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Athena

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Mittengirl
Mittengirl

I cannot believe that there are some journalists who are suggesting that US Figure Skating needs to be more like US Gymnastics in the training of young athletes.  The very idea is so - I don’t even kn

herbz
herbz

The Nassar situation isn't another discussion- Karolyi's methods and reign of intimidation directly created a world in which young girls pushed through injuries which sometimes permanently crippled th

Growsonwalls
Growsonwalls

Wow I feel bad for both girls.  There's Med, crying because at the ripe old age of 18 she's gotten dumped for the New Shiny Thing, and then there's New Shiny Thing, all of a sudden looking so childlik

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Moxie Cat

Moxie Cat

8 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

 

New drinking game. Drink every time Tara says "He/She/They want gold. "

 

She always says it very dramatically too: "THEY...WANT....GOLD." I believe she said this approximately 3,756 times about H/D at Nationals.

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specialj67

specialj67

3 minutes ago, Daisy said:

 

Oho
I don't think I like it. LOL

I know I would enjoy it more if it didn’t mean skaters using the same old warhorses, just now with the lyrics. I never truly hated Phantom of the Opera until I heard Music of the Night in all its bombastic, overwrought vocal glory dozens of times in the 2014-15 season and after.

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Daisy

Daisy

2 minutes ago, specialj67 said:

I know I would enjoy it more if it didn’t mean skaters using the same old warhorses, just now with the lyrics. I never truly hated Phantom of the Opera until I heard Music of the Night in all its bombastic, overwrought vocal glory dozens of times in the 2014-15 season and after.

 

I remember saying after sochi, skating (and gymnastics)  need to have a registry or something. file it in, no one else can use the music. 

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blackwing

blackwing

1 hour ago, Dots And Stripes said:

They are Olympic Athletes from Russia. The team is still not under the Russian flag. I don't see any real difference between an OAR in an individual sport and an OAR in a team sport. I think the goal is to punish the national organization while not punishing "clean" athletes who have no control over the larger politics.

I see a difference.  I get that the IOC isn't going to punish "clean" athletes, but any clean athletes were invited to compete as a neutral independent athlete under the Olympic flag.  The Russian TEAM was banned.  Therefore, any events which require the joining of individual athletes to form a team should be prohibited.  The individuals can compete in the individual events, but if they are all supposed to be independent, I think it's odd that they can join together and compete as a team.  

So the runners from South Sudan and those other refugees would have been allowed to join together to form a relay team?

To ban the Russian team but then to allow them to compete as a team under the OAR designation is just semantics.  They're still Team Russia, whether they fly their flag and wear their uniforms.  And they still have a team uniform, it just has a new logo and colour scheme.   If the IOC was going to allow this they should have just stated from the beginning that they were going to ban individual athletes.

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annzeepark914

annzeepark914

I was surprised to see Mrs. Knierem looking depressed as soon as they slipped to 3rd place (and the Russians still hadn't skated).  Did she really think they had a chance skating against those 3 top teams?  At least K & K skated a near flawless program and got through their s/b/s jump w/o a hitch for once.  Poor Nathan.  The O's got to him.  Hopefully he's gotten the jitters out of his system and will be fine for the individual competition.

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Dots And Stripes

Dots And Stripes

10 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I see a difference.  I get that the IOC isn't going to punish "clean" athletes, but any clean athletes were invited to compete as a neutral independent athlete under the Olympic flag.  The Russian TEAM was banned.  Therefore, any events which require the joining of individual athletes to form a team should be prohibited.  The individuals can compete in the individual events, but if they are all supposed to be independent, I think it's odd that they can join together and compete as a team.  

So the runners from South Sudan and those other refugees would have been allowed to join together to form a relay team?

To ban the Russian team but then to allow them to compete as a team under the OAR designation is just semantics.  They're still Team Russia, whether they fly their flag and wear their uniforms.  And they still have a team uniform, it just has a new logo and colour scheme.   If the IOC was going to allow this they should have just stated from the beginning that they were going to ban individual athletes.

So no pairs or ice dance then? Those are individuals coming together. 

The refugees should be allowed to compete in team events. One key difference is you can make an OAR team that would clearly qualify (and possibly medal) whereas many of the refugee athletes are starting with very little training and filling a team of athletes who are prepared to compete would be more difficult. Having read about some of the refugee athletes, there seemed to be a unique qualification process designed to make the games more inclusive. I would like to see that process expanded to allow more refugees to qualify.  I don’t think it’s accurate to say the structural problems refugee athletes face are the same as the ones Russian athletes face. 

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stealinghome

stealinghome

Quote

I was surprised to see Mrs. Knierem looking depressed as soon as they slipped to 3rd place (and the Russians still hadn't skated).  Did she really think they had a chance skating against those 3 top teams?  At least K & K skated a near flawless program and got through their s/b/s jump w/o a hitch for once.

