A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

POWERFUL WOMEN. SHORT PROGRAM: Gretchen takes some time away from one of the better law schools in Connecticut to offer these thoughts:

Tugba Karademir looks just like Jamie Silverstein of ice dancing fame. She’s from Turkey, here they apparently have only two ice rinks in the entire country. Her family moved to Canada to help her skating career. Skating is not a cheap sport, and even though the commentators said that her family was well off in Turkey, I’m sure it was a struggle for her to skate in Canada. It’s a heart-warming story, but I also wonder what it means for a family to move solely for their child. That has to seriously throw off the balance of power in the family structure.

And now, Kimmie Meissner! She’s a jumping bean, but she’s been working on her artistry. Kimmie’s spiral sequence is slow and not particularly straight; she’s got some work to do on her body positions and her lines. Also, her dress bugs me; the illusion fabric on the bodice is a different color than her tights, so she looks kind of lopsided. She nailed all of her jumps and her spins looked great—well done. She’s in first and her technical scores are enormous. Kimmie’s technical score was around 35 and her Program Component Scores were around 25. Tracy Wilson walked us through the scoring for her program; Kimmie got a 9.86 on her triple-triple pass.

The ladies’ singles skaters are required to wear tights on the ice; no bare legs allowed. Sasha Cohen says on her website that “at Salt Lake City I lost my tights going through all the security checkpoints and had to borrow some at the last minute.” Apparently, she borrowed them from Fumie Suguri, a Japanese skater.

Susanna Poykio of Finland opens with a triple double combination. It’s definitely not as high as Kimmie’s combination, but she fully rotates and lands it. She leans out a bit from her triple flip on the landing. Susanna’s spiral sequence is a little shaky to me. Oh, and now we’re seeing our first full-fledged Biellman of the night.

For those of you who are just tuning in to women’s skating for the first time, a Biellman position is when a skater reaches over her head and pulls her leg up behind her. They’re beautiful, and the new point system gives you lots of points for this position (as well as for any position where a skater catches her skate in her hand). However, unlike other elements (particularly jumping passes) that are restricted to a certain maximum number per program, the code system does not limit the number of Biellmans or catch-foots that you can do. As a result, we’ll see skaters do lots and lots of these positions. You’ll get thoroughly sick of them by the end of the night (and so will Dick Button!)

I mentioned in my comments on the men’s skating that Irina Slutskaya, like Plushy, was notorious for code-whoring—a nasty term for a skater who has learned to game the system. The most egregious example, in my view, is Irina’s use of the Biellman position. At the Europeans, it seemed like she spent half of her program with her foot over her head.

If I have to hear Dick Button say that another skater is “nothing special, but very pleasant to watch” one more time, I might need to throw something at my television.

Joannie Rochette is a darling Canadian figure skater, but I question the wisdom of skating a short program to the orchestral version of Like A Prayer. It somehow seems like a karaoke score, rather than a figure skating program. And her choreography is a little trite; she spends chunks of the programs with her hands folded in prayer position. Joannie’s spiral sequence is much cleaner than the other girls. You can tell by looking at the skate that’s on the ice; it’s tempting to just scope out the extension on the free leg, but you have to look at the quality of the skate and the leg that’s anchoring the position.

One of my pet peeves about the new code of points is that changes those lovely long spirals into these rapid-fire changing spirals. Skaters have to hold each spiral position for three seconds to get the points. One of the positions that scores highly is a spiral with the free leg lifted in front of the body. I think it’s a hideous position; it’s all crotch and isn’t at all elegant. It’s a shame that the spiral sequences have to get tainted with some of these ridiculous positions to load up
on points.

One interesting aspect about the scoring is that the system calls a base value for each element and then judges either give extra points or subtract points for grades of execution. On the computer screens that they show us, it looks like the judges can add or subtract one, two, or three points. However, those big numbers aren’t actually points; they’re grades of execution. So for example, Kimmie had a negative grade of execution on her big triple-triple combo, but it didn’t even cost her one point; she lost a mere .14 points.

* * *
Elena Sokolova is the Russian national champion, a victory won, much like Sasha Cohen’s, in the absence of the dominant skater (Slutskaya, in Russia, was out with the flu; Kwan was out with a groin injury in the US.) She’s using beautiful music and is a gifted skater (she was second at the European Championships) but this evening is not working for her; she fell out of her jump combination and popped her second jump. Oh, there’s that hideous forward leg lift spiral again. Poor Elena; I think she was so thrown by her first fall that the rest of the program just fell apart.

Elene Gedevanishvili is Georgian and did a great job at the European Championships and was a crowd favorite. She’s a fiery skater and her jumps tonight were high and fierce, even though it looked slightly tilted in the air. She did a great triple triple combination, though I don’t think the technical difficulty was quite as high as it was on Kimmie Meissner’s combination. It’s notoriously difficult to tell how fast the skaters are moving on television, but she looks to me like she’s skating really fast. She’s fun to watch and has all the technical elements, I think, but she really could use some help with musical choice and choreography; the program doesn’t really sing and her footwork, which is fun, never really takes off.

Miki Ando, the quad-lander. The Japanese women are excellent; they have a very strong program. But their strongest lady isn’t even at these Olympics; Mao Asada, the only woman to beat Irina Slutskaya this year and the winner of the Grand Prix Final, was too young by a few months to qualify for Torino. The Japanese federation petitioned for her to attend, but they were denied. Dick Button was aghast at the quality of Miki's spiral, and it was clearly the worst so far; her edges were shaky, her legs were bent at unattractive angles, her back was contorted to get more lift, and she ran into the boards! Not a good showing.

Emily Hughes. I was firmly in the Michelle Kwan camp; I think Michelle was right to petition, I think she was right to go to Torino, and I think she was right to pull out. But having said all of that, I’m rooting for Emily. She is ferocious in this program; both here and at the US Nationals, she really attacks every element. She hits the ice with so much force. And when she jumps, she holds on to those landings, even if her body seems determined to crash. It’s not entirely elegant—she doesn’t make it look easy—but it’s exciting. Emily’s spiral moving into a Biellman is lovely; the rest of the sequence is less so, but it’s great to see a strong spiral from someone who isn’t as preternaturally flexible as Sasha Cohen. Emily does the real world version of a beautiful spiral. And I just loved her final spin; she manages to move through the different positions to rack up points without losing speed or passion. It was really fun to see Sarah Hughes screaming her head off for her sister while Emily took her bows.

Sarah Meier is wearing yellow, which looks surprisingly good on her. Sarah travels a little on her spins; Scott Hamilton says that the Swiss are known for their spins, but I thought her first was decidedly off tonight. I like this program and she’s an appealing skater, but she lost so much momentum at the end of the program that it fizzled out a little.

Irina Slutskaya, the dominant gold medal favorite. She’s obviously a gifted skater and she has an amazing backstory. I really like her choice to do a bodysuit instead of a skating dress; it makes her stand out from the crowd. (But I could do without the star sequins glittering across her rear end.) Irina is 27, which is older than Michelle; it always made me irritated when commentators said that Michelle was too old to skate while simultaneously praising the strength of Irina’s skating. The music is, intriguingly, the same music that Michelle Kwan had planned to use in her short program; I would have loved to have seen Michelle’s take on this music. I bet Michelle would have made it artistic, as opposed to Irina, who is literally just flying through this program, moving from element to element, with virtually no transitions. Irina skates faster than any other woman on the ice and just muscles through her program. The program is exciting, but not inspiring.

I counted four Biellman positions. Arghh.

Irina is incredibly assertive about her strengths; she famously thought that she, not Sarah Hughes, should have taken gold in Salt Lake City and was reportedly furious when she fell to the silver medal position at the Grand Prix Final this year.

Irina’s scores are interesting; her technical scores are only a few points higher than Kimmie’s. This tells me that the door is wide open tonight—and also that Kimmie Meissner could be a huge threat over the next few years.

Silvia Fontana is beautiful and is married to former US Pairs Skater John Zimmerman. Check out their wedding photos.

She, like the Italian ice-dancers, came back from retirement to skate in Italy. Silvia has been a staple of the ice shows and professional skating world, and I think her showmanship reflects that experience. The jumps, however, also reflect her professional experience. Silvia is fun to watch because she looks like a woman, not a girl, and sells her program with maturity and a little bit of sex appeal.

Shizuka Arakawa. I don’t worry about Shuzuka when she skates. For Emily, I hold my breath; for Silvia, I sigh. But for Shuzuka, I’m totally confident. She is stoic. She is one of the taller skaters, at 5’6, and her line is lovely. Shizuka, in her bio on NBC, says that while she has learned to do a Biellman spin, it is painful.

Sasha Cohen’s costume is great. It looks terrible off the ice, but when she’s moving, the costume works beautifully and the effect is of a scarf tied around her waist. Sasha has talked about how she, for years, relied on her innate talent to get her through competitions. This year, Sasha has practiced and conditioned and is reportedly in the best physical shape of her life, even though she had a bad flu at the US Nationals and still looks thin.

Robin Wagner: “Athletes have to trust coaches.” It’s widely rumored that there was some bad blood between Robin Wagner and Sasha Cohen from Sasha’s brief tenure under Robin’s coaching. Based on that quote, I think there must be something to that.

Fumie Suguri’s costume is, I think, designed to show off her lovely spirals. The wide neckline emphasizes her long clean lines and makes her look open to the audience. {Michelle Kwan had this mastered. I miss Michelle.} Fumie is skating to a flamenco rhythm, much like Belbin and Agosto did last night. The choreography is terrific for Fumie; this is one of the few short programs I’ve seen tonight that really feels like a story has been told. Her final spin slowed down quite a bit, but overall, I think this was a great program and she did a beautiful job.

Carolina Kostner, ex-girlfriend of Stephane Lambiel (the men’s silver medalist) and the Italian flag-bearer. As a former world bronze medalist, she bears all of the Italian figure skating medal hopes. She’s famous for cracking under pressure. I hope that, for her country, she holds it together tonight. She’s skating to the Mission soundtrack, which means that this music has been used by at least one skater in every discipline (and I totally understand why; it’s gorgeous, passionate music). And oh, she just fell on her first jump. It’s inspiring to hear the Italians applaud to support her, but it’s very disappointing for Carolina. Carolina is a great skater, but she’s not performing up to her potential.

Back to Sasha Cohen, to close out the ladies’ short. Sasha really lucked out in the draw; the last slot is historically the best, and even under the new system, I think it will help Sasha’s program component scores to be skating at the end.

Sasha is skating to Russian folk music, which uses human voices (as an instrument, though, not singing lyrics.) Sasha is obviously more flexible than any of the other competitors; it almost seems unfair to compare them, because she’s just clearly blessed by the skate gods. She doesn’t have the same warmth or heart as some of the other skaters (or her arch-nemesis of days of yore, Michelle Kwan) but she’s exquisite to watch.

I love this program; it’s brilliantly choreographed and Sasha is really selling this, from her footwork to her music to her costume. It allows Sasha to really showcase what she does best and helps her bring the audience into the performance. She did a spectacular job tonight and you can see it on her face.

We’ll still have to see if she can string together two programs in a row, but if tonight was any indication, this may be her year.

Wow, Sasha’s in first place! I think she really deserves it. So we’ve got Sasha, Irina, and Shizuka battling it out for the podium, with Kimmie Meissner in fifth and Emily Hughes, really shockingly, in seventh. I might have reversed the standings of Arakawa and Suguri, and I think that Kimmie Meissner’s program component scores may have been a bit high—but overall, this was a really good night for both Japan and the US, and it will be very interesting to see how Irina handles being in second (albeit by .03 points) going into the long.