Notes about Figure-skating

Notes about Figure skating Competitions of the Winter Olympics in 2010

I was very apprehensive about over-scores in recent figure skating competitions, and the strong political tendency in this area. Sometimes judgement used to be not recognizable at all, even disgusting. This time, however, the results were roughly understandable, at least within podium skaters, though there’s a little unreasonableness in some cases. Judgement and results at most competitions--Pairs, Ice-dancing, and Men’s/Ladies’ Singles, were plausible/acceptable, working good.

It’s marvellous that my anticipation/expectation was realised. I’m glad that Shen Xue & Zhao Hongbo at Pair skating, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir at Ice-dancing, our Yu-Na at Ladies’ single separately won their gold medal as I wished. Evan Lysacek’s victory at Men’s single, though I’ve liked the skater for years, was a little bit surprise, but he just deserved to be the champ. He showed clean and impressive performance, adding some charismatic touch with his tallness. I think all the champions at figure skating competitions of 2010 Olympics were absolutely right persons.

My other favourite pair Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy earned the bronze medal, but it was uncontroversial. While they made mistakes, Pang Qing & Tong Jian performed clean and nice free programme. Above all, Ice-dancing medallists all showed fantastic performances. The original dance of Charlie White & Meryl Davis were so lovely, and they showed their best. Scott & Tessa were a little more fascinating. They always make spectators happy. What a sweet couple they are! Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin were also captivating, but their performance needed something more to win the gold or silver medal, though I’ve adored this veteran Ice-dancing couple for a long time.

At Men’s single, frankly speaking, I wanted Stephane Lambiel, the absolutely artistic skater, to stand the top, for I’ve loved his skating for years. Though he made some mistakes, he gave us the most beautiful performance. Takahashi Daisuke fell down at quadruple jump, but played good. My heart inclined to Stephane, however. During Stephane’s two seasons’ retirement my most favourite male skater has been Tomas Verner, but to my sorry, he did not exert his own genius at all. Tomas and Jeremy Abbott collapsed too early at both short and long programmes. If Tomas, Jeremy, and Stephane would play their full capacity clean and perfectly, they might be on the podium. I think their programmes were better than others’.

Figure skating is a sport, but it is not a sport only, that is, it is an artistic sport, not a jump competition. In this sense, Zhenya’s performance lacked choreographic virtue and dynamic steps and has no flowing transition. Even most of his jumps are shaky. Evgeni Plushenko was one of my favourites, and he was excellent in Torino, but not this time. The sad thing is that I was disappointed at Zhenya, not with not-previous-like performance, but with his reaction after the competition. The attitude he showed us was not pride but arrogance. He must have celebrated the new champ without complaining. In fact, he did not skated well enough to deserve to complain about the result. I was sorry that he might be not the very person I thought I knew. I think Zhenya was not only defeated by Evan in the competition, but also fell inferior to Stephane in personality.

Ladies’ single competitions were much better than Men’s. What could we need more? Most of the potentialities showed their best, and Joanne Rochette made emotional/tearful moment because of her deceased mother who died of heart attack two days ago before the short programme. Our Yu-Na was absolutely, breathlessly, enchantingly and dominatingly superb. How can I express the phenomenal performances of Yu-Na? Nobody could/can do it better. She’ll be a legend. I am glad that Yu-Na could be a happy skater. Long live the Queen!

Brit...