Vancouver Olympics - Part II - ATTENTION: SPOILERS

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Originally posted by Irvine511
in your opinion, do you think he is judged more harshly than the other skaters (by the judges themselves)? to the naked, uneducated eye, his performances seemed to be not as rewarded as they should be, and it seemed like the NBC commentators agreed. and i can understand how, in the need to not seem frightening to boys, they want to make figure skating less ... flaming than Johnny. there's a whole complex thing going on that i could discuss but it's too much for here. but curious as to what you think.

also, hail Queen Yu-Na. time for her to start counting the gajillions she's going to make.

so happy for Joannie.

and Mirai is absolutely adorable. the future.
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I had to think very, very carefully about what I wanted to say in my post without coming across as sort of a closed-minded bitch. I learned very young that people are people no matter who they love, and that is probably the LAST thing I judge people by. I actually know more gay female skaters than male, and many people are surprised by that.

In my opinion, Johnny got straight-out robbed in the men's final. He stepped out of a sit spin and got all sorts of deductions when guys who finished ahead of him were falling out of jumps.

I agree with him that US Figure Skating doesn't like him. Skating judges are mostly old, crotchety frustrated skaters these days and they sure don't want to see a guy in a pink corset or covered in fox fur and feathers. Depending on the demographic of the judging panel at a given competition, I am quite sure he is judged differently from Evan Lysacek in a blue tux or Jeremy Abbott in the eternal puffy shirt and black pants. He doesn't have the difficulty the other men do, but what he does he does beautifully and he doesn't always get rewarded for it.

I thought today that Kim Yu-Na is [her coach] Brian Orser's reward for losing the Battle of the Brians after coming in second to Scott Hamilton in '84. He deserves a young phenom, winning medals and breaking records like it's easy.

I cannot say enough about Joannie. I'm so glad she held it together. She hasn't always been good at putting two strong programs together and I was coaching her from my couch when it looked like she was falling apart.

Sorry to hijack the new thread with stuff from the old thread. Next time I'll wax poetic about what we grass-roots skaters call "boy points." :wink:
 
I'm probably one of the few people who has never been that impressed with Luongo and frankly he let in a couple of dumb goals on Wednesday that nobody talked about because we won so impressively. I would also not like to comment in detail on our defence (aside from a couple of notable exceptions).
 
VintagePunk said:
I've enjoyed reading your take, thanks. :)

Curious, how much do you think the portion I quoted above has to do with it?
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Well, I think it's like Plushenko and Lysacek. Sure one had a quad, but the other performed his elements better. The only glaring error I remember from Johnny's program is the sit spin and maybe he just did a triple/double combination instead of a triple/triple. Spins don't count nearly as much as jumps so I was really surprised with his scores. I tend to think the ones who stand up more and have footwork and transitions that aren't just fluff should be given the right scores.

But then, it's figure skating, so who ever knows what the judges are looking for anyway?
 
Oh. my. god. Those last few minutes were insanely stressful. :crack: Gotta give the Slovakian team a lot of credit. They fought like hell.

Can't wait for the gold medal game on Sunday, though! GO CANADA!!! :D
 
Schmeg said:
But then, it's figure skating, so who ever knows what the judges are looking for anyway?
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Very true. As I've mentioned before, my daughter used to skate competitively, and we used to be into watching it a lot, but I have no clue about this new scoring system, I'm lost.


I'm turning off the tv now. That was enough stress for one night. :lol:
 
The betting markets are really crapping on Canada hockey right now -- you can get 1:2 odds on them winning the gold right now, which I think is a very good price.
 
VintagePunk said:
Very true. As I've mentioned before, my daughter used to skate competitively, and we used to be into watching it a lot, but I have no clue about this new scoring system, I'm lost.


I'm turning off the tv now. That was enough stress for one night. :lol:
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I'm actually starting to get it. :crack: The best thing they ever did was decide if you pull your foot over your head more than once, it's no longer considered a difficult position and you lose the bonus points for it.
 
Nothing against Hamelin or the nation of Canada, but Ohno's disqualification was a bunch of crap, there was no push, I've seen much rougher contact both on TV and in person not be called, and that was, by a Canadian referee in Canada to the benefit of a Canadian skater?? No way. Why in the hell is the chief referee from the host nation/one of the lead competitors in the sport int he first place?

Anyway, good job to him for saving the US relay team, I'll be very sad to see him go if this is the end of his career. I'm still hoping that being denied gold in the 1,000 throughout his Olympic career will convince him to come back though.
 