Given the rate that people were falling on their asses all night, I'm sure she was holding out hope that it would happen to a few of their top competitors!

Quote

So no pairs or ice dance then? Those are individuals coming together. 

But to be the smallest unit allowed in their discipline. A single entry into the field. That's how I would define "individual" in this sense.

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The refugees should be allowed to compete in team events.

But then they shouldn't be considered refugees/a refugee team at all. If you're functionally going to allow Team Russia to compete as Team Russia and just ban certain individual athletes, that's fine--but then just admit that that's what you're doing. Don't go through the farce of saying the Russian team is banned...except not really at all. All it's done is make a mockery of the team ban.

I do think the figure skating team competition falls into a tricky gray area, fwiw. If you take the position that clean athletes shouldn't be penalized for others' actions (even their own Olympic federation) and therefore you're not going to just unilaterally ban any athlete from Russia, I can understand letting the Russian hockey team compete, because there's no way one single hockey player can medal. You need a team, that's the smallest individual unit, so I get the argument that allowing OAR to compete in hockey sans any banned players still fulfills the spirit of the team ban. And obviously for individual competitions like figure skating, if any single athlete hasn't been banned, they ought to be allowed. But when you allow what are normally individual units who compete in their individual disciplines (against each other) to form a team for a team competition, imo that breaks the spirit of the team ban.

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Shaynaa

Shaynaa

26 minutes ago, Dots And Stripes said:

So no pairs or ice dance then? Those are individuals coming together. 

The refugees should be allowed to compete in team events. One key difference is you can make an OAR team that would clearly qualify (and possibly medal) whereas many of the refugee athletes are starting with very little training and filling a team of athletes who are prepared to compete would be more difficult. Having read about some of the refugee athletes, there seemed to be a unique qualification process designed to make the games more inclusive. I would like to see that process expanded to allow more refugees to qualify.  I don’t think it’s accurate to say the structural problems refugee athletes face are the same as the ones Russian athletes face. 

You know that is not the same thing.  A situation where athletes work together in regular, non-olympic, competition should be allowed to be replicated on the Olynmpic level.  But multiple athletes in different events should not be allowed to compete as a team when that team as banned from competition for doping.  What was the point in banning Russia in the first place if they were just going to be given a work around?

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NUguy514

NUguy514

I'm adding an asterisk to any medal won by a Russian athlete at these Olympics.  They are all doping (nothing will convince me otherwise), and the IOC should've banned every single one of them.  Full stop.  But they're a bunch of corrupt fuckwads, so here we are.

I would love nothing more than to see Virtue/Moir fall; I'm so done with them.

Chanflation is still in full effect, I see, so that's great.

I hope the quality of the ice is fixed immediately; the men's skates were embarrassing.

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Dots And Stripes

Dots And Stripes

17 minutes ago, Shaynaa said:

You know that is not the same thing.  A situation where athletes work together in regular, non-olympic, competition should be allowed to be replicated on the Olynmpic level.  But multiple athletes in different events should not be allowed to compete as a team when that team as banned from competition for doping.  What was the point in banning Russia in the first place if they were just going to be given a work around?

I know it’s arbitrary to allow clean athletes to compete invidually and on some teams (“teams that work together in regular, non-Olympic, competition”) but disallow other teams. So how often do teams need to compete together? Some national teams do compete together regularly outside of the olympics (like soccer) while others maybe put together before the games. I think the allow clean athletes to compete where they qualigy system makes more sense than trying to figure out which teams meet some arbitrary distinction.

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Dots And Stripes

Dots And Stripes

23 minutes ago, stealinghome said:

 

But then they shouldn't be considered refugees/a refugee team at all. If you're functionally going to allow Team Russia to compete as Team Russia and just ban certain individual athletes, that's fine--but then just admit that that's what you're doing. Don't go through the farce of saying the Russian team is banned...except not really at all. All it's done is make a mockery of the team ban.

This is getting off topic here, but I think the issue is that the word “team” has different meanings. There is overall “Team USA” and then there are teams like bobsled, hockey, etc. Team Russia was banned as in the overall organization, there flag cannot be used, their anthem cannot be played, and dozens of individual athletes have been disqualified. That is the punishment. Allowing a hockey “team” but not a figure skating “team” is as arbitrary to me as allowing a pair “team” but not a larger figure skating “team.” Imo, the argument for disallowing teams is not taking into account the different uses of the word. 

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BitterApple

BitterApple

1 hour ago, honeywest said:

If Nathan Chen doesn’t medal, NBC will run him out of Pyeongchang on a rail. 

