Figure Skating

[ChicksDigScars]

1 hour ago, Snow Apple said:

I haven't really paid attention to skating for years and had no idea Russia was cranking them out and quickly putting them out to pasture.

Back in the day, the women were in two or three Olympics. Now I keep hearing this may be the only shot for the 18 and 15(!) year olds. How sad and horrifying.

In other words, they've turned Ladies Skating into "Ladies" Gymnastics, which has always been my fear. Only the few exceptional ones manage more than one Olympic cycle and anyone over 20 is considered "old." This sucks. 

 

I enjoyed Osmond so much more than Medvedeva and Zagitova.  She's a grown up and her skating reflects that.  

[hendersonrocks]

That SI story is awful for Mirai, and it appears to be entirely of her own making and well deserved. This paragraph sums it up well:

Quote

She fluttered through the interview like a butterfly at a funeral, oblivious to everything happening around her. Bizarre only begins to describe it. She even took shots at other skaters, though it was unclear if she even realized she was doing it.

[caracas1914]

Any medal is good.

I think at Sochi some skaters  eyerolled the first time ever team competition, but when all is said and done you come away with an Olympic medal and that will preface any mention of your career for the rest of your life, who cares what it was for?  

It’s still incredibly awesome.

 

ETA:  And yes, I’m preparing myself to have to hear “Patrick Chan, Olympic Gold Medalist” being announced every friggin time ...

Edited February 23, 2018 by caracas1914

[Growsonwalls]

1 hour ago, alexa said:

Well, SI is reporting similar re: Mirai, and their article is a little cleaner and more specific:

 

https://www.si.com/olympics/2018/02/23/2018-winter-olympics-mirai-nagasu-figure-skating-team-usa

It sounds like underneath all the smiles and cheers she's really upset, and so she's giving these interviews to mask the disappointment. Unlike Adam Rippon who had limited skills and knew it going into the Olympics Mirai did NOT skate her best in either the SP or LP. Nowhere close to her best. So she's sort of saying "fuck it, I wasn't here for the medals anyway ..." A bit immature considering she's 24 but ...

But this quote was below the belt:

Quote

Somebody (not me, just so we are clear) asked her why the U.S. skaters seemed to struggle with the pressure here. Nagasu responded, “That’s a very aggressive question. I’d like to point out that Gabrielle Daleman, who is an Olympic gold medalist, didn’t have a strong outing here in the individual.”

As for Alina Zagitova I went to her instagram page and she appears to be a talented drawer:

Edited February 23, 2018 by Growsonwalls

[Ohwell]

When Mirai finished skating she looked like she was about to collapse on the rink laughing.  I know it was probably just nerves and relief that it was over, but she really did look weird with all the laughing.  

[blackwing]

I truly hope that the international skating union makes some adjustments to the rules on scoring.

1) Reduce the bonus for "hands over the head"  so you can't get it for every single jump.

2) If you're going to allow the bonus for backloading the programme, then deduct points from the artistic side for flow and unevenness.   Make the judges aware of this.

[HartofDixie]

Nathan was originally on the list but he is under the weather.

[blackwing]

5 hours ago, Quickbeam said:

Just waking up...for all the age talk, Kostner in 5th, not bad!

I think she is horribly overrated and she was way overscored.  She got points for being the Old Lady in a competition with some people half her age.  She got "respect" points.  The commentators like Tara always gush about her "artistry".  It surprises me especially from Tara because she was just a jumping machine.  To me, saying that "she is known for her artistry" is just a euphemism for "can't do the big jumps".  Just like the guy in freestyle skiing gushing about someone's "elegance" and "style".   It just meant that she can't do big tricks.

[ChicksDigScars]

9 hours ago, fan94 said:

(this is just for teh lulz BTW)

Eteri: "This coat is made from the uneaten and dehydrated meals of all of my skaters...."

[Minneapple]

2 hours ago, alexa said:

Well, SI is reporting similar re: Mirai, and their article is a little cleaner and more specific:

 

https://www.si.com/olympics/2018/02/23/2018-winter-olympics-mirai-nagasu-figure-skating-team-usa

What a bizarre interview. WTF? After all that angst over not being named to the Olympic team last time, this is what you give? Oh, Mirai. But then the alternative was Ashley, which no. 

[TwopLurker]

Quote

I think she is horribly overrated and she was way overscored. 

Definitely, but she roller skated at Burning Man and I think that's pretty cool.

Johnny said that the Brazilian (by way of NJ) skater would have a harder time because Brazil doesn't have a reputation with the judges. That seems ridiculous, shouldn't the scoring be objective? Just like how Mirai has a reputation for under rotating so the judges are extra hard on her jumps. Seems like it would be impossible to improve in that system. 

I wish someone had skated to something from the Game of Thrones soundtrack, same classical sound, more opportunity to engage a new audience. 

All of the Larry Nassar/Karoli atrocities made it difficult for me to watch figure skating and not be worried about what may be going on behind the scenes :(

[BitterApple]

4 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I think she is horribly overrated and she was way overscored.  

I do too. She was the only one out there where it was painfully obvious she came from an entirely different generation of skaters. I respect the amount of work she puts in to stay competitive, but her scores are inflated. She can't even do the combination jumps which are considered de rigeur for top-level competitors. 

[blackwing]

2 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

I do too. She was the only one out there where it was painfully obvious she came from an entirely different generation of skaters. I respect the amount of work she puts in to stay competitive, but her scores are inflated. She can't even do the combination jumps which are considered de rigeur for top-level competitors. 

Kostner is the female Patrick Chan.  He readily admits that the skating world left him by the wayside and that he is no longer competitive.  That's why he's retiring.  Has Kostner said whether or not she is retiring?  Does she know she isn't competitive, or did she honestly think she had a chance at a medal?

[Eyes High]

11 hours ago, Bama said:

I have SO enjoyed snarking and discussing the skating with all of you!  

I can't wait for the fun of the exhibition!

Yes, and yes! Discussing the skating is my favourite part of the Olympics. 

The exhibition is gonna be lit!

I'm sick of hearing people call Alina and Evgenia robots. As if consistent, strong, splat-free skating is somehow a bad thing. If landing all jumps is "robotic," Olympic figure skating could use a lot more robots.

I hope the Canadian team enjoys their success--gold medal in team and medals in all the individual events except men's--because most of those skaters are retiring.

[BitterApple]

31 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

 

As for Alina Zagitova I went to her instagram page and she appears to be a talented drawer:

She drew that? Wow. When a fifteen year-old makes you feel like a total loser in life, lol....

[Growsonwalls]

Yes there;s also shots of her with ice cream. I hope her coach let her eat this:

[Eyes High]

22 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Kostner is the female Patrick Chan.  He readily admits that the skating world left him by the wayside and that he is no longer competitive.  That's why he's retiring.  Has Kostner said whether or not she is retiring?  Does she know she isn't competitive, or did she honestly think she had a chance at a medal?

Patrick Chan was very blunt about his individual medal chances going into the Olympics. I found it refreshing.

Alina all alone clutching that stuffed animal while she wept was one of the saddest things I've seen in this Olympics. Evgenia's devastated, obviously, but damn.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Eyes High

[backgroundnoise]

39 minutes ago, ChicksDigScars said:

In other words, they've turned Ladies Skating into "Ladies" Gymnastics, which has always been my fear.

This isn't anything new, IMO.  They seem to go in waves, rewarding jumping, basically ignoring everything else (Surya Bonali, anyone?), and then start rewarding artistry again. 

If they want to reward jumping, fine, but then actually judge it consistently.  Don't let anyone get away with a wrong edge, or whatever.  And they really should change the scoring to reward a clean triple higher than a failed quad, IMO.  But what do I know, I'm just a spectator who likes to see something beautiful on the ice.

[BitterApple]

6 minutes ago, Eyes High said:

 

Alina all alone clutching that stuffed animal while she wept was one of the saddest things I've seen in this Olympics. Evgenia's devastated, obviously, but damn.

The last ten minutes of the broadcast was so bizarre. You'd think someone would've gone over to Alina and congratulated her. If not her coach, then another skater, an Olympic worker, the guy selling Ramen at the concession, whoever. Maybe there's resentment about Not!Russia being allowed to compete or purists didn't appreciate the way Zagitova gamed the scoring system to win, but watching her sit there all alone like an orphan at a bus stop was just so sad and tragic. 

[Libby96]

12 hours ago, LadyKenobi said:

Much artistry to be desired from Zag, but Med deserved to lose on the basis of that costume alone. It looked like a train wreck dragged through a mud puddle.

That would be appropriate.  Anna Karenina does pretty much end with Anna getting wrecked by a train....

[ChicksDigScars]

1 hour ago, Growsonwalls said:

Yes there;s also shots of her with ice cream. I hope her coach let her eat this:

Now we all know how to say "nom nom" in Russian! 

Edited February 23, 2018 by ChicksDigScars

[surreysmum]

Just now, ChicksDigScars said:

Now we all now how to say "nom nom" in Russian! 

Flashback!  Apparently on the post-Olympic tours, Katarina Witt's western friends used to sneak her ice cream on the bus because her coach Jutta Mueller wouldn't let her have any.  I have no idea how or why I remember that... (it may be in Brian Orser's 1988 autobiography). Speaking of stupidly premature autobiographies, Brian, when are we going to get the far more interesting volume 2? :)

[caracas1914]

57 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I think she is horribly overrated and she was way overscored.  She got points for being the Old Lady in a competition with some people half her age.  She got "respect" points.  The commentators like Tara always gush about her "artistry".  It surprises me especially from Tara because she was just a jumping machine.  To me, saying that "she is known for her artistry" is just a euphemism for "can't do the big jumps".  Just like the guy in freestyle skiing gushing about someone's "elegance" and "style".   It just meant that she can't do big tricks.

In all fairness, Carolina did land a 3lutz which suprised me since I thought that jump was long gone forever, and she did plan a 3t/3t which didn’t pan out.  I get that technically she can’t match some of the younger girls but a clean program from her with her presentation and no one would argue she would deserve to be in the top 10.  I’m sorry but as a 31 year old if she can stay in the top 10 or top 15 in world level competition that is nothing to sneeze at.   

Edited February 23, 2018 by caracas1914

[Eyes High]

1 minute ago, surreysmum said:

Flashback!  Apparently on the post-Olympic tours, Katarina Witt's western friends used to sneak her ice cream on the bus because her coach Jutta Mueller wouldn't let her have any. 

That's really sweet. I hope Alina gets all the ice cream she wants. #freeAlina 

 

Quote

 I have no idea how or why I remember that... (it may be in Brian Orser's 1988 autobiography). Speaking of stupidly premature autobiographies, Brian, when are we going to get the far more interesting volume 2? :)

I'm still not clear what happened with Yuna Kim.

[aemom]

8 minutes ago, ChicksDigScars said:

Now we all now how to say "nom nom" in Russian! 

What I thought was funny, was when I first copied it to Google Translate, it said that it was Bulgarian and that the translation was "I'm dumb."

I said to myself, "that can't be right," switched the language to Russian, and then got "Om-Nom-nom," which sounds about right.

Google Translate - correct -- some of the time.

Edited February 23, 2018 by AEMom
Typo

[displayname]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

I think she is horribly overrated and she was way overscored.  She got points for being the Old Lady in a competition with some people half her age.  She got "respect" points.  The commentators like Tara always gush about her "artistry".  It surprises me especially from Tara because she was just a jumping machine.  To me, saying that "she is known for her artistry" is just a euphemism for "can't do the big jumps".  Just like the guy in freestyle skiing gushing about someone's "elegance" and "style".   It just meant that she can't do big tricks.

Really? Kostner has exceptional skating skills (look at how smoothly she turns on the ice, as opposed to Med and Zag), and she expresses the music really well too. And her jumps are huge and done with great technique. It's probably why she can't land them at her "Old Lady" age -- it's harder to control her landings now.

 

What she should've been scored like is a different issue.

Edited February 23, 2018 by fan94

[blackwing]

3 minutes ago, caracas1914 said:

In all fairness, Carolina did land a 3lutz which suprised me since I thought that jump was long gone forever, and she did plan a 3t/3t which didn’t pan out.  I get that technically she can’t match some of the younger girls but a clean program from her with her presentation and no one would argue she would deserve to be in the top 10.  I’m sorry but as a 31 year old if she can stay in the top 10 or top 15 in world level competition that is nothing to sneeze at.   

Well, at that point we would have to debate whether it's better to do a "safe" programme with easy jumps or try an ambitious programme with harder jumps but have a much higher risk of falling.  

