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Comments by: YACCS
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Saturday, January 12, 2002
Thanks for inviting me to join your blog, Julia! :-) You asked about commenting systems... check out YACCS It's baby simple to set up and is free! :-) It works much better than the one I was using, so I ditched it in favor of this. Enjoy! Thursday, January 10, 2002
Focus. It's one of those qualities that a skater needs. There's no "walking through" a short program. Everything counts. All the US guys learned this the hard way. Tim Goebel landed all his jumps, including his quad salchow-triple toe loop combination, only to splat on his serpentine footwork. Todd Eldredge landed a *gorgeous* triple axel-triple toe loop combination and then barely squeaked out a triple lutz. Matt Savoie seemed to be the only one to keep it completely focused, not missing a thing. And guess who's third? Or is that second? Yes, sportsfans, we have a rarity. We have a tie at the top, a first in my long memory. You have ties in hockey, not figure skating. There's always a tiebreaker somewhere. So who will win? Don't predict, don't ever predict, unless you're prepared to watch your predictions go down in smoke. But if I had to call it... here's what to watch: 1. The Quad -- Like it or not, the quad is around for awhile. If the quads are being landed, it could make it difficult for Savoie and Weir without quads. Eldredge plans one, as does Weiss. Goebel plans three! 2. The triple axel -- The old standby jump is still my favorite. Goebel and Weiss sometimes have shaky technique on the triple axel. Weiss' second one at 2001 Nationals was so tilted even *I* could spot it at home on the television. With his focus on the quad, Eldredge seems to have discovered his axel groove. He's been doing them long enough. Think about this: The youngest mens' competitor is 15 years old. He's been doing triple axels almost as long. 3. Artistry -- Ah, yes, what makes a skater really come alive? Who will show their heart on their sleeves? Will it be an "American in Paris" or "Lord of the Rings"? Or is Puccini going to have his day... again? 4. Spins & Footwork -- After the short program, these could be deciding factors in the program. If someone splats on serpentine footwork *again* or a missed sitspin, things could get interesting. Todd has the edge on spins. He may do the same classic positions over and over, but he does them ten times better than anyone else. 5. Nerves - Who can hold up under the pressure? Or for the younger skaters, who doesn't feel any? 6. The intangibles -- Who wants it the most? Is everyone so focused on making the Olympic team that no one wants to be national champion? A major skating competition means skating is news again and Nationals week is no exception to this rule. In fact, maybe even more so, because, this may be the only chance to cover Suzy Slush from Somewhere FSC for their local newspapers. Reporters from everywhere show up and newspapers suddenly are filled with skating articles. Some are good, some are bad, and a lot fall in between. The skating press corp seems to fall into three categories -- the beats, the locals, and the flybynighters.. There are the Olympic/skating beat reporters. They cover skating events and/or Olympics on a regular basis. Most of the veterans seem to have graduated to big name columnists, though some are just regular reporters. Honestly though it's hard to tell the difference in skating reporting sometimes. Subjective sport does not mean a reporter should forget basic journalism. Okay, fine, you have an opinion, but what *actually* happened on the ice? The odd middle ground category are the local reporters. These are the poor souls who are probably informed by their editor that there's an Olympic hopeful in their town and you have to spend a week in LA, staring at lutzes and toe loops. If they're lucky, they're covering an skater who has been around awhile and everyone knows the story. On the other hand, they might be the one to discover the next Michelle Kwan. And then there are the flybynighters, those curious reporters who seem to only crop up every four years for the Olympics. They may or may not be sports reporters. They may be a Style section or arts or fashion or dance writer. If they know anything about skating, it's probably from reviewing an ice show. I sound harsh. My standards have become quite high over the years. As a communications major, I *did* take our equivalent of Journalism 101. (actually it was 211, whatever). I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to stand up in an Olympic press conference and ask the right questions. I'm sure they're doing their best in a tense situation. I can understand not knowing the terminology of the jumps or lifts... but how hard is it to check the spelling of a name? So it's Nationals week and I find myself cruising newspapers' online editions. After awhile, it sounds like a travel book with the weirdest itinerary going from L.A. to Detroit to Chicago to New York with a dash through my home Washington, D.C. coverage. Along the way, I meet some skaters I might not have heard about or I read a new perspective that I hadn't read on a familiar face. Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Nerves are the bane of any skater's existence. Skaters have to combat them at every competition. There's always this nagging feeling that they're really not that good, that they were just lucky to get past regionals and sectionals. They eat at the skater until a mistake happens and again and again. Think this only affects the younger skaters? Think again. Paul Wylie and Nancy Kerrigan called it "the Voice". Brian Boitano nicknamed his "Murphy". Brian Orser used to turn on the showers in the dressing room so he couldn't hear the marks being announced. Dorothy Hamill admits to still being nervous every time she takes the ice even for an exhibition. Believe it or not, skating fans get nervous, too. So nervous they pace the room before a competition. We're out there on the ice with our favorites, living vicariously off their jumps and spins and footwork. Sometimes you just know something's wrong, that things just weren't meant to be. And sometimes you can also see when the stars align. "It's not about having butterflies, it's about getting them to fly in formation." Of course, this is skating, so the butterflies must fly in unison, with marvelous speed, and excellent pointed wings. At least they just have to pull their wings in for a good scratch spin. So why do I suddenly have a mental image of a pair of monarch butterflies doing a throw triple salchow? Yes, it's Nationals week. The butterflies are flying and the nerves are frayed and somewhere in Los Angeles Olympic dreams are being made or shattered. |