Right? They've probably spent half a million in filming puff pieces alone. He's the Network's designated Show Pony and he better slay, or else!!!

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stealinghome

stealinghome

(edited)
Quote

This is getting off topic here, but I think the issue is that the word “team” has different meanings. There is overall “Team USA” and then there are teams like bobsled, hockey, etc. Team Russia was banned as in the overall organization, there flag cannot be used, their anthem cannot be played, and dozens of individual athletes have been disqualified. That is the punishment. Allowing a hockey “team” but not a figure skating “team” is as arbitrary to me as allowing a pair “team” but not a larger figure skating “team.” Imo, the argument for disallowing teams is not taking into account the different uses of the word. 

I understand what you're saying and agree that it's a gray area and mileage varies--but personally I still think that if all you've done is replace "Team Russia" with "Team OAR," where OAR is a cohesive multi-sport coalition of Russian (and only Russian) nationals allowed to compete as a distinct team (as opposed to other refugees who competed as individual units), then you haven't really upheld the spirit of banning Team Russia. You've just renamed it.

Edited by stealinghome
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redpencil

redpencil

Quote

It seems lame that they don't scale the points based on score. Japan's lead would have been huge. 

I feel like that would be pretty difficult, since what constitutes a good score is not equal across disciplines (likewise, some disciplines tend to have scores that are closer together than others). You'd have to figure out a way to scale things equally, so men's didn't end up weighing more than the rest. I have no idea how you would do that.

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GreyBunny

GreyBunny

(edited)

I watched the Canadian broadcast and everyone's routine was shown. Mercifully I don't have to deal with the Nathan puff pieces and the Patrick ones didn't take long to FF through. 

The Israeli skater was a joy to watch, he's my Olympic spirit animal.

They're skating on slush, instead of skates they should have worn water wings.

The Russians are assholes and all of them should have been banned. The refugee/individual athlete status should be for those who are displaced because of war/disaster or their country has no functioning Olympic organization, not for a federation of cheaters who want to circumvent the rules. Allowing the "innocent" Russians to compete is a joke and it's an even bigger joke to have them compete in any team events. Would a male single skater from Nigeria, a female skater from Iceland, ice dancers from Colombia, and pairs from Vietnam (with subs from Saudi Arabia and India) be able to compete together for the team event? No? Then neither should the Russians.

Edited by GreyBunny
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absnow54

absnow54

4 hours ago, redpencil said:

I feel like that would be pretty difficult, since what constitutes a good score is not equal across disciplines (likewise, some disciplines tend to have scores that are closer together than others). You'd have to figure out a way to scale things equally, so men's didn't end up weighing more than the rest. I have no idea how you would do that.

For each event (short and free skate would be separate), divide each score by the first place score and multiply by 10. Number one gets 10 points and everyone else gets a fraction of 10 points depending on how well they did. That way in instances where a couple of skaters scored within a fraction of each other, one isn't awarded a multiple point lead, and there's an actual incentive to perform instead of just skate clean. 

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janieberd

janieberd

The USA team "cheering" on the other skaters looked so morose.  I remember in Sochi they were so animated and enthusiastic (I miss Jason Brown) about cheering for each other - you really felt like they were supportive of each other.  Are they all jet lagged or something? 

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Good Queen Jane

Good Queen Jane

Nathan Chen has explained that skating at 10:00 AM Korea time meant getting to the arena at 6:00 AM for warm ups and he didn't go through his usual competition routine. I do understand that the skaters, especially the top ones, are used to skating in the evening. But they've known for at least a year that they were going to be skating that early (so we North Americans can watch skating LIVE in prime time). You would think that the coaches would start doing practices and run-throughs at the crack of dawn to get the skaters used to it. I bet Nathan  will be at the practice rink early from now until his individual event.

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Vera

Vera

(edited)
Quote

But they've known for at least a year that they were going to be skating that early (so we North Americans can watch skating LIVE in prime time).

But they had the Challenger, Grand Prix and Nationals to get through first. For everyone fighting to qualify for the Olympics, changing training might have affected those competitions which would have affected who the feds picked to send to Pyeongchang.

Edited by Vera
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ChicksDigScars

ChicksDigScars

(edited)

I watched the live stream of the Parade of Nations:

Spoiler

Looks like many athletes have skipped it due to the extreme cold temps. Shout out to the three from Bermuda....wearing BERMUDA SHORTS. (I'm sorry, is this a spoiler?) I get the symbolism, but they called for a low of minus 23 in Korea today! Skating topic: the only figure skaters I saw marching were Tessa and Scott, since they're Team Canada's flag bearers. My guess is that the rest skipped it, due to the team event, and that most of the people marching today were cross country skiiers, luge and bobsledders. They're used to the extreme temps.  (**EDIT** Saw more skaters later on in the evening telecast, so never mind. Chen and the Knerim's were marching.)