Oh and actually, talk about a double standard, Hamelin made just as much if not more contact with the South Korean who also went down... the ref didn't even review Hamelin's incident.
 
powerhour24 said:
Nothing against Hamelin or the nation of Canada, but Ohno's disqualification was a bunch of crap, there was no push, I've seen much rougher contact both on TV and in person not be called, and that was, by a Canadian referee in Canada to the benefit of a Canadian skater?? No way. Why in the hell is the chief referee from the host nation/one of the lead competitors in the sport int he first place?
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Ohno was nowhere near Hamelin, you must be talking about Tremblay (the Canadian who went down after Ohno put his hand on his hip).

As for your unsubstantiated allegations, the Australian ref was supposed to be there, but since he currently has threats against his life for the Korean relay DQ, he was replaced for security reasons. Maybe the Koreans orchestrated this whole thing by issuing death threats so that the Canadian alternate ref could screw over Ohno. Seems totally plausible.
 
powerhour24 said:
Oh and actually, talk about a double standard, Hamelin made just as much if not more contact with the South Korean who also went down... the ref didn't even review Hamelin's incident.
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Are you kidding me? watch the slow motion replay again. The South Korean clearly loses an edge and goes down on his own. If anything, hes the one who made contact with Hamelin
 
powerhour24 said:
Nothing against Hamelin or the nation of Canada, but Ohno's disqualification was a bunch of crap, there was no push, I've seen much rougher contact both on TV and in person not be called
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I have my own opinion on what happened at the 500m race, and you kinda have to know what happened to Apolo at the 1000m race last Saturday. If you watch the replay for the 1000m final race, a Canadian skater, Francois Hamelin, put a hand on Apolo's hip that caused Apolo to slip and lose his speed. He was still able to stay on his feet, and sprinted in the final lap to be able to get the bronze medal. Francois Hamelin ended up 5th in that race. No DQ call was made, because Apolo didn't fall, and he finished the race in a better position than Francois. But Apolo (and many people) believe that if Francois hadn't put a hand on his hip, he wouldn't have lost speed, and would have finished first or second. But there's no do-over of the race either...

Apolo is such a smart skater. If you watch the replay of the 500m race, Apolo had a late start. I think he had to have a lightning-quick start, just sprinting towards the front before that first turn of the lap. Well, he didn't. For the 500m race, a late start is a fatal mistake, there's not much chance to catch up because every athlete on the ice is giving their 110% for that 40 seconds until the finish line.

So with time running out, I think Apolo's strategy was to emulate what Francois Hamelin had done to him in the 1000m finals. He put a hand on Tremblay's hip, just enough where he thought it would throw Tremblay off-guard and lose his speed a little so Apolo can make a pass. You can clearly see it's a gratuitous move, it wasn't like he was off-balance and trying to regain footing by putting his hand on Tremblay's hip. But Apolo miscalculated that he thought Tremblay is as strong as he is and be able to stay on his feet. No, Tremblay came crashing down with just that gentle touch. Whether that was part of Tremblay's strategy or he really just wasn't as strong as Apolo in balancing himself, I don't really know. Apolo looked like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar when Tremblay went down. He knew it didn't look good for him...

Since Tremblay was in a position for a medal before he came crashing down, and Apolo ended up finishing better than Tremblay, and there was CONTACT (regardless of how harmless it was), the judges had to DQ him.

You can't blame Apolo for trying... to me all of these just showed me how smart of a skater he is. Sometimes strategies work, sometimes they don't... he shook hands with Tremblay afterwards, even after he found out he was disqualified. Isn't sports all about strategy?

I just think it's amusing to know that if Tremblay hadn't gone down, Apolo would have gotten the bronze because Sung Si-Bak fell in the end... Or if Si-Bak managed to pull Charles Hamelin down, there would have been a do-over of the race, because they'd have to repeat the race if there's only one skater left standing.

If you watch Apolo's other races, during qualifications or semis, you'll see that his passes are mostly clean. No contact. In the few times that he knew he's made contact with another skater, he eased off and didn't try to finish before that skater. He knew he'd rather finish second than get disqualified for the race.
 
powerhour24 said:
Oh and actually, talk about a double standard, Hamelin made just as much if not more contact with the South Korean who also went down... the ref didn't even review Hamelin's incident.
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This type of comment stikes me as fear-of-Canada as a Winter Olympic power. No longer are we "in our place" as the little nation (with the cool outfits) who get 4 medals per games (rarely gold), while the US and European superpowers dominate. Reality is, that Canada is now a nation among the elite, and hence taking medals away from the usual suspects- and they don't like it. Ohno appeared to me to be a class act, who was greatly enjoying his olympic experience, until he takes the opportunity on US National TV to blast the local organizers, and basically accuse Canada of cheating (a nation of conspiracy theorists rejoice).
His comments to me are "exhibit A' of Sour Grapes.
 
Bummer. I've read mention of this in two different articles about Women's Hockey now; the IOC is considering dropping Women's Hockey from the Winter Games for lack of international competition. Looks like a similar decision to dropping Softball from the Summer Games.

I wonder how ticket sales factor into a decision like that?
 
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