Personally, I'd rather have someone go all out and try to be the best.  Otherwise we get what was women's slopestyle.   So many of them were seemingly falling that a safe run with relatively simple tricks could get you into the finals and the top 12.

[displayname]

Tangentially relevant:

 

http://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/43168312

 

Hope they get banned for real the next couple of Olympics.

[Mumbles]

All this talk of Carolina reminded me how surprised I was to see Lori Nichol there. I didn't recognize her.

[peachmangosteen]

Does anyone know if NBCSN or the app is airing the whole gala? I assume NBC will only air a few of the performances and I wanna see the whole thing, dammit!

Edited February 23, 2018 by peachmangosteen

[Moxie Cat]

I hope we continue to see Alina in the future, but if she does continue, she has to jettison that ballerina shtick. It was fine for one season at 15, but it's going to get old real fast. Although, I cannot imagine how many times we'll have to hear Johnny and Tara discuss how "she's matured this season" if she does think of something else.

Also, all six of the junior ladies singles skaters in the Grand Prix Final this year were Russian. ALL of them. There are a lot more little girls on the assembly line. So I believe that US ladies are ten years behind at this point. I truly hope the same problem doesn't happen to Canada post-Osmond.

[peachmangosteen]

.

[displayname]

7 minutes ago, Moxie Cat said:

Also, all six of the junior ladies singles skaters in the Grand Prix Final this year were Russian. ALL of them. There are a lot more little girls on the assembly line. So I believe that US ladies are ten years behind at this point. I truly hope the same problem doesn't happen to Canada post-Osmond.

There was Rika Kihira of Japan, the first woman to land 3A-3T internationally.

[Tanichka]

1 hour ago, caracas1914 said:

 

ETA:  And yes, I’m preparing myself to have to hear “Patrick Chan, Olympic Gold Medalist” being announced every friggin time ...

I used to enjoy Patrick's performances, but I hope to not see him compete again.  Embarrassing. 

[CeeBeeGee]

That interview was a disaster. And yes, she will be remembered for it, much as Nancy Kerrigan is still remembered for her snide remark re: Oksana Baiul as much as for the attack. Dumb, dumb, dumb, Mirai. Nobody expects you to throw yourself off a cliff in remorse but that kind of glib crap ("in my mind I went for it" and "this is all just icing," are you kidding me?) is not going to fly. If you don't want to try your hardest, there were plenty of skaters left at home who would've jumped at the chance. And throwing poor Gabby under the bus to deflect "aggressive questions" (Welcome to the Olympics, Mirai! The press is not there to fawn on you) was completely uncalled for. She is not a kid and she really should've known better.

And with these results, the US ladies' team is now the Romanian women's gymnastics team. (For non-fans, they didn't even qualify a whole team to Rio--this, the country that gave us Nadia and as a team had never finished off the podium since the '70s.) I don't blame them individually but something has to be done. Ninth, 10th and 11th place is terrible.

[leopardprint]

I have never been able to get over Carolina’s chronically too short skating costumes. Girl, I get you are tall, but surely there is someone in Italy (of all places) that knows how to dress your proportions. 

[caracas1914]

22 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Well, at that point we would have to debate whether it's better to do a "safe" programme with easy jumps or try an ambitious programme with harder jumps but have a much higher risk of falling.  

Personally, I'd rather have someone go all out and try to be the best.  Otherwise we get what was women's slopestyle.   So many of them were seemingly falling that a safe run with relatively simple tricks could get you into the finals and the top 12.

I think that’s a different argument all together.  I think we’re in agreement that Carolina did not have the technical goods this Olympics.  If she had landed all her planned content, who knows?  But realistically she hasn’t had a program with the full arsenal of jumps in years.

 

Where I disagree is I don’t think any “mature” skater should be automatically be put out to pasture on the criteria that they can’t realistically medal at the World Level.

Edited February 23, 2018 by caracas1914

[displayname]

36 minutes ago, ChicksDigScars said:

Now we all now how to say "nom nom" in Russian! 

Russian's really easy to read if you know the greek alphabet.

 

Understanding it is a different matter. But those letters right there are pretty clear.

[BitterApple]

20 minutes ago, Moxie Cat said:

 

Also, all six of the junior ladies singles skaters in the Grand Prix Final this year were Russian. ALL of them. There are a lot more little girls on the assembly line. So I believe that US ladies are ten years behind at this point. I truly hope the same problem doesn't happen to Canada post-Osmond.

