Monday, February 22, 2010
Figure Skating Made Fun
Posted by Frank Murtaugh on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM
I want to be delicate in crafting this column, for I know those who tune in for Olympic figure skating take it as seriously as any American Idol voter or New York Yankee fan. The slightest stumble — to say nothing of an actual meeting of keister and ice — is enough to spike blood pressure. This is a sport in which a pipe-wielding hit-man made news not that long ago. I know the gravity of the subject matter.
But I have a problem with a sport in which I can’t recognize a winner from a “loser.” The subtleties between Lysacek’s performance and that of 2006 Olympic champ Evgeni Plushenko may have jumped out — like a triple salchow! — for the judges entrusted with awarding medals in Vancouver. But from my couch? Two fine athletes, each able to do with their bodies on ice what I couldn’t do in a swimming pool. And synchronized to music. To crown one Olympic champion — again, in my view — is as subjective as awarding an Oscar or Grammy.
It doesn’t have to be this way. When the International Olympic Committee finally calls, here’s my solution for the figure-skating competition.
To begin with, the field will be drawn up in brackets, like a tennis tournament. National champions will be seeded higher, with an open draw to determine placement of other skaters. As we learn every March, nothing builds fan interest like a good bracket. Only regulation: skaters from the same country cannot face each other in the first round. “Face each other?” you ask. Absolutely, and this is the game-changer in my new figure-skating format. Two skaters on the ice at the same time. Four-and-a-half minutes together, with music they are presented at the time of the draw (allowing skaters, at minimum, three days to choreograph their routines; we’re looking for skating champions, not dancing stars).
This would actually bring competition — an opponent — into the fold. Whether it’s another team, a clock, or even par on a golf course, an athlete needs to be confronting an adversary to truly achieve greatness in sports. Imagine the Olympic field being winnowed down to Lysacek vs. Plushenko in the finals, each to take the ice one last time, forced to perform his best routine of the tournament ... without crashing into his rival. (A bracket format would require more routines to be skated by each competitor. If Olympic swimmers can handle three races in a day, skaters can take on some extra ice time.)
And finally, our new scoring system. Skaters would accumulate points for each jump and each technical maneuver, based on the value as determined by international judges. Unlike the current system, though, the points would show up on a scoreboard as the routines are being performed. “Plushenko takes a 15 point lead early, only to have Lysacek close the gap with back-to-back triple axels!” Can you imagine the drama if Ms. Flatt were trailing the favored Kim with 30 seconds to go in their routine, and the entire world knew she had to hit three flawless jumps to take the gold? I, for one, would be falling off that couch, screaming at my television, “C’mon Rachael! Jump, baby, jump!!”
All the artistry would still be there, all the beauty that makes figure skating so attractive to so many. But it would also feel like sports, where battling something a little more fearsome than a panel of judges is generally part of the mix.
“Jump Rachael! Jump!!”
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
like
dislike
You know, for an uninformed spectator, you are on fire!
Improvisation would be the key. The skater that can deliver the goods with minimal preparation time wins. That means talent and skill can only be rewarded. If you don't have a feel for the ice, GOODBYE!
The costumes can get the boot, too. I love figure skating but I'm tired of the hideous costumes. (And no, I don't mean Johnny Weir. The Italian in the overalls... Contesti, that kind of atrocity.) All in black because it outlines their bodies and arms better.
Something is really wrong at the moment. All this talk about Mr Jump vs Mr Average All Rounder who apparently went out and found himself some artistry ( I stress apparently), yet the skaters who punished were those with the more artistic flair. So that alone should have handed Plush the gold for his quaddy and not that hideous, over choreographed ice dance masquerading as figure skating. If artistry is back, then Plush should have gotten his gold because he embodied the Tango and had subtlety of choreography that obviously went over most viewers heads. Best to stomp around to Scheherazade, accenting everything with a tossed head or skyward flung arms. Egggghhhhh.
Your system would get rid of all of this. I read somewhere someone also suggesting that the minute you fall, you're out, like a knockout competition. Me like. You can stagger, wobble, palm the ice, but if both blades end up in the air, it's all over. Now it's a sport!
A tip for telling one jump apart from the other is how they enter it. Watch their feet. In no time you'll be correcting the dimwits, then you can join the ISU, then you can change everything. World domination!
What I love most about figure skating is that after the big judging controversy of a few years ago, where judges were trading high scores, where it was so obvious they were rigging it because you could see what each judge scored each skater, they solved the problem by making it so you couldn't see what each judge scored each skater. I call it the Diebold Solution!!®
I think they should take figure skating and ice dancing, freestyle-skiing, half-pipe, diving and gymnastics and put them in their own olympics, to be played every fourth odd-numbered year. Have all the competitors dress like vampires and call it the Twilight Olympics, and intersperse the events with showings of The Notebook. Then I could more easily ignore the whole thing.
Then in the real Olympics, we could watch measurable performances - the skiing and sliding, speed skating, jumping (whatever happened to skate jumping?), shooting, swimming, running, and throwing things. It might be vigorous athletic activity, but if you can't tape it, time it, or put points on a board, it ain't the moist spectacle of sporting competition, brother.
Bottom line: if you're doing it to music and winning depends on a subjective grade by a panel of judges, it's a talent competition, not a sport. Olympians Got Talent!
Exactly, Bruce. Next thing you know, they'll have competitors voting each other off the podium.
On April 9 in Hot Springs, there will be a sports event where the athletes pitted against each other are at the top of their game, reigning champ and 2-time runner-up, in a race against the clock and for a $5million purse. Will anyone at the Flyer be there?
THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUES
