A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

WHO DOESN'T LIKE SAYING THE NAME 'DICK BUTTON'? More thoughts from Gretchen on last night's competition:

The men's free skate was everything Olympic figure skating should be -- extraordinary athleticism combined with grace, musicality, and even a little humor. Evan Lysacek's win was really a triumph for the new Code of Points. It seems like skaters are finally figuring out how to design programs that showcase not only jumps, but also the unsung elements of figure skating -- transitions, footwork, spins, and the quality of the skating. Evan's program was brilliantly designed to gather points at every moment. By contrast, Plushenko's program was basically a bunch of jumps, interspersed with the occasional hip swivel, strut, or blown kiss. It brought to mind his exhibition programs -- all preening, no actual skating. It was like he was doing Russian supper club choreography. Don't get me wrong -- I think he's a charismatic skater and his jumps are incredible -- but there's no question in my mind that Lysacek was the superior skater.

I loved Nobunari Oda's Charlie Chaplin tribute, and he gets major props for moving past the broken shoelace so quickly. (In 1994, Tonya Harding broke a shoelace before the long program and totally fell apart. Stephane Lambiel's closing spin, the highest-scoring spin of the night, moved so fast that I thought he might launch himself off the ice. Daisuke Takahashi was so good -- and if he had just been able to land that quad, he very well might have come away with the silver instead of the bronze. But my favorite program of the night was Johnny Weir's. He had the audience with him from the very beginning, and delivered the artistic performance of the evening. I thought he was ridiculously underscored on program components (including interpretation and choreography, where there's no way he should have been under Stephane Lambiel) but regardless of the scoring, he was really a star out there.

One final note: what is the future of the quad? As Adam pointed out and as Evan Lysacek demonstrated, the quad often isn't worth the risk. Only two skaters (Plushenko and Kazuka) delivered a clean quad last night. Four years ago, I thought that a quad would have been required for men's skating by now -- but then again, back in 1988, when Midori Ito was the first woman to land a clean triple axel in competition, I would have predicted that triple axels would have been de rigeur for women. Clearly, I was wrong both times. I wonder if we're just hitting the limit of the sport -- and if future developments in jumping will have to come from better skating technology, rather than from pushing the limit of the human body.

Video of all performances is here.