I wonder why the Russians are so far ahead? Is it the coaching? More interest in the sport? Do they have a greater population of underdeveloped waifs to choose from? Even throwing the Not!Russians aside, I didn't think any of the US women came close to the level of Osmond and the two Japanese girls. It feels like the sport is advancing and we're still stuck in the 90s.

[GeminiDancer]

3 hours ago, alexa said:

Well, SI is reporting similar re: Mirai, and their article is a little cleaner and more specific:

 

https://www.si.com/olympics/2018/02/23/2018-winter-olympics-mirai-nagasu-figure-skating-team-usa

Yikes, Mirai! She kept digging and digging and digging. It frustrates me that she was so complacent when we saw her fight at Nationals and in the Team Event. What is up with Tom Z? Never liked him as a coach. 

[Eyes High]

22 minutes ago, CeeBeeGee said:

That interview was a disaster. And yes, she will be remembered for it, much as Nancy Kerrigan is still remembered for her snide remark re: Oksana Baiul as much as for the attack. Dumb, dumb, dumb, Mirai. Nobody expects you to throw yourself off a cliff in remorse but that kind of glib crap ("in my mind I went for it" and "this is all just icing," are you kidding me?) is not going to fly.

True, but the SI interviewer seemed downright offended that she wasn't showing the appropriate amount of anguish and grief (comparing her unfavourably to Gabby sobbing about her father and brother coming all the way from Canada for nothing). I hate it when journalists go fishing for misery porn. The interviewer wanted and expected teeth gnashing and waterworks, and he got huffy when denied. Fuck him.

Mirai's nonchalance was odd, I'll grant, but disappointed athletes cope in their own way, and I think it was more false bravado than anything else.

 

Quote

And throwing poor Gabby under the bus to deflect "aggressive questions" (Welcome to the Olympics, Mirai! The press is not there to fawn on you) was completely uncalled for. She is not a kid and she really should've known better.

I think Mirai's defensiveness betrays her true feelings. If she really didn't care about her subpar performance, she wouldn't have been so quick to take issue with "aggressive" questions and throw Gabby under the bus. I do agree that that comment about Gabby was not cool, though. You're 24, Mirai, which is like 65 in lady figure skater years these days. Grow up.

That nasty comment about Gabby also makes me wonder about Mirai's sincerity when she comforted Gabby after her performance.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Eyes High

[Good Queen Jane]

29 minutes ago, Moxie Cat said:

Also, all six of the junior ladies singles skaters in the Grand Prix Final this year were Russian. ALL of them. There are a lot more little girls on the assembly line. So I believe that US ladies are ten years behind at this point. I truly hope the same problem doesn't happen to Canada post-Osmond.

The US Junior Ladies Champion, Alysa Liu, is only 12, too young to compete internationally in juniors this year. But she was hitting triple and triple combinations like nobody's business at the US Championship. Give her a couple years and the US may be in contention  again.

[halopub]

13 hours ago, Shaynaa said:

Does anyone know who she is?  I tried googling and couldn't find anything.

Someone posted much earlier in the the thread that the Australian commentator is Belinda Noonan, who works for Olympic Broadcasting Services. I guess the NBC app taps into their audio feed, rather than simulcast it's own coverage.

[displayname]

[CeeBeeGee]

21 minutes ago, fan94 said:

Russian's really easy to read if you know the greek alphabet.

 

Understanding it is a different matter. But those letters right there are pretty clear.

It's the cases that are killing me. (And the genders--I really wish there were a dictionary that indicated which gender a word is.) And all the exceptions! 

[Growsonwalls]

9 minutes ago, Eyes High said:

I think Mirai's defensiveness betrays her true feelings. If she really didn't care about her subpar performance, she wouldn't have been so quick to take issue with "aggressive" questions and throw Gabby under the bus. I do agree that that comment about Gabby was not cool, though. You're 24, Mirai, which is like 65 in lady figure skater years these days. Grow up.

That nasty comment about Gabby also makes me wonder about Mirai's sincerity when she comforted Gabby after her performance.

I'm sure at the moment Mirai was sincere. After all Gabby was bawling her eyes out and it's hard to look at that and not feel bad.

