Winter Olympics

[genegal43]

Well, most excellently done! I would have never expected the GER team to reach the finals....42 long years since Insbruck Olympics...good on them.

WOAH!  The sports world has truly turned upside down...

[pixiecat]

I miss the old scoring system in figure skating. The era of the perfect 6.0

Me too. 

I also don't like the modern music with words in the skating programs.  To me, that type of music should be for exhibition only.  I'm old school like that, I guess.

 

I love this thread! It brings back so many memories of beautiful skating routines.

This scoring system is the best one that they’ve had, even with its faults. I am old enough to remember when skaters had to do compulsory “figures” for the judges prior to their routines. So this meant that they could clunk around the rink and fall multiple times and still win if they had high compulsory marks, because the figures made up the majority of the final score.

Yeah, I wasn't alive during the Trixie Schuba/Janet Lynn era, but I've watched that footage and it's heartbreaking for Janet Lynn.  I totally get that being able to do figures was important, and that's it's called FIGURE skating, but still. Figures were weighted far too heavily.

[Duchess of Verona]

Figures still show up, to some degree in the testing USFSA does. One has to pass whatever level 'moves in the field' wich are set patterns. You cannot take your free skate test  to move up a level until you have already passed that level moves in the field test.

[anastasia beaverhausen]

Figures still show up, to some degree in the testing USFSA does. One has to pass whatever level 'moves in the field' wich are set patterns. You cannot take your free skate test  to move up a level until you have already passed that level moves in the field test.

True DoV. But at least at the international level we are not subjected to their impact. I love to see a light and beautifully executed skate and remember being absolutely stumped as a young girl when Janet Lynn was denied a gold medal in Sapporo. And even though she won the free skate portion, she ended up with bronze due to a 4th place finish in compulsories. 

Here is Janet’s performance, and I think she’s a joy to watch:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VLuK6MTQw0A

[Duchess of Verona]

Janet Lynn's coach, the immortal Slavka Kohout Button still teaches locally. She is a lovely person, as is her former husband Dick Button. He has the most DIVINE garden, which he graciously opens once a year for the Garden Conservancy. He is still sharp as a tack. When I first met him,  figure skating DD was then about 6. I asked if I might take a picture of them together. He motioned me over and whispered in my ear "Run for your life!". I replied that I had long ago passed that exit on life's highway....

10 years later, here we still are!

[anastasia beaverhausen]

Janet Lynn's coach, the immortal Slavka Kohout Button still teaches locally. She is a lovely person, as is her former husband Dick Button. He has the most DIVINE garden, which he graciously opens once a year for the Garden Conservancy. He is still sharp as a tack. When I first met him,  figure skating DD was then about 6. I asked if I might take a picture of them together. He motioned me over and whispered in my ear "Run for your life!". I replied that I had long ago passed that exit on life's highway....

10 years later, here we still are!

That’s a great story! 

Dick Button was such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable commentator. I learned a lot from him.

[Duchess of Verona]

As a post script to the games, Eteri Tutberidze, coach of Zagitova and Medvedeva, had a girl, Alexandra Trusova, at JUNIOR worlds who landed 2 clean quads (toe and sal), the first lady ever to land one never mind two. The goal posts just moved again!