judging system has been particularly good for raising interest in the sport, because I think to most casual observers, it doesn’t make a lot of sense–for example, most people watching Nationals probably preferred Mirai Nagasu’s long program to that of Rachael Flatt. I also think that the sameness of the programs is a problem–how many spiral sequences do you really want to watch? And frankly, I think that most people really like athleticism–watching a guy attempt three quads is probably more fun than a guy who does none. </p>
<p>But, I agree with you, that figure skating is on a downslide now.</p>
<p>Controversies usually fuel public attention to the sport. I’m not a fan of Plushenko, but I, too, thought that NBC was using the scenes they filmed in Russia to create an image of a “villain” (muscle cars, broken English, dark alleys, cold blue eyes - smelled like a Bond movie to me!). :)</p>
<p>My friend sent me a link to it, but I can’t post it here, so if you want to see a really bizzare Plushenko’s performance, search for “Dima Bilan BBC” on YouTube. :D</p>
<hr>
<p>CNN says: there is a free cowbell app for your iPhone!</p>
<p>^^^^^LOL, I said the same thing to my daughter last night. I said he looks like an evil villain in a James Bond cold war era movie. </p>
<p>Wasn’t the famous platinum blonde Russian dancer (oops, can’t remember his name at the moment) later cast as the bad guy in several movies after he retired from dancing?</p>
<p>Edit: I think I remember his name: Alexander Godunov (sp?)</p>
<p>midatlmom, you are obviously much more knowledgeable about the sport than I am and I agree that I’d like to see interest generated in other ways. One way is to do the human interest stories so that the audience identifies with the athletes on a personal level and may choose to follow them in their career. However, people complain about those too and would rather see the events themselves. </p>
<p>I actually prefer the more graceful, artistic skaters that use every body part to interpret the piece. I find skate, skate, jump boring. The footwork bores me because I don’t know how to judge it. Spins are my favorite and I miss some of the more elegant spins. I guess the sit spin is more difficult than the upright spin but I love to see the upright spin. </p>
<p>Gearing everything towards difficulty and technical ability is boring for me. I would like to see artistry count even more so that some of these jumping robots wouldn’t have a chance unless they took some dance lessons.</p>
<p>Cartera, if you love spins, you will love Dennis Ten, the 16 yr old who competed for Kazakhstan. He did a spin that was made famous by Denise Bielman (I thought it was Sasha’s signature spin, but DH corrected me). Not too many male figure skaters can pull that one off!</p>
<p>Ice dances are on, but we are still yakking about the men! Soooo, what was your favorite pair last night? Who do you think will make the top three?</p>
<p>late to the thread here, as I was out of town and had limited internet availability when the Olympics began.</p>
<p>However, I can’t believe that in all this discussion of Plushenko, no one has mentioned his behavior during the medal ceremony. To me, that piece of non-verbal, in-your-face sort of antic was far more cynical than anything he said the next day. He knew this move would have a world-wide audience and it was completely irreverant.</p>
<p>Hmm, I don’t buy that the ISU will change the scoring to weight the quad more heavily. I think they got exactly what they wanted out of this. For years there was a lot of griping that more and more skaters were just biding their time between jumps, and that was all that mattered to win (remember Tara Lapinski?). I think the new scoring has brought more balance to the picture, and that is good for skating. Believe me, the guy who can land the quad AND spin beautifully AND execute the footwork flawlessly will win the gold. That wasn’t any of these guys… this year. But the new system rewards all those things, and I think that is good for the sport in the long run.</p>
<p>It is true that the “6.0” system was dramatic when someone earned one and easier for casual observers to understand. But so subjective that it made everyone (skaters and observers) crazy in other ways. But I don’t really think skating is in a decline. I do think American women are in pretty bad shape. We only have 2 women at the Olympics this year due to poor performances by them in international competitions recently. But the men & ice dancers are very competitive. And I’m sure Johnny’s new TV show (and book!) will generate some interest :)</p>
<p>Do they get some extra points for grabbing their skate as they spin? I have noticed they are all doing this and I don’t think it is a visually pleasing move at all.</p>
<p>BTW, NBC is also showing Olympics on CNBC (as mentioned above), USA, and MSNBC. Every day I use my TiVo guide to find all of the Olympics telecasts on the various channels. I’ve been watching a lot of curling since it’s the only thing that is shown live here in the Seattle area (grrrr).</p>
<p>Yes, they do get more points on some moves for grabbing their skates. Dick Button was complaining about how awful this looks, and implying that skaters just aren’t as flexible as they used to be (or don’t work as hard to build that flexibility!). </p>
<p>There is a Facebook group called “Fans For Downgrading Grabbing Your Skate” if you want to join. Started by former figure skater Debi Thomas (whose athleticism I loved) in disgust over this trend.</p>