I think though that at the press conference Mirai is doing that thing so many people do to deflect personal feelings of disappointment which is to think "Well I feel shitty now, but nowhere as shitty as (someone who did even worse than me)." Unfortunately she had a mic on her at the time and chose to unload. It was tactless and unwise.

[surreysmum]

19 minutes ago, Eyes High said:

I'm still not clear what happened with Yuna Kim.

I think it's likely we'll never know.  Or at least not unless Brian waits until his coaching career is long over - he can't afford to lose possible future clients, after all - and then writes a juicy tell-all about skating mothers, backroom federation pressures, and all the other bizarre things he has doubtless been exposed to as a prominent coach.  But yes, I'd *really* like to know whether coaching Asada was ever an actual possibility.  (Unfortunately he strikes me as too nice/too cautious a guy to really let rip, at least not in print). Coaching other skaters not named Yuna to Olympic and World medals has been his best revenge.

I have an absolutely massive collection of skater biographies & memoirs, and almost without exception they're bland as hell, especially the ones that are obviously put together to catch the post-Olympic market, aimed at the tweenie-girl-skater set, or both. But even the books coming out of the senior statesman skaters of the US (Hamilton, Fleming, Hamill, Button) are clearly very heavily edited to exclude anything remotely controversial.  Some of the European material - especially from people who had cause for grudge or self-vindication (Moniotte/Lavanchy; Marie-Reine LeGougne; Sonia Bianchetti; Jacqueline du Bief -who was flat-out informed before the '52 Olympics that she would get the world championship gold in compensation for not getting the Olympics) - those can be much more interesting but in some cases require more facility in French than I'm master of. (Has anybody read the German version of Katarina Witt's autobiography? Is it more substantial than the English-language one that followed?), And of course there's Toller, who even in 3 volumes told, I suspect, far less than he knew, and chose to misremember much more. He must have dined out on some of those stories for years before he wrote them down (I'll never forget the one about the unnamed female stalker-fan who broke into his house and arranged herself naked and covered in rose petals on his living room rug. Or the Bowman stories...) I remember exchanging e-mails with his editor on those books, Martha Kimball, and she was quite funny on the subject of the footnotes she had to insert to correct matters of verifiable fact, such as the dates & places of competitions.

I rather regret that the death of the '90s skating boom in the States has also meant the drastic reduction in skating books, even if so very much of it was pablum and pretty pictures.

[MaKaM]

22 minutes ago, Eyes High said:

True, but the SI interviewer seemed downright offended that she wasn't showing the appropriate amount of anguish and grief (comparing her unfavourably to Gabby sobbing about her father and brother coming all the way from Canada for nothing). I hate it when journalists go fishing for misery porn. The interviewer wanted and expected teeth gnashing and waterworks, and he got huffy when denied. Fuck him.

Mirai's nonchalance was odd, I'll grant, but disappointed athletes cope in their own way, and I think it was more false bravado than anything else.

Yeah, this. And anyone used to being "interviewed" by Andrea is going to be on the defensive from the start. Plus with social media people (like us!) just waiting to tear you apart, there really is no "correct" answer to any question. Always waiting to put the worst interpretation on everything (the Japanese girl, Russian, and Canadian aren't chatting it up in the "winner" lounge, youth these days suck! when, huh, maybe there is a language barrier. Or, they are afraid of saying anything because there is the camera ready to catch every error and magnify it!). And if you stick to the bland, "I just wanted to skate my best" then you are a snooze with no personality.

[halopub]

5 hours ago, Conotocarious said:

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/gold-medalist-figure-skater-yuzuru-hanyu-impressively-bad-speed-skating-041459505.html

 

i thought this video was cute. 

 

Incidentally, I did that at the rink last week and I think I fractured my rib.

The Japanese broadcasters have been showing more behind-the-scenes footage of exhibition practices:

 

Some curling:

 

A bit repetitive, but then there's a lift and Shoma also goofing off (skip to 1:36):

Edited February 23, 2018 by halopub
added time stamp; thanks conotocarious for sharing that Yahoo clip

[caracas1914]

Post Cumpolsories era....was 94 Olympics the last Olympic (and only) in the women’s where presentation trumped technical as far as the Gold versus silver?   I realize it’s a matter of debate how much more technically superior Nancy Kerrigan was to Oksana but it was fairly close ,no?   

 

Other than that it seems technical edge ends up on top.