 

Color me shocked, but the Knerim's saved Team USA's asses last night. They hit their side by side jumps and I almost did a fist pump. 

 

With only one US pair, I'm a little apprehensive whether they're going to have the legs to skate four programs in such a short time. I assume that Duhamel and Radford are also doing the same, unless Canada has such a huge lead that they don't think that they need their scores in the long program.  But as far as conditioning, Duhamel is a little hard body, while Alexa has just recovered from major surgeries. I expect D/R to be able to handle the four program onslaught a lot better than SK/K.

 

I thought that the Russian officials were also not allowed. They were the only ones in the Team Box. Johnny outed the President of the Russian Federation on the air. The "punishment" is a joke. No flags (except that the Russian spectators are going to wave them constantly), and no anthem. That's all it boils down to. 

 

Vanessa James' blue dress? HOT. 

Edited by ChicksDigScars
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absnow54

absnow54

I feel like for the Knerims, since the team event is their only shot at a medal, they're going to put in everything they have for the first two programs, even if it tires them out for their individual competition.

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halopub

halopub

18 minutes ago, Good Queen Jane said:

You would think that the coaches would start doing practices and run-throughs at the crack of dawn to get the skaters used to it. I bet Nathan  will be at the practice rink early from now until his individual event.

This reminds me of how elite swimmers were compelled to swim finals in the morning and prelims at night in Beijing. Many had trouble adjusting but Michael Phelps shrugged it off. In their case, I think at least one Grand Prix event prior to the Olympics had that format but the 2008 US trials had the more typical schedule with finals at night. That was also the case for the US skating nationals this year, with the competition on a typical nighttime schedule.

Before the team skating competition the NBC app had a clip of one of Nathan's practices and it looked fine. The jumps weren't full bore but there wasn't anything alarming. Scott Hamilton said that Nathan doesn't worry about so-so warm ups and practices translating over into competitive routines but that maybe he should. 

While it's a bummer to be reminded that someone who did five quads while sick is still human, the best thing the USOC and corporate sponsors can do right now is to limit his media availability - the punny headlines this morning have been awful - and let the kid regroup without the added scrutiny. Let's learn from Dan Jansen and Michelle Kwan.

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kittykat

kittykat

7 hours ago, fan94 said:

What do you consider the ladies, then? O.o

I just assume that dance and ladies were the stronger fields for US.  I haven't really followed skating for a few years though.  Just surprised they finished ahead of Russia even with all the ice issues.

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BitterApple

BitterApple

From what Johnny and Tara were saying, it seems like a lot of these skaters treat the team competition as a run-through for the individual events. Yeah, it's great if they medal but I don't get the vibe it'll make or break their Olympics. In that sense, I can understand why they wouldn't want to adjust their training routines for a 10 a.m. start. 

10 minutes ago, kittykat said:

I haven't really followed skating for a few years though.  Just surprised they finished ahead of Russia even with all the ice issues.

I was as well. The Russian pair was in an entirely different league than the Americans, and I thought all the men sucked equally. I would've put the OAR ahead of the US. 

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peachmangosteen

peachmangosteen

2 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

From what Johnny and Tara were saying, it seems like a lot of these skaters treat the team competition as a run-through for the individual events. Yeah, it's great if they medal but I don't get the vibe it'll make or break their Olympics. In that sense, I can understand why they wouldn't want to adjust their training routines for a 10 a.m. start. 

But aren't the individual events going to be at the same time?

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Good Queen Jane

Good Queen Jane

Yes, all the individual events are going to start at 10:00 AM Korea time. Never underestimate the power of NBC dollars. I understand that you wouldn't change your training schedule until you are chosen for the Olympic team. But most skaters have had at least a month between being named and the beginning of the Olympics.

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Daisy

Daisy

6 minutes ago, Good Queen Jane said:

Yes, all the individual events are going to start at 10:00 AM Korea time. Never underestimate the power of NBC dollars. I understand that you wouldn't change your training schedule until you are chosen for the Olympic team. But most skaters have had at least a month between being named and the beginning of the Olympics.

All hail NBC. 
and i agree. i mean once you've made the team, wouldn't you adjust?

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Jeddah

Jeddah

I know Russia got away with a lot of things, but I still feel bad for the Russian athletes who are clean. For them not having the anthem or flag is a big deal. Standing on a podium watching an Olympic flag go up and hearing a song they’ve probably never heard before is much different than hearing their own national anthem. It’s a very symbolic and famous part of the Olympics that they’ll miss.

Of course, I realize the flip side of that is that there were a lot of athletes who missed out on that experience too because a Russian athlete who was doping got the gold.

.

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